A DVD (digital video disc) can only be played by a DVD drive. Likewise a CD can only be read by a CD-ROM drive.

There are however drives today that combine the best of both worlds. Today combo drives will play both DVDs and CDs. They can also be configured to burn either DVDs or CDs or both.

CD-R
A compact disc that can only be written to once. A typical CD-R holds about 700mb of information. That’s equivalent to about 486 floppy disks (1.44mb)

CD-RW
A Compact disc that can be written to and than erased and written to again like a floppy 1.44mb disk. Again typical CD-RW media will hold 700mb of information.

CD Drive Speeds
When you examine a CDROM drive you may see a number like 52x32x52x. This number sequence represents the max recording speed at which drives can create CDs. The first number represents the max speed at which the drive creates a CD-R disc. The second number represents the max speed the drive can create a CD-RW disc. The last number represents the max speed at which the drive can read a CDROM disc.

Normal Speed Label
Normal Speed CDROMs generally refer to drives that can write from 8x-10x speeds.

High Speed Label
High Speed CDROMs generally refer to drives that can write from 10x-26x speeds.

Ultra Speed Label
Ultra Speed CDROMs generally refer to drives that can write from 26x and higher.

DVD-R
was the first DVD recording media released that was compatible with standalone DVD Players. It is a non-rewriteable media and is compatible with about 93% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. Drives labeled as such support both single side 4.37GB DVDs (called DVD-5) and double sided 8.75GB DVDs (called DVD-10).

DVD-RW
is a rewriteable media and is compatible with about 80% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. Drives labeled as such support both single side 4.37GB DVDs (called DVD-5) and double sided 8.75GB DVDs (called DVD-10).

DVD+R
is a non-rewritable media and is compatible with about 89% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. Drives labeled as such support both single side 4.37GB DVDs (called DVD-5) and double sided 8.75GB DVDs (called DVD-10).

DVD+RW
is a rewritable media and is compatible with about 79% of all DVD Players and most DVD-ROMs. Drives labeled as such support both single side 4.37GB DVDs (called DVD-5) and double sided 8.75GB DVDs (called DVD-10).

DVD-R DL
or sometimes called DVD-R9 is a Dual Layer writeable DVD-R media. Drives labeled as such support both Dual layered media that can hold 7.95GB (called DVD-9) and dual layered double sided media that can hold 15.9GB (called DVD-18).

DVD+R DL
or sometimes called DVD+R9 is a Dual Layer writeable DVD+R media. Drives labeled as such support both Dual layered media that can hold 7.95GB (called DVD-9) and Dual layered double sided media that can hold 15.9GB (called DVD-18).

The average DVD media can hold up to two hours of high quality video and audio.

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