I was about to burn a dvd-r disk, so I put it in my pc. the system, recognizing a new disk, and me what I wanted to do with it. I saw the option for file explorer so I thought that it might have a system burner I didnt know about, so I clicked it. then it asked me if I wanted to format it, and I hit yes. then once it finished formatting it it disappeared and I just closed file explorer becuz I could only burn files to the disk. then when I went into my disk burning software and selected the iso file and hit burn, it said that it needed an empty disk (which I knew it was before cuz I got it out of a new case). when I went into file explorer, sure enough, my disk had used space, so I opened it and nothing was on it. I was confused so I formatted it again, thinking something went wrong. after the format, I looked at the disk and it had even MORE used space. to experiment, I did it a few more times, and each time, more space was eaten up. does anyone know what happened?? im really confused. thanks
You don't have to format DVR- R (or +R) period! The only reason you have to format DVD+RW (or -RW) is for video recording mode. That can be done two ways, either to make a DVD_VIDEO for standard DVD players. OR, to make a DVD+VR ("Video recording mode"), which offers the possibility of post recording editing.
As far as the "coaster" nonsense goes, this is your fault, not the burners, plain & simple.
You can "copy and paste" standard files,. data, images, ,jpg, RAW, and a number of computer video suffix files, directly onto a DVD-R disc. (.MOV, .WMV, MP4, and whatnot), then play them directly from the DVD drive, or copy and paste them back to another computer and play them from there.
If you're running Windows 7, (or later ?), you can also burn .ISO files with a right click in Explorer. Just chuck a blank disc in the drive, CLICK AWAY THE AUTO-PLAY GARBAGE, then right click on the .ISO file and select "burn image with Windows".
DVD drives are down to about $15.00 on sale. I know it's cool think you don't need one, but it's also cool to be able to able to burn media for other home entertainment devices, which aren't connected to a computer.
(I used all caps on the file formats for emphasis).