DVD Drive

DVD drive is the term used colloquially to denote DVD reader/recorder units, which are installed in personal computers. DVD players cannot write data onto a blank DVD recordable of any format but can play both DVD Audio and DVD Video discs as well as pre-written DVD recordable media. DVD recorders on the other hand can be used to create DVD discs by using DVD authoring software. These can be data DVD, audio DVD, Video DVD, high-definition video DVD, etc. DVD recorders operate on a 650 nm red laser for reading data from and writing data onto DVDs recordable media. The laser used for reading data is usually less than 5 mW, however the laser used to write data is relatively more stronger.

Because of the high data storage capacity of DVDs, DVD recorders are increasingly being sought after as a viable and cost-effective data backup solution. Most DVD drives, DVD players as well as DVD recorders have the capacity to read CD-R and CD-RW media. Computer-based DVD recorders can also write data onto them. DVD drives may be internal or external. Up until the recent past, internal DVD drives were being designed with parallel ATA interface; however, the parallel interface is increasingly giving way to the serial ATA interface. External DVD drives in most cases operate over a USB 2.0 or Firewire (IEEE 1394) connectivity interface.