DVD5 VS DVD9 – The Apparent Differences between DVD5 and DVD9

Q: I'm still having problems. I believe I followed the instructions and did succeed in copying a DVD Folder, and the VIDEO_TS folder was 7.5 GB. But when I tried to copy it to another blank DVD, I got the "too big for DVD" message.

Q: Okay, so I’m planning to buy some DVDs and there are two options. I could choose either DVD5 or DVD9. What is the difference between DVD9 and DVD5? Will my DVD burner be able to use them? It’s just a standard type burner.

Still now, many people are often confused about choosing DVD5 DVD9. Although they look the same from the surface, lots of differences exist among them. So what is DVD5 and DVD9? Now we make an overall comparison on them.

See also on: How to Burn DVD that Will Play in DVD Player l How to Burn a DVD on Windows 10 >>

A DVD5 is a single-sided single-layered DVD disc, while a DVD9 is a single-sided double-layered DVD disc.

If you do not know the disc type, you can insert your DVD disc into your computer’s DVD drive, click on the drive properties and see how large the disc is. And nowadays, most commercial DVDs are dual-layer. Henceforth, DVD-9 is widely used by commercial DVDs and encrypted with DVD region codes, Sony ARccOS, etc.

DVD5 can save data up to 4.7GB or and will hold about 133 minutes of MPEG-2 video, while DVD9 has a capacity of 8.5GB and will hold an MPEG-2 video around 241 minutes. Considering that the storage space of DVD9 is higher than DVD5, DVD9 can save more data than DVD5.

The video quality of DVD9 is much better than DVD5 since the video bitrate of DVD9 is in 9500~9800 kbps yet DVD5 video bitrate is lower. Why? Just as I mentioned above, the capacity and storage space of DVD9 is twice the size of DVD5 which enables DVD9 to contain high-quality DVD videos. Put simply, videos with higher bitrates renders better image quality but are larger in size. Remember, the video quality is determined by the bitrate, not resolution. By the way, DVD9 carries 6-channel audio tracks with high audio bitrate. This will bring better sound effect with no doubt.

In this case, you can even watch the DVD9 videos on the big screen, like 4K TV, with luxuriant sound and picture quality. Due to the limited memory space, DVD5 supports lower bitrate and the video quality would be relatively poor on the big screen.

DVD5 is supported by the DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW formats, while DVD9 is supported by the DVD+R and DVD-R formats.

The DVD-R and DVD+R are the write-once formats which indicate that once you’ve burned the data onto this sort of disc, the information will be frozen and you can’t rewrite the disc. But if add the “W” to that, you’ll find that the data on DVD-RW and DVD+RW can be erasable and rewritable up to a thousand times. And learn more specific information on DVD-R and DVD+R >>

DVD5 is reusable whereas DVD9 is not. Just as I said above, DVD5 is in the DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW format. This means that if you have written some data on DVD5 with the DVD+RW or DVD-RW format, you are able to reuse this disk. But once the data has been saved in DVD9, you can’t delete the data and rewrite the disk. Mostly, people would like to buy DVD5 rather than DVD9 for personal use.

And for those who have some DVD9 discs and want to copy the data for convenient playback on other devices, here are some free DVD rippers for your reference.

Another obvious difference of DVD5 DVD9 is the price tag. DVD5 is much cheaper than DVD9.

Since DVD5 comes earlier than DVD9, DVD5 gains a better popularity. However, DVD9 has taken away some DVD5 users since more and more movies and TV shows are adopting DVD9 for extra trailers, releted scenes, ads and more with a higher-quality picture. To get better DVD video quality, you can deal with DVD upscaling all by you.

Based on the above comparison, I believe you have understood the differences between DVD5 and DVD9. Now you can choose the right one disk based on your needs. One more thing, before you purchase the DVD5 DVD9 discs, you’d better have a check on the User Manual of your DVD burner and make sure it supports the chosen DVD type.