As the video technology develops in the highest speed ever, DVD nowadays have different types and formats. If you have a DVD disc at hand, it could be DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, or DVD+R SL/DL, and among them, DVD RW is the most popular and recommendable format. The main differences among the above DVD formats lie in the data capacity and the possibilities to be erased or rewritten, but there are more to it. So today we will talk about what DVD RW disc and DVD RW drive is, and what you can do with them.

Part 1: About DVD-RW Disc and DVD-RW Drive

About DVD RW Disc

First thing first. What is DVD-RW disc? Actually, as a kind of popular DVD formats, DVD-RW is short for DVD-Rewritable which is similar to CD-CR or DVD+RW. The main difference between a DVD-RW disc and a DVD-R not only lies in the data capacity, but also the possibility to be erased or rewritten. Specifically, a DVD-RW disc can be erased and recorded over many times without damaging the disc. But with other DVD formats like DVD-R, you can only watch what’s on the disc, and not erase the content and author new content into it.

About DVD RW Drive

Now that we know what DVD RW disc is, the DVD RW drive should be easy to be figured out. Different optical drives have different capabilities. The DVD-RW drive can accept and burn DVD discs with CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW. Different from other optical drives, DVD-RW drive is not only able to burn information to the disc, but also be able to erase the disc. Commonly, you can see two main variations of a DVD-RW drives including DVD-RW and DVD+RW, and both of them has the capability to read, write and erase content on a DVD-RW disc. However, there are differences between the DVD+RW and DVD-RW. DVD+RW can be written faster and supports dragging and dropping files. Also, if you have a DVD-RW drive, you can't write onto a DVD+RW disc and vice versa. Some drives are marked with ±, which means they can write in both formats.

Part 2: What Can I Do with DVD-RW

Mount ISO files as virtual drives

Sometimes, you must have the need to back up some games, videos, or pictures to ISO which will save more space on your computer. Then you can use DVD rewritable disc to help you mount an ISO image as if it were a real disc in the drive. Then you can select a mounting tool to easily mount the desired content to DVD RW disc.

Burn your favorite movies to a DVD RW disc

If you are a movie lover, you must have downloaded many movies on your computer. On one hand, the large collection of movies will occupy too much space on your computer. One the other hand, these movies on the computer are not convenient to share with others. In such cases, then you can use a DVD RW disc to store the movies and burn them onto a disc that can be shared to your friends. Next time, if you would like to refresh the movie database, you can erase the previous movies on your DVD RW disc and burn the new one to it again.

Store the Wikipedia data on a DVD RW disc

Similar to the above part, you can also use the blank RW discs to store the rich Wikipedia data. Just as you know, the data of all items of Wikipedia may be very large. Then you can collect these items and gather in a sorted way and finally burned them in the blank RE discs for the future reference.

Rip movies from the disc to digital

If you have a DVD movie collection and you want to make a digital copy of it, you can use some DVD ripping tool or DVD copy tool to copy DVD to PC. By doing this, you can access your DVD movie in an easier way and don’t have to worry about losing or damaging the original disc.

Backup personal data on a DVD RW disc

Because DVD RW disc is rewriteable, you can erase what’s originally on the disc and write your own data or information to the disc to make a backup for them. Although there are various ways like cloud storage and a USB stick to backup data, using a DVD RW disc to save data backups is still one of the most reliable methods.

Part 3: How to Erase DVD with DVD-RW

Since the biggest advantage of a DVD-RW is being able to get rewritten, then you have to know how to erase a DVD RW because it’s usually the first step to rewrite a disc. Fortunately, erase a DVD RW disc is not as hard as it sounds. Windows even has the DVD erasing function built in the system. Only by doing some simple clicks, you can get your DVD RW erased and make it ready to be rewritten. The following guide shows you how to erase a DVD RW disc in the easiest way.

Step 1. Insert your DVD RW disc into the DVD RW drive.

Step 2. Go to “My Computer”, and find the DVD RW drive with the disc inserted.

Step 3. Right click on the DVD-RW drive. In the newly revealed menu, find the “Erase this disc” option and click on it. Then there should be a new window popped up, guiding you through the entire DVD erasing process. Just follow the guide and your DVD disc should be erased completely.

Part 4:Best DVD Burning Software for DVD-RW

One of the main features of DVD RW discs is that they can be burned with new content. If you have a movie or a video clip that you’d like to watch in form of DVD, you can use a DVD burning application to burn it to a DVD and then easily admire it with a DVD player. Before authoring a DVD rewritable disc, you need to prepare a powerful DVD authoring application. If you don’t already have one, then I’d like to recommend Leawo DVD Creator for you to try. Leawo DVD Creater can burn DVD from more than 180+ formats of videos and photos with 6X faster speed, and support tons of video formats perfectly.

Key features of Leawo DVD Creator:
☉ Burning videos in 180+ formats to a DVD disc.
☉ Create DVD-5, DVD-9 disc, folder or ISO image without quality loss.
☉ 1-click operation to create photo slideshows and burn to DVD.
☉ Easily editable effects, 2D to 3D conversion support.
☉ Built-in menu templates and edit disc menu with personal preferences.

Part 5: How to Enjoy DVD Playback with DVD-RW Conclusion

The most common way to play a DVD RW disc is using a DVD player. However, if you have a DVD RW drive on your computer, playing the movie on PC is also a great idea. But apart from the drive, you also need a nice DVD player application to play the DVD successfully. In order to have the best DVD movie quality retained, it’s recommended that you use a high quality DVD player application like Leawo Blu-ray Player.

Leawo Blu-ray Player has very powerful media playback ability, allowing the player to play not only DVD and Blu-ray materials, but also 180+ media formats in the original quality without any additional codec support. What’s more, when you are playing a DVD or Blu-ray material, you don’t need to worry about the disc region or encryption because Leawo Blu-ray Player has the ability to play all kinds of discs, ISO files or folders regardless of the region code and encryption method. With other practical features like Virtual remote controller, Useful power manager, Custom skin / language / background, Snap screenshots and the Blu-ray to MKV conversion function in the premium version, Leawo Blu-ray Player is no doubt the best DVD RW player application you can get for free.

Conclusion

DVD RW makes our DVD entertaining activities easier by giving users the option to erase and rewrite the DVD content freely. With a DVD RW disc and a DVD RW drive, we can easily put anything we want to the disc and have great accessibility to it. One thing you have to remember is that there are differences between the DVD+RW and DVD-RW. You have to make sure that you have the corresponding drive for the specific kind of disc unless the DVD drive of yours is a DVD±RW drive.

In today’s article, we did not only introduce what DVD RW disc and DVD RW drive are but also showed you how to erase a DVD disc in the easiest way. After erasing the disc, you can use a DVD burning application like Leawo DVD Creator to burn new movies to the disc. In order to have the best movie-watching experience on PC, you can try the completely free Leawo Blu-ray Player to play your DVD RW movies. I believe with the introductions provided today, you’ve already had a better understanding with the DVD RW discs and DVD RW drives.