They most certainly do list the +/- designation. I'm looking at products to buy right now (thus the thread) and they have those designations printed right on the packaging.
 
Not trying to be argumentative. I appreciate the effort but I have been looking at any resource I can find on this.
 
Thanks though. Cheers.
 
Edit: And really you are probably right that it simply doesn't matter for my needs. Otherwise I'd imagine there would be far more details out there. However the lack of a definitive "you don't need to worry about it unless you are burning discs for standalone units" is weird and making me go all shizwizzle.
 
Or was... because it'll all work out one way or another. Just don't want to make multiple trips or orders. It's a pain and costs more money.

Let's just say that in the Past or even nowadays (I do not really know without looking it up) you had a dedicated DVD player (that also would record) as in a stereo (playing a movie) type setup. Then those different DVDs probably make a difference, but if a cheap DVD-drive on a computer, then what I have seen in stores do not even list the + or - on the DVD box anymore, and those usually are just the DVD-R or DVD-RW that I use. Maybe some places have the designation because of the way things use to be in that Wikipedia link, but usually on a computer the standard stuff will always work. Just look at your computers and see if the DVD drive handles both + and -. My computer does not even list that for the DVD anymore, nor did my old one with my XP computer.
 

In some of those articles you'll see that there is a specific symbol used for burners that are considered + and - as shown in the following quote from WIKI...
 
"Hybrid drives that can handle both, often labeled 'DVD±RW', are very popular since there is not a single standard for recordable DVDs."
 
I've seen that on internal burners (and really thought that's what I bought when I built my DAW but I guess not).
 
Again it probably doesn't matter because I have also read that many newer burners do and can handle both but I figured they would show that symbol if they did.
 
As a side note it does seem to be that when searching for discs far more retail listings are of the - variety and they are usual at the top of the product list pages. There also seem to be many indications that the - format is the more common/universally compatible one so as I said I'm going to buy those and see if they work in the + drive on the DAW. If they work I'll be sure to update the thread. I might go out next week to do all this.
 
I also need to by a new hard drive for the DAW (as a backup/extra storage) and some USB drives. Just getting the research out of the way beforehand because it seriously is a huge PITA for me to get out to stores these days and I don't want to make any f*ckups.
 
Cheers.
 

 
Well, after looking at Amazon or someplace that you can buy them, maybe that is DVD-R on the box because they had DVD+R on the box also. At the store I buy them, I just took it as a dash like oh, just a DVD R box.
I guess there can be difference then.
I recant.
I must buy DVD-R boxes. Never see the other ones in the stores I buy from locally.
 
And with the burning program in Windows I doubt it would make a difference, but then I guess I have used the DVD- type DVDs.
 
It does not make a difference only with the DVD unit in the computer which disk or disks you can use.
If you get up Windows Help and type DVD- or DVD+ in the search item, then a whole lotta pages come up that covers everything.