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Compatibility
Many operating systems like Mac OS (Mac OS 8.6 up to Mac OS X), Linux and Microsoft Windows XP support DVD-RAM operation directly, while earlier versions of Windows require device drivers or the program InCD.
Windows XP Home and Professional can only write directly to FAT32-formatted DVD-RAM discs. For UDF-formatted discs, which are considered faster, compatible device drivers or software such as InCD or DLA are required. Windows Vista can natively access and write to both FAT32 and UDF-formatted DVD-RAM discs, however Windows Vista uses its own version of the UDF format giving compatibility problems. Vista also has issues with XP formatted FAT32 discs as Vista uses the CPRM features. Even though it is possible to use any file system one likes, only very few perform well on DVD-RAM. This is because some file systems frequently over-write data on the disc and the table of contents is contained at the start of the disc.
Mac OS up to 9.2 (Mac OS Classic) can read and write HFS-, HFS Plus-, FAT-, and UDF-formatted DVD-RAM discs directly. Mac OS X officially supports DVD-RAM formatting and writing operations.[1]
Many DVD standalone players and recorders do not support DVD-RAM. However, within "RAMPRG" (the DVD-RAM Promotion Group) there are a number of well-known manufacturers of standalone players, recorders, and camcorders that do support DVD-RAM. Panasonic, for instance, has a range of players and recorders which make full use of the advantages of DVD-RAM.
Some DVD players with hardware DVD-RAM capability are sold without DVD-RAM support. As a specific example, Dell uses the TS-L632D drive manufactured by TSST in some of its laptop computers without DVD-RAM capability. However it is possible, with some difficulty, to replace the firmware with a non-Dell version which supports DVD-RAM.[2]
The newest DVD-RAM Specification, DVD-RAM2 (also called RAM2), is not compatible with DVD drives that do not specifically support reading DVD-RAM2 discs.[3]
