The book type is a field of four bits at the start of every DVD (in the physical format information section of the control data block) that indicates what the physical format of the disc is. Many devices will use this "Book Type Field" to determine how the disc should be treated.
One common cause of compatibility problems is the failure of a device to recognize the book type of the disc, most likely because the device had been manufactured before that particular book type was defined; for example, most DVD playback devices made before mid-2004 cannot recognize the relatively new DVD+R DL Book Type. For DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD+R DL discs, it is possible to change the Book Type field value to the value associated with the DVD-ROM format (or in some rare and unorthodox cases, even the value associated with the DVD-R format - though only DVD+R can be changed to this) in order to fool older devices, which is a trick known as bitsetting.
These are the possible values of the Book Type Field:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0000 | DVD-ROM, either one or two layers |
| 0001 | DVD-RAM |
| 0010 | DVD-R or DVD-R DL, depending on the Part Version field |
| 0011 | DVD-RW |
| 1001 | DVD+RW |
| 1010 | DVD+R |
| 1101 | DVD+RW DL |
| 1110 | DVD+R DL |
Famous quotes containing the words book and/or type:
“It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians, no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1994)