Actuallly there has always been confusion with units of measure in the computer world which in BINARY as opposed to the DECIMAL system used in mathematics.

The term kb refers to a kilobit, NOT a kilobyte.The term kb should be used to refer to how many BITS of data are transferred in a second between two computers. It is mostly used as Kbps or how many kilobits per second. Example, I've got a broadband Internet collection that averages 1700 Kbps.

Now a kilobyte (KB) note the sublte difference where both letters are capitalized is used to measure capacity. Or HOW MUCH data can fit on a hard drive or DVD disc. Again, the confusion, depending on which counting system you're using. In math the symbol "K" is frequently used to express the equivalent of the value 1,000 in the decimal system. In truth there are actually 1,024 bytes for every "K" or kilobyte. It is almost always rounded out to make the math simpler since it is much simpler to multipy by a factor of an even thousand in your head as oppsed to trying to multipy by 1024.

But wait... there's more. Because internally computers really do everything in binary, which is a math system of nothing but zeros and ones indicating the state of the circuity which can only be on or off. Guess what, there are 8 bits to a byte.

Confused yet?

Lets keep going. So for the letter "A" to be written to some registers in the inner workings of a typical computer system or be written to a sector on a hard drive it will take a series of 8 bits meaning a combination of eight '0's and '1's.

Want more?

Half a byte, called a nibble or more often called a octet is yet numbering system based on eight. Again, in many computer systems four octets form what's called a 32-bit word or a 'full word' which refers to the length of instructions in computer speak.

But back to where we started.

When you buy a blank DVD disk is says it can hold 4.7 GB however in really is referring to the other math standard based on the more accurate 1024 value for every 1000. So you can put roughly 4,700,000,000 BYTES of data on a blank DVD disc which is labeled at 4.7 GB capacity which means you can really put 4.3 GB on.

Everyone is now perfectly clear on this I'm sure. <wink>

For those hopelessly lost remember that K means roughly a thousand, while M is a million and G a billion.

One MAJOR word of warning: avoid Memorex DVD media!! The first set of DVD-RW that I got for my system when I bought it were Memorex. At first, I thought that there was a problem because the system refused to even recognize the validity of these. I figured that Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5 screwed up my system. Then, a friend told me that several people informed him that Memorex DVD discs are nautorious for being incompatible... both with burners and with players. He found a lot of research on the internet to back up this statement. Then, when my hard drive crashed and I was forced to rebuild my system, my DVD-R discs worked without problem, but my DVD-RW discs still refused to work... I didn't even install Easy CD (and probably never will... I have had enough of it). The difference was that the DVD-R discs were Fuji and the DVD-RW were Memorex.

An interesting side to this is that my friend recently purchased a DVD-R/RW +R/RW for his system and it recognizes the Memorex. I can only attribute this to the fact that he is probably not using the standard Microsoft drivers for his burner. My burner, which came as standard equipment built into my laptop, does use the system standard Microsoft drivers and not custom ones made specifically for the burner.

In tests I have made, I have found at least my test Verbatim DVD-RW disc to be much more compatible with set top players, portables, and burners than Memorex, especially since only my friend seems to be able to burn/play the Memorex in his computer.