Sony PCV-RS311 VAIO User Guide (primary manual) - Page 31

Adding data to a data DVD When creating a data DVD, you can choose to keep the writing session open and make a disc appendable, which means you can keep adding information to the disc.  Appendable writing - You can add more data to a disc as long as space is available on the disc. The recording session can stay open until the disc is full. Although the space on the disc may be used efficiently, a disc written to incrementally may not be compatible with all DVD drives.  Non-appendable writing - All data is written to the disc at one time and the writing session is closed, even if there is more space available on the disc. You can not add more data to the disc. Non-appendable discs are more compatible with different DVD drives. A video DVD is always non-appendable. The table below describes the writing method for different media types for appendable and non-appendable writing. Writing Method Media Type Appendable Non-appendable DVD-R Multi-border Disc at once DVD-RW Restructured overwrite Disc at once DVD+R Multi-session Disc at once DVD+RW Single-session Disc at once Page 31