DEFINITION: Digital versatile disc (DVD) is the successor to the ubiquitous compact disc (CD) optical storage media. A DVD is a silvery platter 120mm in diameter. It can record information on both sides and stores 2.6G to 17G bytes of digital audio, video or data. A CD records information only on one side and has a capacity of 650M bytes. Types of DVDs include DVD-ROM discs, which hold read-only information; DVD-R discs, which can record information only once per disc; and DVD-RAM and DVD+RW discs, which are both rewritable discs. Businesses use DVD for many functions, such as distributing software, transporting files, backing up systems and archiving files.