DVD Burner Questions

[SALvation]

I'm thinking about picking up a DVD burner and have absolutely no idea what I should be looking for. What are some features I should make sure it has?

[JIMINATOR]

+/-R +/-RW, Dual/Double Layer
Most DVD players will read all formats, but in order of compatibility they are:
-R +R -RW +RW Dual
The - formats are more for video, the + formats for Data
You can get disks now for < $1, they hold I think 4.6 GB of data
The Dual Layer... well, it has only now become somewhat of a standard.
some non-dual dvds can burn it with a firmware upgrade.
The disks though are expensive, $7 +,
unless you are going to be ripping dvds without compressing, I wouldn't bother,
there are utilities that will recompress DVDs for the 4.6 media without
losing any of the features.
there is also dvd-ram, which is like a long term RW storage media,
the disks come in cases, you don't need to bother with those either.
Also note that 1x DVD is 16x CD, so 8x DVD burns at the rate of 128x CD
I have a 4X and I am happy with it, the disks store so much globs of data
I use +R disks. I have never seen the point of any RW format since the media
is so cheap, and they need to be erased between burns...

[SALvation]

So what do you think of these:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-031&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-106-959&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-034&depa=1

[JIMINATOR]

well, i wouldn't be surprised if they are the same drive. I don't know what you are going to do with the drive, or if you need software. I use nero for mine, but probably the bare models include software. as to the nec or liteon, actually liteon has become a pretty respected name in this market whereas i have not seen anything about nec, so i would have to go with the first. then again you are only talking about $70, unlike half a bill that i paid for a 2x CDR 10 years ago.... :eek:

[ME BIGGD01]

savlation, i made a post a few days ago regarding a sony dvd burner that can be upgrade to a dual layer drive with a flash. this has been done and is pretty safe. regardless, they are all pretty cheap today and you might as well go for dual layer for future use. i copy all my dvd movies (backup) with some great software i have. makes exact copies with no problems or loss. great um back up copy software:thumbs: dvd burners are the way to go today and from what i paid last year for one compared to what they cost today, i think it's well worth the purchase.

[SALvation]

I ended up getting this one today. Thanks for the advice.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-034&depa=1

[JIMINATOR]

i love my dvd burner. if you burn a lot of cds, you can load about 5 or 6 cd images on one dvd and mount them with daemon tools. that will roxxor your soxxors!

[Slice]

I ended up getting this one today. Thanks for the advice.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-034&depa=1
I hope you are happy with your drive, because I just orderd the same one today along with HL2. I was also looking at the Plextor drive but it was $99 and was only 12x but it did have a 8mb buffer rather than 2. How do you like yours so far and is it true about the no driver install that some of the reviews had stated?

[mod]

i prefer Pioneer DVR-108 16x16 DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive

whats nice about this drive is i use ritek 8x cds and i can burn at 12
we sell 50 for 29.95

not to bad for a 99 bucks canadian.
and no bios flash.



mod*

[SALvation]

I love this burner. There were no drivers to install, just install and go. It is uber quiet and burns DVDs very quickly. I can burn a full DVD movie (4.7G) from my hard drive to DVD in about 12 minutes. Not one coaster yet either.

[BobtheCkroach]

I bought the same one a few weeks ago. Sheesh, I paid $150 for my 4x -/+R, -+RW drive a year or so ago. I triple checked to make sure the NEC actually burned dual layer. I couldn't believe it was only $67.

I have no plans on trying to burn a dual layer though until they come down in price. It'll be nice to be able to ghost my drive (including UT2K4 and all) all on one DVD. :thumbs:

For all us DVD-R noobs, what exactly is "dual layer"?

[JIMINATOR]

the current dvd formats can only store half the capacity of movie dvds, they work on a single layer compared to dual layers, so a similar technology was created for dvd burners, and the disks will work in regular dvd players... essentially they hold twice the data.

[Slice]

I don't understand why this burner only writes at 4x when I selected it to write at 8x. I am using a 8x dvd+R too. Plus when it is writing it bogs my whole system down and everything is slow to load.

[ME BIGGD01]

try going into c:\windows\prefetch folder and clearing it out (select all, delete).

also i suggest try using nero which is imo much better. there also may be an update for roxio to fix that problem.

[SALvation]

I only use Nero and it always burns at 8x. Burning a complete DVD takes only 7-8 minutes.

[SHOTGUNmaniac]

Nero is the best util ever..... Although DVD shrink is also a good 1 to use... What version of nero you guys using?