Hi all: I'm building a system for a friend, and he wants a DVD burner,
dispite my recommendations to wait.

What I'm wondering is, I want to give him a drive that gives him the least
headaches, and should work well into the future. I've heard of drives that
can burn all formats of DVD, and burns CDs as well. I'm not really 'clued
in' on all the new formats, but basically if he burns a DVD, he wants it to
work in a standard DVD reader. I'm not sure if he wants the data version,
but might as well give him all at once.

What ones have people used that do all this, and do a good job? Fastest?
Most compadable? Works with windows well too?

Thanks

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:00:49 GMT, "Kevin C. Redden"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all: I'm building a system for a friend, and he wants a DVD burner,
>dispite my recommendations to wait.

Frankly if he really has a use for it , its fallen to the point where
its worth getting now . Its not in the dirt cheap level yet but who
know how long hell have to wait for that or for one format to win out.

IF you want to pick either the DVD+R/RW format OR the DVD-R/RW format
---- there are drives now in the $150 range that are very good. The
NEC , Ricoh and Liteon are good ones. The NEC and Ricoh are sold under
a variety of names . Check DVDhelp.com for feedback for any models.

4x is the speed now - though you still see some 2x around they are
fading out. Some are 4x DVD+R or -R and slower RW . Like some models
are 4x +R and 2.4x +RW. - the rewritable disks.

Ther are also some cheap -R burners if you look for a sale The
Pioneers are very popuar.

The dual burn units - Sony is very popular and finally being a bit
discounted. I know Liteon also makes a dual burner too though its not
much cheaper when I checked and doesnt seem as popular. The piece on
Cendyne being sued by Riteon I think it was , one of their Taiwanese
suppliers forcing them to close shop - well thats one of the dangers.
ot of the really big sales are rebate sales by reboxers - import
companies who just buy from one of the big makers --- there are lots
of cheapo rebate deals by zillions of front companies in the US who
just buy stuff from the large chinese manufacturers. In the past
several of them went belly up screwing the consumers who had rebates.

Its like the article said Cendyne was one of the 3 DVD sellers they
claimed in an OC register articles along with Sony and IO MAGIC
another cheesy reboxer. I think they said Sony was No.1 now. You
might want to avoid a reboxer - like IO magic or whatever if the
rebate is really large.

As for reliabity and no problems - in general the Liteon, Sony and
Ricoh in its many guises and Pioneers - rate well, but there are
always like 3-5% or more who have weird problems. You cant tell until
you try it.

Once upon a time (Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:00:49 -0400), Kevin C. Redden came
seeking enlightenment from the community, after having tried everything
possible to get it to work by (him|her)self. Failing that, they wrote:

> Hi all: I'm building a system for a friend, and he wants a DVD burner,
> dispite my recommendations to wait.
>
> What I'm wondering is, I want to give him a drive that gives him the
> least headaches, and should work well into the future. I've heard of
> drives that can burn all formats of DVD, and burns CDs as well. I'm not
> really 'clued in' on all the new formats, but basically if he burns a
> DVD, he wants it to work in a standard DVD reader. I'm not sure if he
> wants the data version, but might as well give him all at once.
>
> What ones have people used that do all this, and do a good job? Fastest?
> Most compadable? Works with windows well too?
>
> Thanks

I have the Sony DRX-500UL external, and it's great. It does both
DVD+RW and DVD-RW, as well as CD-RW.

When you say he wants it to "work in a standard DVD reader", I'm not
sure what you mean. If you're talking about a DVD player as in
a DVD movie player, then most will only read the DVD-R format.

As for a DVD-ROM drive on a computer, modern drives can read
DVD+R and DVD-R. Slightly older drives can read DVD-R but
not DVD+R. Still older drives can read normal (pressed, not burned)
DVDs, but can not read any +R or -R.

I have my burner working great in Linux, but it comes with Veritas
Record Now software for Windows which is at least as easy to use
as the Roxio EZ-CD Creator that everyone is using these days
to burn CDs.

DVD-Rs tend to be much cheaper than blank DVD+R media, but I think
I see the prices starting to level out. If you're going for
maximum compatibility, definately get one that does + and -.

Most hardware out now can read DVD-R, so getting just DVD+R is
a bad idea. However, DVD+R is newer, and newer hardware, (such as
DVD based PVR devices) are coming out in DVD+R format, so that is
the future, it seems.

Shawn

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 21:13:31 -0400, Shawn Milochik
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>Most hardware out now can read DVD-R, so getting just DVD+R is
>a bad idea. However, DVD+R is newer, and newer hardware, (such as
>DVD based PVR devices) are coming out in DVD+R format, so that is
>the future, it seems.
>
>Shawn

Thats sounds a bit too pessimistic in regards to DVD+R. A lot of
websites generally claimed most players probably coud play both + and
-. though users for some reason mostly DVD- boosters keep posting some
weird thing about how most wont play +. However in the DVD groups
someone did post some blurb about a test in which they claimed the
players they sampled - something like 75% could play DVD+ and 83%
could play DVD- , something like that. I dont have the exact figures.

Anyway - Ive got a DVD+ only and the 3 players I have all play DVD+ no
problems including an older Panasonic RV30 , a slightly old JVC and a
new Pioneer and people I know also have the same burner and have no
problems playing it on their players. I think the compatiblity issue
is a bit exaggerated but of course that doesnt mean all players can
play DVD - and DVD +.

Shawn Milochik wrote:
>
> Once upon a time (Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:00:49 -0400), Kevin C. Redden came
> seeking enlightenment from the community, after having tried everything
> possible to get it to work by (him|her)self. Failing that, they wrote:

While it may amuse you, most of us would prefer a succint
attribution line. It especially makes a difference when there are
several attributions to be preserved.

--
Chuck F ((E-Mail Removed)) ((E-Mail Removed))
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!

Shawn Milochik wrote:
> CBFalconer said the following on Fri, 22 Aug 2003 23:59:51 -0400:
> > Shawn Milochik wrote:
> >>
> >> Once upon a time (Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:00:49 -0400), Kevin C. Redden
> >> came seeking enlightenment from the community, after having tried
> >> everything possible to get it to work by (him|her)self. Failing that,
> >> they wrote:
> >
> > While it may amuse you, most of us would prefer a succint attribution
> > line. It especially makes a difference when there are several
> > attributions to be preserved.
> >
>
> Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I usually post to Linux and programming
> newsgroups, where that kind of thing is more appropriate. I only
> had that line for < 24 hours, and now it's gone. ;o)

Thank you.

--
Chuck F ((E-Mail Removed)) ((E-Mail Removed))
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:00:49 GMT, "Kevin C. Redden"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all: I'm building a system for a friend, and he wants a DVD burner,
>dispite my recommendations to wait.
>
>What I'm wondering is, I want to give him a drive that gives him the least
>headaches, and should work well into the future. I've heard of drives that
>can burn all formats of DVD, and burns CDs as well. I'm not really 'clued
>in' on all the new formats, but basically if he burns a DVD, he wants it to
>work in a standard DVD reader. I'm not sure if he wants the data version,
>but might as well give him all at once.
>
>What ones have people used that do all this, and do a good job? Fastest?
>Most compadable? Works with windows well too?
>
>Thanks


Oh yeah - I wanted mention this. I really havent checked the prices
lately thoroughly and still saw some prices around $230 for dual
burners so I thought the price range still held - $140 or so for
single formats and $240+ for dual.


WOW. I was reading some stuff on video formats at a site and glanced
at an ad banner they had. The prices were surprisingly low.


I went to the search engine and they had an NEC DUAL format 1300,
Pioneer AO6 , Sony dual format - all around the $140-170 range !

I thought maybe it was the typical sleaze thing - but Newegg had them
at roughly around those prices when I looked it up.

Thats LOW.

Id say theres no reason to get a single format unless you can get one
for less than $100 now.