- What is the difference between DVD-R i DVD+R empty DVD's ?
What does +/- stands for, for the same price is it better
to buy empty DVD-R or DVD+R ?
Its like the other poster says. In the beginning writers often
compared it to the two tape formats - beta and vhs. In the old days -
which was a year or so ago there were lots of arguments about which is
better but I dont think anyone cares anymore since as the other poster
pointed out - almost all the burners now are dual format.
DVD-R advocates used to say that it had wider compatiblity . Frankly I
always thought that was grossly exaggerated and Ive never had a
problem with either format in any of the players Ive had - cheapo
Lennox, Apex etc and better Pioneeer, Panasonic, etc.
However nothing is 100% guaranteed so obviously try out a sample and
test it on the player you are going to use. The older players tend to
be less tolerant and ironically its often the cheapo ones that got the
rep of being able to play a wider variety of disks.
Theres also compatiblity issues sometimes with brands/types of DVDs
and players and brands/types of DVDs and burners. They are coming out
with different formulations obviously and some are better quality than
others and some formulations work sometimes better with some burners.
The same thing is true with CDRs.
Its another format as the other guy says but its just used for data as
far as I know. Some people have said its better for backing up data so
some use it for work stuff etc. If you want to burn movies and data
etc you use the other two types of disks.
- What DVD recorder do you recomend me (under 80 $)
(my friend tells me to by Pioneer DVR-108D) ?
In the old days Sony was one of the first dual formats so they were
hyped a lot. Then Pioneer was known as a quality brand and of course
Plextor is always mentioned. But like the CD burners - its largely a
commodity item nowadays and NEC has displaced part of Liteons lock on
the cheap and decent segment as far as DVD burners are concerned -
with CD burners Liteon virtually had a lock on selling decent CD
burners at a rock bottom price.
Ive also got a NEC and its decent and pretty inexpensive.
- What DVD Player can you recomend me (I have choice between
LG, Sony, ASUS, MSI & PHILIPS) LG and Philips are cheapest
are they confident enough ?
You can get DVD players that are "decent" from $20 to 300.
With the less than $60 segment there are plenty of super discount
deals going on. I saw about five $20 deals during the black fridaypost
thanksgiving sales. I got two in fact ----- an ESA and a Proton. The
ESA was horrendous . playerd OK but it stopped working after 4 hours.
The proton is OK. Many of these super el cheapos can play anything -
even PAL. Thats one of their selling points. Their sound and pic
quality arent first rate but they are decent enough for most people.
The main problem I would say is quality control. If you get a decent
unit it can last for years and be OK. If you get a bad unit - WOW they
suck ! And sure I see buggy units even with namebrands but the
percentage can be fairly high with some el cheapos. On the otherhand
they can be great bargains for a student on a budget or a second
player etc.
One player often cited now is a the inexpensive Philips around $60 or
so. I think you can get it on Amazon. It plays anything supposedly.
Many of the namebrands are decent though like I said if you browse
around youll the same sprinking of complaints about buggy units and
problems with various models since they are all trying to reduce costs
- outsourcing to cheap manufacturers.
One unit that was really hyped was the Pioneer low cost player. Its
not that hyped in some circles and the latest version gets mixed
feedback at CC etc but Pioneer came out with a low cost player the
656a which cost $500 in Europe and got rave reviews - combining SACD,
DVD-A , decent CD music playback and decent picture. In the US they
stripped out the SACD and sold it for $180-200.
In some audiophile websites it was hyped as one of the few low cost
decent DVD players that played music CDs decently. In audiophile
circles of course --- 300-500 is peanuts for a CD player. Pioneer has
since come out with several new models succeeding the 656a which sell
for as little as $130-150 and play both SACD, DVD-A and still get rave
reviews from audio sites but the avg consumer doesnt seem to be able
to tell the difference and its gotten mixed , mediocre overall reviews
from avg buyers at CCs site. Its selling there for $130-150 last time
I looked.
- What is average lifetime of burned DVD's ? I want to keep backup
files on them. Is it better when I burn DVD's slower (for example
4x instead of 8x or 16x)
Depends on the media. Of its decent quality media and is rated at 8x
then it should be OK at 8x. One thing a few big manufacturers make
disks for various companies like CDRs so just cause it says Maxell or
TDK or SONY - doesnt really tell you anything definite about the
media. You should ask around - whats good and what works well with
your burner. A lot of people look for Ritek deals and Taiyo Yuden
stuff.
Last question, what's the difference between alt.comp.hardware and
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt ? I asked this question on both groups
because I don't know in which group does this question belongs, sorry
homebuilt - I think they actually want people who make components etc
I used to see complaints in there in the past ages ago where they
would say its not about throwing together pre-built components but
actually designing some component or something. Not sure what they
meant about that since you cant exactly make you own hard disk and
processor.
