Need info on DVD Burners

[Byte Chaser]

Hey everyone,

I have a friend who a long-haul trucker and he wants to get a DVD burner for
his home-based computer. What brand of DVD burner would be a good one to
get? He wants to use it for all the usual things like data back-up, etc.
He also wants to transfer his older home videos and movies to DVD so he can
take them with him out on the road. Also, if anyone can give some advice or
opinions on what would be a good DVD burning software would be greatly
appreciated. He has an older AMD powered computer that he will put the
burner into. It has a 1300 Mhz chip with half a gig of Ram, an ATI Rage
video card, a Audigy soundcard. Any info or advice would again be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
from the Byte_chaser
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Jan Alter]

Best site I know for user comments about burners

http://www.videohelp.com/

 

[Falco98]

I have a Plextor burner and like it. However, burners are generally pretty
good these days... you could go with plextor, sony, pioneer, etc. Find some
on NewEgg and read reviews, compare prices, etc.
Make sure you get one that burns Dual Layer-- some out there still might
not. Also consider what software is bundled... I believe Sony drives are
bundled with Nero Burning ROM, which is probably one of the best out there
(the only burning software i typically use). Others might be bundled with
clunkier, stupider, or no softwares.

To convert old movies to DVD, he'll need a variety of things, which can
range from so-so to costly.
1) video capture -- something to record videos onto the computer. this will
include hardware to plug RCA cables in, and software to record it into some
computer format (as far as i know, ATI makes a decent external USB thingy
that you can plug almost any video feed into -- cable, RCA jacks, SVGA;
watch it on your computer using their program, and record it even straight
into MPEG2, the format DVDs use).
2) video editing / conversion software -- if you want to edit or cut your
video, or convert it to MPEG2 format if it isn't already, you'll need
editing or converting software. For conversion i recommend a slick little
program called TMPGenc - powerful, but you have to play around with it
before really knowing what you're doing. Editing, i'd recommend Adobe
Premiere, but it can be expensive. there are cheaper programs, but they
might be crappy. I believe there may be a program called "Adobe Premiere
Elements", which is like the basics of premiere (cutting, fading, etc), for
alot cheaper.
3) DVD authoring software -- these tools let you feed them video (preferably
already formatted to MPEG2), and arrange them into DVD files for burning,
along with menus and stuff. I have used, and generally approve of, a little
program called "tmpeg DVD author", though it may not be free. Also, there
is "sony DVD author" which i haven't used yet, but almost has to be good.
If you buy a retail DVD burner, it's likely to come with *something* like
this.

good luck... ask me if you'd like elaboration on any of this.

 

[spodosaurus]

Hey everyone,

I have a friend who a long-haul trucker and he wants to get a DVD burner for
his home-based computer. What brand of DVD burner would be a good one to
get? He wants to use it for all the usual things like data back-up, etc.
He also wants to transfer his older home videos and movies to DVD so he can
take them with him out on the road. Also, if anyone can give some advice or
opinions on what would be a good DVD burning software would be greatly
appreciated. He has an older AMD powered computer that he will put the
burner into. It has a 1300 Mhz chip with half a gig of Ram, an ATI Rage
video card, a Audigy soundcard. Any info or advice would again be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
from the Byte_chaser
(e-mail address removed)

Pioneer 110.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Ruel Smith]

I have a friend who a long-haul trucker and he wants to get a DVD burner
for his home-based computer. What brand of DVD burner would be a good one
to
get? He wants to use it for all the usual things like data back-up, etc.
He also wants to transfer his older home videos and movies to DVD so he
can
take them with him out on the road. Also, if anyone can give some advice
or opinions on what would be a good DVD burning software would be greatly
appreciated. He has an older AMD powered computer that he will put the
burner into. It has a 1300 Mhz chip with half a gig of Ram, an ATI Rage
video card, a Audigy soundcard. Any info or advice would again be greatly
appreciated.

Best DVD burner - Benq w/ LightScribe:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827101642

CD/DVD labels suck. They get wrinkled up, faded, and sometimes cause the
CD/DVD to get caught in a player because of the label thickness.
LightScribe burns the label into the disk with the laser, making it
permanent.

Best burning software - Nero:

http://ww2.nero.com/enu/index.html

Easy enough for novices, advanced enough for experts, and absolutely full of
features.

Best labeling software - SureThing CD Labeler Deluxe:

http://www.surething.com/ST/Category.asp?CatCode=ST4_HOME

It even works with LightScribe drives to burn nice looking labels on them.

 

[jaster]

Hey everyone,

I have a friend who a long-haul trucker and he wants to get a DVD burner
for his home-based computer. What brand of DVD burner would be a good one
to get? He wants to use it for all the usual things like data back-up,
etc. He also wants to transfer his older home videos and movies to DVD so
he can take them with him out on the road. Also, if anyone can give some
advice or opinions on what would be a good DVD burning software would be
greatly appreciated. He has an older AMD powered computer that he will
put the burner into. It has a 1300 Mhz chip with half a gig of Ram, an
ATI Rage video card, a Audigy soundcard. Any info or advice would again
be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
from the Byte_chaser
(e-mail address removed)

As Falcon98 says. I would add a couple of thoughts. Compare
included software with DVD burner, and whether his player supports
dual layer DVDs some older players had trouble with DVD-RW. A 1300mhz
cpu will take some time to transcode, ie, from VCR to mpg2(?) then the
burning will proceed based on the burn speed of the media, he could
encode overnite.

 

[Byte Chaser]

To all those who replied to my question - A great big Thanks for the info
from my friend and me!

Thanks again,
from the Byte_chaser
(e-mail address removed)

 

[The Outsider]

To all those who replied to my question - A great big Thanks for the info
from my friend and me!

Thanks again,
from the Byte_chaser
(e-mail address removed)

I've read good things about the one I list below. Some burners have
problems reading certain media (brand of cdr/DVDr) and also have
problems with copy protected games. This one doesn't.

Samsung SH-W162C DVD+RW 16X8X16 Dual Layer 5X/4X DVD Writer Black /W
SW OEM

Come with Nero.