Tech: DVD burner - what kind?

Subject: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: GUEST,Mark Cohen, temporarily away from home
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:14 PM

Can anyone direct me to a quick and easy explanation of the ins and outs of stand-alone DVD burners? I have a digital video camera and want to send my mom of the video I took at her 75th birthday party in Philadelphia this past weekend. Man, was it cold--down in the 30s! (I know, I know, I grew up there. But I haven't worn a coat in a long time.)

Between DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+/-R, I'm lost. Any help out there? I have a Dell Inspiron notebook with a P4, running WinXP Professional.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:51 PM

Mark, I was in Fry's Electronics shopping for computer stuff and noticed some DVD burners that meet all of those standards. It was a Sony, and on sale for about $100. I found it just now at their web site at a regular price of $129. The link I've supplied is to an internal DVD burner, and I see they also have an external burner for $199.

I haven't burned any DVDs yet--I'm learning my way around a new computer (replacement after a burglary at the house a couple of weeks ago). So I can point out the equipment, but I can't yet tell you how well it works.

Maggie (SRS)

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:00 PM

FRY'S - the place that shink-wraps returns and places them back on the heap?

FRY'S the place where the return lines are longer than the checkout lines?

FRY's the place that runs out of Sunday Sale Specials at 8:30 Sunday morning?

FRY's the place for purchasing candy and magazines while waiting in the checkout line?

Maxime of the worn-out and blue ...YOU WILL get fried at FRY'S.

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:05 PM

Stilly - VERY strange behavior - you have insurance coverage - and you purchase from the "bottom dollor store " when you could obtain full-coverage and support and repairs from the highest of reputable dealers?

You must be a folk musician, logic does not apply.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 11:32 PM

If it's a one-shot deal with a short time frame, you might be ahead to look for a friend who's already set up to burn?

If you're looking for a stand-alone DVD burner, the choices are a little limited in my retail market. PC internal or external burners are relatively easy to find, and most of the ones currently at retail outlets will burn DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+/-R/W. "Standard grade" for internal PC burners runs about $80 (US) and "Plus grade" around $130. "Deluxe" models go on up to ridiculous.

Subject to argument, the DVD-R is closest to "commercial DVD." The DVD+R was developed because of supposed advantages for "consumer use." There are advocates for both.

The DVD burner I got with my latest PC gave me lots of problems, but I just slid a replacement in a few days ago and all seems well now. From CompUSA, a MadDog Multimedia DVD+/-R, R/W that came with bundled Nero, can also (they say, anyway) burn the new 2-layer DVDs.

Cash up front, $79 US, but there's a $30 rebate that I assume will work, so the drive cost me less ($50 US net) than a 10-pack of DVD blanks at many retail outlets here.

Noting that the burner that gave me problems was one of the very early models, I wouldn't have any real objection to looking at a later model from the same maker - which was Pioneer. The problem I had was insufficient buffer to handle the built in retry delay. Later models added more RAM, internal to the burner, and went up to about 8MB, before they figured out that a track re-start could give them "infinite retry delay" and most of the current ones are back to about 2MB.

Having done some recent research, I can offer "great gobs" of potential understanding - all, I think, from the Pioneer support site. In lieu of help of specific problems they offer the "baffle with bullshit" option, but there might be some help in these .pdf white papers. I found several of them rather interesting:

White Paper on Pioneer Dual Layer DVD

Microsoft Dual Layer R/W White Paper

DVD-R/W 4.7 GB White Paper

DVD R/W White Paper

DVD-R General Use vs Authoring Use White Paper

Pinnacle White Paper: MPEG-2

Not really what you need to know to sashay into your local bit-shop and grab something off the shelf, but maybe others will have an interest too.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 12:53 AM

Fry's is the place where I go look at stuff, because they have name brands and knock off stuff. Sometimes the name brand is worth it, sometimes it isn't. I don't buy the shrink wrap boxes, I buy new from them (though most of my computer stuff comes from Dell and CompUSA). And the insurance "replacement" value is stinky, as it turns out. They want to replace the old components with equivalent performing things today, not pay for new upgraded ones. So we have a tug-of-war going. And since I work at home they have an arbitrary cap of $2500 on how much I may claim against my missing computer (that doesn't begin to cover the software that went out the door). The kids' computer is different. But on mine, it makes no sense at all--I can only figure that they want to sell a separate policy or something else that will cost me more money. Good thing I installed a lot of my software on the kids' computer, and that I didn't use it for work.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 03:37 AM

John, I think I used the wrong word when I said "standalone" -- what I'm looking for is an external burner that I can connect to my laptop via USB or FireWire. I think I'll take your advice and get a MadDog unit at CompUSA. I bought one of their CD burners for my old computer and was pleased with it. I still don't know whether to get DVD-R or DVD+R blanks. The links in your post didn't seem to be about that distinction, but it sounds like either one will work OK. Thanks!

Good luck with your shopping and insurance-company-haggling, Maggie. Sorry you have to go through it.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: GUEST,Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 10:46 AM

Mark, I think you made a good choice. If I were buying one from scratch I'd read through all of John's links and probably come to the same conclusion. As it is, my DVD burner was part of the computer package, so I'll still probably read the links and then figure out where my system fits. The link to the Sony at Fry's was for information--an example of the brands and capabilities that are available at a reasonable price.

BTW, Guest and Gargoyle, Fry's will surprise you, despite the reputation for reconditioned equipment. There are some real gems of products tucked in with the high volume of standard items. I have a marvelous little "Blue Earth Light" that is a LED base and a crystal etched globe that was very reasonable and is quite a nice touch on my desk. Frys was the only place that ever carried this that I could find when I went to replace it. And when they discontinue stuff they don't just reduce it a bit, they mark it way down. I've picked up some excellent things, not reconditioned, for 10 cents on the dollar of the original price.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 11:17 AM

In any good sized town, there will probably be a store where the hardware geeks shop. Ask one of them where to go. Ask the clerk for a recommendation. You'll know you're in the right place because most of the customers know exactly what they want, many of them will appear to be assembling computers part by part. and (in my locat store) hard drived are in the anti-static wrappers instead of huge boxes. It will be cheaper, too. When I got my burner, for example, on hearing I wanted it for archival work, the clerk steered me away from the more expensive Sony to a Pioneer unit. He claimed every one told him it was faster and more accurate.

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 11:55 AM

VideoHelp.com has more information than a person could absorb in a lifetime.

This link at their site will get you started on DVD burners. I guarantee you can get lost checking out everything they have.


http://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 12:21 PM

Mark -

You're probably not too likely to find a burner still in the retail market chain that won't burn both DVD-R and DVD+R, so you can burn either kind of blanks in almost any recent burner. There may be some tradeoffs relative to which is most readable in other kinds of devices, but I haven't found much info on that. If you're burning a videocam bit to play back on a "consumer" (non-PC) machine, feedback on which you decide to use and how it plays would be helpful - more for others than for my personal use, since I don't normally do video.

The current "sales feature" in DVD burners now seems to be whether they can burn 2-layer blanks, and I've yet to see a source for the blanks locally. The packaging on the Mad Dog burner I bought has a "*" on the media spec, with the footnote:

"* At the time of production, neither DVD-R DL Media nor DVD±RW DL Media have been released."

The burner claims:

"16x DVD±R Writer: Supports all popular formats including DVD-Video, DVD-Data, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW.
"8x DVD±RW Rewriter and makes reference to double layer RW media.
"48x CD-R Writer
"24x CD-RW Rewriter
"16x DVD-ROM: Supports DVD-R disks, Video disks, and Photo CDs
"48x CD-ROM: Supports all popular CD formats including CD-text, Audio CDs, Data CDs/CD-R and CD-RW media"

I've tried counting how many distinct media specifications are referenced, but I keep getting lost. Since there is no mention of "Authoring" DVDs, it's probably safe to assume the burner doesn't handle them - based on one of the white papers linked above; but the number of different specifications available leads me to a "stick it in and see if it works" philosophy.

(One thing I did learn from the white papers was that those surplus blanks from the med office are probably formatted as "Authoring" DVDs, and won't work in most "citizen class" burners, so it's not worth stealing them. Shucky-darn and &#!@#! - I'll have to run that past the bootlegger who offered me some a while back.)

My concern was getting good CD burn capability, and that's apparently so "old fashined" that most of them don't even mention the spec varieties there on the packaging. I've burned about a dozen CDs with the new Mad Dog burner, and see a "real" 31x or so in my machine - which is a vast improvement over the 2x max for my old burner, even ignoring that the old one made coasters out of nearly 50% of the disks.

I'm still sort of "groping" for a name-recognition category for Mad Dog. I've bought a couple of their products, mostly based on price/performance comparisions. CompUSA seems to push them, but I can't figure out whether the great discounts and rebates are an attempt to "buy in" on the market, or whether they're trying to sell them off to get rid of them. Absolutely NO COMPLAINTS at this point on the items I've bought. All that I've seen indicates that they're "comers" who are trying hard, and doing an ok job.

(My "name recognition" concern may be because "Mad Dog" reminds me of "Big Dog," a local company that does a 10% improvement on Harleys and then sells them for 6 or 8 times the price, with the claim that they're "better." They are better, but they're still Harleys. (Motorcycles, if you're not into the lingo.))

Note: I used the html character code ± for the "+/-" character in a couple of places. A few people may read in a font that doesn't include the character(?).

John

Subject: RE: Tech: DVD burner - what kind?
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 08:24 PM

I am using a PLEXTOR PX-708UF External Burner with a COMPAQ 2110CA Laptop PC with very good satisfaction. Might check this unit out.