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"Current Pioneers are great, better than the 2500 and almost as cheap."

sure about that?
"Amazing write quality and the (Nec ND-2500A is the) first DVD-Writer to support 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD-RW, at a low cost". Due to the low price we do also hand out our "Best Value" award.
"The drive is currently availiable on the market at the price of around 100. At such a low price, with the performance we saw and 8x dual DVD recording, we feel that the NEC ND-2500A is a very good purchase, being better than other, more expensive recorders."

"(The Pioneer DVR-107D is) A fast DVD-Writer that needs a lot of firmware improvements".
"Pioneer DVR-107D is available in the market for 150-200. The price is reasonable for an 8x dual DVD burner, although competition is very tough in the market."

"So, you settled for the 2500?"

considering it's one of the best drives on the planet at any price I'm not sure if "settled" is the right word...

"Then upgrade to a dual-layer from Pioneer when they are released and eventually hit the $150 mark."

Wanna wait to see what media sells for first? $1 each for DVD-+R media is killing me already, I'm used to 10 cents or free with rebate CD-Rs. Once dual-layer media is $1 or less AND it's actually compatible with something besides itself then I'll save my pennies for dual-layer, otherwise why buy the drive when I won't buy the media and I can't find anything to play it? I'm already upset enough with a 8x DVD burner that I can't find reasonably priced 8x media for, but I calm myself knowing I wouldn't have saved much going with a 4x burner.

"Current Pioneers are great, better than the 2500 and almost as cheap."

sure about that?
"Amazing write quality and the (Nec ND-2500A is the) first DVD-Writer to support 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD-RW, at a low cost". Due to the low price we do also hand out our "Best Value" award.
"The drive is currently availiable on the market at the price of around 100. At such a low price, with the performance we saw and 8x dual DVD recording, we feel that the NEC ND-2500A is a very good purchase, being better than other, more expensive recorders."

"(The Pioneer DVR-107D is) A fast DVD-Writer that needs a lot of firmware improvements".
"Pioneer DVR-107D is available in the market for 150-200. The price is reasonable for an 8x dual DVD burner, although competition is very tough in the market."

"So, you settled for the 2500?"

considering it's one of the best drives on the planet at any price I'm not sure if "settled" is the right word...

"Then upgrade to a dual-layer from Pioneer when they are released and eventually hit the $150 mark."

Wanna wait to see what media sells for first? $1 each for DVD-+R media is killing me already, I'm used to 10 cents or free with rebate CD-Rs. Once dual-layer media is $1 or less AND it's actually compatible with something besides itself then I'll save my pennies for dual-layer, otherwise why buy the drive when I won't buy the media and I can't find anything to play it? I'm already upset enough with a 8x DVD burner that I can't find reasonably priced 8x media for, but I calm myself knowing I wouldn't have saved much going with a 4x burner.

'Both' won't be needed. Why support a bag on the side...one will die. We've already discussed which that is.

DVD+R will be shoved back up Intel's ass, from out whence it crawled in the first place.

DVD+R will die like a rotting woodchuck, dead and dismissed, laying under the front porch on a hot Alabama afternoon....and smelling like an old shoe at best. Weep not...

Not sure of the "reputation" of this site, but I found this article pretty interesting when I was psyching up to purchase a DVD burner. Also, I found this article absolutely fascinating.

The technology described here is probably CDS-100, 200 and 300 from Macrovision.

It used to be called Cactus Data Shields, but Macrovision acquired Midbar, the company that orignally created it.

Here is the current product page:

http://www.macrovision.com/products/cds/index.shtm l

Macrovision claims that CDS is "in use today by four of the five majors".

A number of sites explain how the technology works - along with various ways to crack it.

This is one of the better pages on it:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/PrinterFr iendly.asp?ArticleHeadline=Cactus+Data+Shield+200

It is also worth noting that the copy protection technique appears to make the media less reliable for playback.

Fun stuff.

Good for you, not as good for the CD+RW guy at the top of the thread.

DVD-Rs play in *most* machines. The original purpose was to prevent copied movies from playing. It doesn't seem like the DVD player manufacturers are playing the same game, and many of them play burned DVDs. Remember, the test did NOT say 100% of players played them...

...according to this excelent review

You've never seen a case of CD-R eating fungus. Supposedly it is only an issue in tropical climates. I've seen it on a disc burned in the Caribbean.

According to this chart, DVD-RW also seems more compatible than DVD+RW...

As we decided that Sony is good this week, it's nice to see that according to the review, the Sony DVD players play almost all discs well, better than any other manufacturer.

Unfortunately, that's not the creator of the player I just bought...

If possible, I would wait until that hits the marked: Plextor PX-708A

The bottom line is that for all users who don't need to stream MPEG directly to the DVD (which probably includes most Linux users), there is very little practical difference between the formats.

First, my post was a retort of some very negative DVD-R comments. A lot of the misinformation about DVD-R/-RW has been spread by the DVD+RW manufacturers, through their website dvdplusrw.org, a site that pretends to be independent and yet existed before the first models existed, and has spread quite a lot of lies.

lies? Yes, like saying:

• DVD+RW is "2.4 times faster than DVD-R".
  Sounds like a blanket statement to me, and deceptive to leave out DVD-RW 2X statistics
• DVD-R cannot record variable bitrate movies (dvd+rw can).
  Whups!! This one got pulled. Wish I still had the Google cache
• DVD+RW drives will support DVD+R through a firmware upgrade.
  Suure it will... :-) We all remember how THAT one was covered up at the request of those that paid dvdplusrw.org's bandwidth bills...
• dvd-r lacks error management
  Not sure what they're up to here... sounds like they are saying DVD-R doesn't have standard error-correcting bits, which is untrue.

And so on. The DVD Forum and the DVD-R community have no such need to lie: their product arrived on time and with full support of the DVD Forum, instead of rebelling and creating a new format, like the Circuit City/DIVX DVD fiasco.

DVD+RW, however was late even BEFORE the false-starts and further delays... they NEEDED to lie in order to slow DVD-R growth. I certainly held off on my DVD Recordable purchase for 6 months until I got enough information from cdinfo.com to make a judgement.

I stand by my statement -- DVD+RW and +R has wayyy less compatibility. Want proof? Just browse the CD compatability database of cdinfo.com.

Uncle Bob owns a $350 Sony DVD player from 2000 and is NOT going to switch to a $60 Apex DVD player. ANY player anyone can name that supports DVD+R, ALSO supports DVD-R. The reverse is NOT true.

Of course, if both formats work on everyone's you know's players... great! Just get a dual-format recorder that does both DVD-R and DVD+R. That way, when your friends buy blank discs for you to record things, they can vote with their wallet (which probably is not DVD+R at 300% more per disc!). :-)

Article is the same Reuters story I posted, but more US-friendly & with a picture or two.

The prototype pictures you linked to were quite informative and interesting. Looks like CDR-info has a conflicting article as well.

I was seriously contemplating getting their newest [and last] drive, the CRW-F1 as it promised excellent audio CD results [very low jitter, etc.]

That claim seems to be true, but luckily I did some research and found out that it can burn a maximum of only 67 minutes onto a CD, which is a shame as I have many albums that exceed that duration.

its an interesting read. they are actually enforcing fair use to some extent. it doesnt allow copying a copy (as long as its attempted with DVDXCopy), and inserts disclaimer warning screens at the start of each backup. sure teh die-hard hacker is going to copy it by a different means anyhow, but this program is tailored to joe-user that just wants a backup of his dvd and could care less about a warning screen at the start of his movie. it seems they made the program as restrictive as possible, covering the necessary fair use bases without overly-annoying the end user in the process.

This may even make the MPAA look bad should 321s lawyers bring up these facts in court.

I sure wish this was the case. So far I've switched Sales Dept, Technical Services, and another dept. over to Open Office. Great so far. However, a few insist on using Outlook Express. So the problem is they can't spell. So we have to buy a $15 spelling thing plugin for OE.

What really sucks is I have to install Netscape 6.2.3 instead of Mozilla on many peoples computer. Why? Only one stupid reason. No spelling for Mozilla.

Before you say go download the free plugin. Been there done that. It crashes constantly and I tried it on 3 or 4 computers. Sorry but can't install freakin Mozilla for just that reason alone at my corporation. Wish I could...I really do. When is mozilla going to properly disply cdrinfom.com ?

Over at cdrinfo.com, they often do some copy-protection testing and analysis when they review a new burner. Sometimes both for CD-R and audio CD copy-protection systems, even.

• Although the maximum reading speed of the drive is 48x, it will be factory set at 40x and includes a SpeedRead function that enables users to select the higher speed.
  Patrick Peeters explains: "The reason we use this unique approach is to provide flexibility to customers: for the vast majority 40x is the ideal mix of speed/quality, but there are a small number that will require 48x. However, the increase in speed from 40x to 48x can increase the noise for any drive in the market. In extreme circumstances using high-speed reading, where the CD is severely scratched, it can explode in any drive and even cause injuries to the user. We have redesigned the PlexWriter 48/24/48A drive to strengthen the front bezel to prevent any injuries. To our knowledge, we are the only manufacturer in the market to have implemented this safety feature."

clickety-click

Afreey and Infineon already have a 100x (TrueX) CD-Rom drive (25x DVD)", it came out in 2001...

This is the future (but who cares, we'll go solid state before it gets popular).

32x might be exxagerating a little, but I know my 50x sounds like a jet engine taking off when it spins up.

Future drives will have to take advantage of technologies like TrueX to be tolerable.

Then again, how fast do I really need my CD-ROM to be? I mean, I only use my CD-ROM to 1) reinstall the system and 2) to play music. A 32x CD-ROM is plenty fast to accomplish both of these tasks.

The point of this experiment wasn't to push technology but to do something silly to wow your geek friends. (Then again, I didn't read the link since it was Slashdotted after a measely 6 posts).

From the press release:

The company will start sample shipping of the disc and the replay device in the third quarter of this year.

I always wondered what happened to this technology. Looks like it might finally arrive :-)

They tested about 10 drives in the article, and they all encountered some problems while reading, except for the AOpen CRW2440 (up to 91% with CDDAE, up to 100% with EAC).

They managed to copy the disc with CloneCD and the Aopen drive. They also tried to copy it whith one other drive (TDK CyClone 161040), but that one encountered read errors.

"The CDS200 cd-r backup does contain the CDS200 protection, however now is FULLY readable from all tested drives"

Translation: Rip away.

Also interesting to know is the amount of read errors in the original versus the copy. The diagram can be found here.

In short, the "real" cd was one solid block of read errors, the copy had a few spikes, but those were nothing compared to the other, both in frequency and seriousness (note that the scale in the two diagrams is vastly different).

cdrinfo reviewed the Ricoh 5120A (CDRW and DVR+RW) months ago. Then they did the Philips DVD+RW 208.

The current review is of a 32x writer, the Mitsumi CR-480ATE, so no need for a "Woow! First review of a 32x writer" in two months :-)

cdrinfo reviewed the Ricoh 5120A (CDRW and DVR+RW) months ago. Then they did the Philips DVD+RW 208.

The current review is of a 32x writer, the Mitsumi CR-480ATE, so no need for a "Woow! First review of a 32x writer" in two months :-)

cdrinfo reviewed the Ricoh 5120A (CDRW and DVR+RW) months ago. Then they did the Philips DVD+RW 208.

The current review is of a 32x writer, the Mitsumi CR-480ATE, so no need for a "Woow! First review of a 32x writer" in two months :-)

cdrinfo reviewed the Ricoh 5120A (CDRW and DVR+RW) months ago. Then they did the Philips DVD+RW 208.

The current review is of a 32x writer, the Mitsumi CR-480ATE, so no need for a "Woow! First review of a 32x writer" in two months :-)

try burning a SafeDisc2 protected image on a new Plextor drive.

No problem. The PlexWriter PX-W2410A does perfect Safedisc 2 copies, at least with the firmware shipped to reviewers.

Of course, SD2 is pretty much broken if you take into consideration BetaBlocker, a program you can use to 'fix' a SD2-protected image prior to burning. Works with any burner.

An article posted here suggests that Midbar's Cactus Data Shield may already be a moot technology. According to the article Plextor drives can read protected CD's (which normally cannot be read by CD-ROM drives). Also CloneCD can remove the Cactus protection.

Try again... this is old news. Cactus Data Shield has been around for some time, not just in Eastern Europe (CDs with it were sold in Germany too, for example). More info can be found here.

By the way, because Cactus caused so much trouble for legitimate users it has been quietly phased out - though it seems they are planning another assault in other parts of the world now!

Nope, I've no idea who these bands are.

They (mainly BMG in Germany) tried it in Europe already in 2000. I still have Ministry's CD that won't play on CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs but plays perfectly on an ordinary stereo CD player.

I haven't read post mentioning Clone CD yet ? This software actually does'nt care about the format of the CD, he just read plain data, put an image file with subchannels. Therefore, your burner must support raw mode.

In my standard CD player the CD worked without any problems. What's most interesting, if you look at the CD itself, there are visible gaps between the tracks (like on vinyl LPs)!

Just like Bleem CD ? It has the gaps you're talking about, hard to make a back-up, but possible with clone cd.

To be on topic, I would not be surprised that clone cd could enable you to make copies of the new protected audio cd, problem is that you'll still be unable to listen to your back-up cd through the computer.

Diablo 2 and Age of Empires 2 used SafeDisc 1.SafeDisc2 which IIRC was first seen with Red Alert 2 is probably what Myst III uses.

Diablo 2 and Age of Empires 2 used SafeDisc 1.SafeDisc2 which IIRC was first seen with Red Alert 2 is probably what Myst III uses.

www.cdrinfo.com/cebit2001/tdk-1.shtml Write 2GB CDR's are 36x and the SAME price per meg? The hell you say? Well if ya don't buy the sketchy details and pictures of cdrinfo, maybe A more properly formated press clipin from them might help :). And just to be thorough, one from EE Times.

www.cdrinfo.com/cebit2001/tdk-1.shtml Write 2GB CDR's are 36x and the SAME price per meg? The hell you say? Well if ya don't buy the sketchy details and pictures of cdrinfo, maybe A more properly formated press clipin from them might help :). And just to be thorough, one from EE Times.

Well the sustained rate isn't so important now that companies like Plextor and others have
started using drives with BURN-Proof technolog licensed from Sanyo
Basically its a way of having the CD-R/RW stop its burn in the middle of toasting,
thereby saving the disk and data until the hdd can start sending data again.
Theres a better explanation here

----------------------------------

If major speed is on your mind, Yamaha just announced some 16x writers. In conjunction with Oak Technology, Yamaha is bringing out a 16x/16x/40x CD-R/RW and just came out with (in Japan and parts of Europe) a 16x/10x/40x CD-R/RW.

"Yamaha first to market with 16X CD-RW drive designed around Oak's controller that reduces CD burn time to under 5 minutes"
16X Write
16X ReWrite
40X Read / Audio Ripping

Yamaha's CRW2100:
16X Write
10X ReWrite
40X Read / Audio Ripping

These drives use an 8MB Memory Buffer for their high speed and to avoid buffer under-run. I can't find any indication if they use either Sanyo's or Ricoh's error prevention technology. I don't think they do.

An interesting article on Plextor's newest drive talks about a newer form of BURN-proof and also JustLink hints that 24x write drives may be down the road.

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