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Which DVD-Recordable Drives?
We've had a couple stories recently about DVD-RW and such. I'm wondering what ones out there people have used, how well they work, what's the support etc etc. I'm also still on my quest to build the ultimate quiet machine, so any comment on the amount of noise the drive generates would be great - I love my Yamaha Drive for burning - but it's a *loud* one.
The linked-to article mentions 9.6 GB - isn't that dual layer, and don't all the current DVD-R drives coming out now just support single layer (4.8GB)?
:)
So, when will be see dual-layer DVD-R's - the MPAA's true nightmare. Or even better, the quad layered DVD's that the spec originally had in it for 17+GB!!!
This web site is good for news on DVD recording
technology:
http://www.dvdwriters.co.uk
IIRC, it's actually DVD-R that can be played in regular DVD movie players. As far as I've seen, the new Mac G4's that have the SuperDrive, which is specifically touted as being able to make DVDs which work in the movie players, is a DVD-R/CD-RW combo drive. Maybe DVD-RW can also be played in DVD movie players, but I am fairly sure it is the DVD-R drives which are mainly being promoted as DVD player compatible...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Horrible aren't we? I also took a shower this morning and just now went and made some iced tea.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Will these drives allow dvd ripping analogous to the cd ripping we're seeing now. Will people be able to rent a dvd, and copy it?
There are two widely used mechanisms for consumer priced DVD recording drives.
/CD-RW/CD-R drive.
There is the Pioneer DRV-103/A03 unit that is used in the G4 Power Macintosh computers.
It is a DVD-R / DVD-RW
It writes and rewrites DVD and CD media, and it's DVD movies are playable in set top box DVD players.
The other prevalent drive is a Panasonic unit that is DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, CD (no CD recording, just playback.)
Plextor, Yamaha and others are largely reselling these mechanisms.
Expect to pay about 500-1000 dollars US for one of these units. These are DVD General drives, and cannot be used as Masters for DVD reproduction use. The DVD Authoring drives are SCSI, cost upwards of $5000, and the only one I know if is a Pioneer unit. (Doesn't mean there aren't others, but I haven't done my homework to find them.)
God bless America, and may her enemies cower in fear.
the DVD+RW drives coming out soon will likely be the best balance of compatibility and flexibility, since the drives burn discs usable in almost all standard DVD players, not to mention CDR and CD-RW discs. Also, from what i understand, the upgradable firmware will allow for when future capacity increases.
This article at cdmediaworld has good reviews as well as links to other sites with reviews.
Check out
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3 for a nice compatability grid.
Because of that, I would go for price or bundled software.
What ever you get, make it an external scsi, and then put the drive 6 meters away,in a closet.
You said nothing about convinent...;)
Actually putting it in an external case may make it less audible.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
These were burned on the A03 Pioneer writer. They were 4gig DVD and both DVD-R and RW played fine. My player is also a Pioneer unit but was more than a year old. We were surprised that it worked but both being Pioneer may have had somehting to do with it (shrug).
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Do any of the DVD-R drives work under Linux just for archiving data? It would be nice to make video DVD's but I would just like to use them to make backups.
Here is a lot of good info about DVD+RW.
:-)
From what it says there, DVD+RW is both cheaper and more compatible than DVD-RW, for about the same capacity. DVD+RW uses a slightly different technique that reduces gaps between data to give compatibility with the "vast majority" of existing DVD players. It is also apparently more flexible in burning compatible discs, 7x faster to close the session, and allows erasing of individual sections, rather than just the whole disc.
HP are shipping their first dvd100i DVD+RW drive this month for US$599. DVD+RW media will reportedly sell for about US$16 (compared to the US$24 I've seen for DVD-RW media). Philips have announced their standalone DVD+RW unit, and will ship the bare drive in October.
Apparently, initial units will only support DVD+RW/DVD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW/CD-ROM, but DVD+R (analogous to DVD-R, but apparently also cheaper/more compatible) is promised shortly via a firmware upgrade. DVD-R media support may also be available.
FWIW, my own experiences with DVD-R are mixed; 2 of the 4 DVD players and DVD-ROM drives I've tried DVD-R discs with would not recognise the discs at all. I plan to get a dvd100i as soon as they're available
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
the sept. ish of max pc has a pretty interesting and informative article on the new formats and drives coming down the pike for dvd recording. I don't believe it's online at maximum pc but its on the newsstands and max pc is a pretty great mag. its their dream machine issue.
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I had a really noisy Yamaha burner as well. This was a bit of a problem for me as I have wrapped all of his hard-drives (and lined all of his cases) with rubber matting, underclocked all CPU's and removed all fans in an effort to make my "server room" (home office) quiet.
With all machines totally, truly silent (except for one with a really old hard-drive) the Yamaha sounded like a damn airplane!
Luckily I had an empty bay underneath so I just took the bottom of the drive housing off, unplugged the original fan and put a much quieter case fan under it, pointing up at the only chip which got hot.
It still makes some noise while it's actually burning, but at least it's no worse than a normal CD drive. That factory fan is the culprit!
Back when DVD-ROMs were first developed, pleas to include "linking areas," also called "run-in" on magnetic media, were ignored. This meant that there would be no space to write bits to allow the data clock to be recovered. This is not a problem with a continuously written disc, as the "earlier" data can be used.
However, with most technologies, the start of writing can vary hundreds of bits from its nominal location. This means that if you write sector 1, and later write sector 2 on its tail, there is no way to align the data clock to the data in time to read the data of sector 2, since the first bits are used to recover the clock.
DVD-RAM addressed this problem by introducing a new format. There are small embossed address headers to mark where each sector might be, and a small written run-in for each recorded sector. This media is highly susceptible to scratches, since the embossed headers are easily obscured by dust or a scratch. Also, having the embossed headers means that these discs are INCOMPATIBLE with DVD-ROM drives.
DVD-RAM discs also use land/groove recording. This means changes to the servo mechanism just to follow the track. A DVD-ROM drive must add in special reader circuitry to handle the data coding, different block architecture (ROMs use blocks of 16 sectors), different servos for land/groove structure, etc. DVD-RAM is endorsed by the DVD Forum, so is the "official" format.
DVD-RW is also endorsed by the DVD Forum, but for video use. Its intended application for reliable use is to not put data in the first block where you first start writing (it becomes your run-in). The "link point" where writing begins and ends occurs about 1.5 sectors into the 16 sector block. This means that the first 1.5 sectors, while readable, have unrelated data to what you just recorded! Also, some amount of the beginning of what you did write will be unreadable because the data clock needs to be recovered, and the words synchronized to a sync mark. Realistically, the first two sectors will be trashed in any sector that contains a link point. These sectors are recoverable by ECC, but it severely reduces the amount of recovery that can be done on your real data!
DVD-RW uses a shallow, low frequency, wobbled groove with some high frequency "ticks" (occurring at a low frequency) to gain some positional accuracy. These ticks are extremely susceptible to dirt, etc.
Overall, DVD-RW is best used as a re-usable DVD-R.
DVD+RW uses a shallow wobbled groove. However, this wobble is a continuous high frequency, and uses phase modulation to contain address information. The link point is a few bytes from the end of the sector, meaning that only a few bytes are sacrificed to the ECC gods (instead of 4K in the case of DVD-RW), and sufficient data exists to act as the run-in for the newly written sector.
The logical layout of DVD+RW is identical to the logical layout of DVD-ROMs. Any drive that conforms to the DVD-ROM standards will read a DVD+RW disc. Unfortunately, some manufacturers took shortcuts (like assuming a low reflectivity disc is a dual layer disc, rather than reading the proper parameter from the media).
The design characteristics of DVD+RW are such that it works well for randomly written data, and is compatible with DVD-ROM drives.
In short, DVD-RAM only works if the reader was deliberately designed to read it. DVD-RW is readable by properly designed ROM readers, but is a very fragile format. Finally, DVD+RW is readable in properly designed ROM readers, and has the most robust inherent design.Standards that describe these DVD formats are available from ECMA.
Disclaimer: I work for HP, and used to work in their DVD group. Opinions expressed here are mine, not HPs.
Sorry, but there is no way that players not conforming to the standard are `illegal' in the sense of the law. If they were, then there would be many manufacturers of early DVD players who would be being sued by consumers for non-100%-conforming players, which wouldn't play their discs properly.
Hmmm, consortium-based standards.
a good site is:
vcdhelp.com
which is generally for VCD's, which will only play on "compatible" dvd players.
However, they have lots of background information, including a huge section on DVD players with compatibility information - showing which will play DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW. Also sections on all kinds of other issues. I believe they have the domain dvdhelp.com, but there's not much to it.
They also have a huge, well documented and well organized Links section to other information.
Who the hell decided to use the abbreviations "DVD-RW" and "DVD+RW" for two significantly different formats? These couldn't be more confusing, especially since there is no clear way to even verbally articulate the difference. Why not "DVD-RW1" and "DVD-RW2"? Hasn't the hardware industry learned the lesson that causing confusion for consumers is detrimental to them?
The only certainty is entropy.
uhm, don't know if you noticed this or not, but we spent a whole day covering that. To stop what we are doing to cover it more would be giving victory to the terrorists, we need to keep going. If we stop all that we do just because something horrorable happened then we loose, also covering this trivial stuff keeps peoples minds off of the atrocities that happened yesterday, and that is a good thing. Keeping the peoples minds off of the horrorable events will help the depression that we all feel towards the cowards that caused them.
In a way slashdot is providing a service to the american public and the rest of the world by simply carrying on with what they do. Do not say this is trivial, do not say this is monstorous, do however say that this is the right thing for them to be doing. By doing this we are helping to fight off the evil that tried to demoralize and destroy the american people. Sometimes the most appropriate action is to not take action at all, to instead just go about your business. I think they are doing a good job at what they are supposed to do. Also, remember that this site doesn't just cater to the Americans, that it caters to the rest of the world as well, and i seriously doubt that they want to hear as much about the death and destruction as we will be hearing in the next couple days. Also, what you should be doing is saying prayers, giving blood, and donating money if you that that will help, complaining things online does nothing. Bitching will get you nowhere, only actions will.