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HP DVD100i DVD+RW Burner Tested
An anonymous reader writes: "I'm fairly sure this is the first review of a DVD+RW drive. Looks like it fared well in testing. The only downsides to the 100i are slow DAE with audio CD's, lousy manuals, and it can't read DVD-RW (note the dash instead of the plus) discs. Still a tad expensive at 599USD though. Are you reading, Santa?" I want this as a heavy-duty *external* drive :)
Does it encode Macrovision or region coding into discs?
An anonymous reader writes: "... Are you reading, Santa?"
Yes, but who do I deliver to?
-Santa
Just for a point of comparison... how does this differ from the Apple SuperDrive DVD writer (you've seen the ads) which is included in high end Powermacs? According to Apple's website the SuperDrive is a DVD-R drive, which I was told, couldn't write DVD-Video... so how are they accomplishing it?
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
this is great. $600 now means they'll be $150 three years down the line, and they'll be as ubiquitous as CD-RWs are now.
:D
boy there's gonna be some piracy problems
Uhm, why? I always wondered what it was about people and external drives. Do you plan on swapping this across multiple systems? Or do you just want to be "cool" for having an external DVD+RW? From what I've seen, most external CD-like solutions are enormous, unless you get a PCMCIA slimline version, but I don't see any slimline DVD burners coming out any time soon, heh.
Note that dvd+rw and dvd-rw drive can both write dvd-r disks that can be played in a standard dvd player. So it's not quite vhs vs. betamax.
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Maybe the poster of this article should look for reviews of Apple's G4 desktop macine, it's been shipping with a Panasonic DVR-103 DVD-RW drive as standard for quite a while now.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
/.
While DVD+RW may eventually become the industry standard, you're still gambling until a true standard unequivocally (sp?) emerges.
Look at what 56Kb modem prices did once the v.90 standard was published.
SO, I'm still waiting!
--Charlie
I went to Bestbuy last night and saw a generic CD-RW drive for $79 before rebate. If you shop around, you can get CDR's or CDRW's for about $.50 apeice, usually with a rebate that makes them more or less free.
You can also get a DVD-Rom drive for about $100.
All this considered, it would literally be cheaper to buy both drives than the all-in-one combo. Even if it did manage to burn DVD-RW, it would still be cheaper in terms of media cost to have both drives and burn data onto CDR or CDRW... that is... unless you actually *need* an entire DVD-RW's worth of storage capacity in contiguous media.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
First DVD-RAM, then DVD-RW, then DVD+RW... the industry's parade of new and different recordable DVD formats has got to be awfully confusing to consumers. Until this article, I certainly couldn't keep them straight.
The funny thing is that the faster they crank out these new formats, the faster the previous ones become obsolete. We are accumulating dead media at a faster and faster pace. Will anyone own a working DVD-RAM drive in 10 years? Woe to those businesses, individuals or organizations who chose this as their archival medium...
I hope I'm incorrectly calculating that a full 4.7GB write would take 3.6 hours.
Can you write data onto a DVD+RW disc and then read it with a DVD reader?
nothing guarentees ubiquity except time.
perlgolf: the only place where shorter is better
I have one of those (DVD recorder is on the list to get) and it works fairly well. Get the Pinnacle DVD authoring software ($40 at Best Buy) because the bundled software isn't any good.
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Hmmm, so all the hype here really is over a drive that is rewriteable and has the capability to hold how much data? 18 GB total maybe? Plus they're sort of slow. Then again, the first CDR drives were painstakingly slow as well.
:o) Alas, such things are not in the forefront of the news as I guess most companies are scared to invest in something so powerful.
:-)
My feelings are two folded. I guess I am happy that the DVD+RW is finally around, mostly because I don't want to see DVDs go to the wayside like many economists were saying that they would (then again, what do they know really?). But at the same time, with companies like Constellation 3D out there with their Flourescent technologies out there, I'm wondering why this sort of media storage hasn't been developed more. Constellation 3-d uses a flourescent technology to store up to 140 GB of data on a single disc. This would be more than enough to be like that of HDTV
Oh well, like others I'd love for Santa to bring me an external unit...
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
At $15.99 a disk, the cost they mention in this CNet article http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-6909288.html from August 19, I don't think its all that affordable. With the drive costing $600, the total costs would just be too high. Sure you can record repeatedly for each $16, but you're going to want to have more than one thing on disk at any one time, requiring additional disks. I realize that's cheaper than competing DVD rewritables so far, but still too much.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
The best site I've found that goes through all the differences between DVD formats is in the DVD FAQ at DVD Demystified
I cannot wait till 4+ gig DVD-RW and such are standard on all computers.
I remember way back to the 1st time I used a 1.44 meg disk and how big it seemed back then.
I had a friend that had a early DVD-RAM drive about 2 years ago.. it was unbeleivable to put 2.7 on each side of those disks.. Never mind they were like $30 to $40 a disk or more and only would work in that one drive.. LOL
Anyone want to take a guess what we will concider normal storage on a computer a year from now??
I waited on the 56k v.90 standard for a while and I can wait on this to get sorted out too. If it were something a little bit cheaper then I would not mind spending the money on this, but since they cost >$500 I will wait.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
Can this drive make perfect copies of DVD movie disks? For backup purposes, of course.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Privacy...hell...no...remember...they are outlawing DeCSS....no way we can copy dvd's without DeCSS
So will this drive be able to get past the Super Audio CD protection that Sony is imposing on consumers? What about that law that says pretty much that you're allowed to make a back up of everything you own? Hmmm, I don't like the looks of this. I mean sure, piracy = bad. I guess you could say that I'm not the most careful person with my coasters, err, cds, so if one bites the bullet, that's what the backup is for. Maybe DVD+RW will come to the rescue :o)
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
it's not like these things haven't been around for a while. check pricewatch. i got someone a refurb toshiba dvd-ram in february 2001 for $200.
chris
Just slap the drive into an external SCSI case and off you go. Some of my friends use external SCSI cases with a CD-ROM drive as a CD player.
marotti.com
hi,
i've had one of these for the last month and have found it to be an incredibly reliable and useful tool.
i haven't run across a bad cd/dvd write yet with it, and while the software is very vanilla, it is still quite useful.
installation was very simple, and with media prices dropping, i'm happily looking forward to finally feeling secure about having enough back-ups...
-myrth
-- ABAP Guy
http://www.thetechnozone.com/pcbuyersguide/hardwar e/storage/HP-dvd100i.html
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
If you want the HP DVD+RW drive as an external, get a Firewire external chassis like the ones from http://www.apdrives.com . I have not specifically tested the HP drive in one of these, but everything else I've tried works great.
It looks like Pioneer's drive is now cheaper than the new HP one, and I think the disks are cheaper, too. Plus, it is readily available, and so are the DVD-R's and DVD-RW's. It also works with Linux, at least to write CD's. I've done it.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
IIRC, you dont need DeCSS to read the files, just need DeCSS to decrypt the mpeg streams.
direct disc to disc copy should work just fine though.
Otherwise, this _would_ make a nice backup medium though. For personal use it seems to expensive for me still, although CD-R/CD-RW's give me headaches sometimes (they're well... too small and stuff). Actually, I use 'em almost as floppies somewhat.
Also, the thing is that there is also an RIAA tax (am I right here?) that makes all of this even more expensive... I don't see myself switching over to DVD-R or DVD-RW just yet, nor do I see others do it, for the concerns expressed above.
...It's called a hard drive. They're REALLY cheap these days, and they have INCREDIBLY FAST seek times. Oh, and they can be written to and read from without any additional software. Oh, and they're compatible with ANY operating system.
Seriously, though...these things are still WAY too expensive to justify buying one, unless you're one of those guys making a six-figure salary who buys everything, no matter the cost. Then again, i guess they have to go through this phase before they're going to bring the price down anyway, so whatever. But for now, I'll take a bunch of hard drives over a DVD-RW or DVD+RW any day.
I have had very bad luck with HP Optical products in the past. The net effect really is that you're not buying the product in question, you're renting it for the warranty period. This is because they self destruct at day # (warrenty + 1), and their out-of-warranty repair charge is (price of new drive * 0.99).
AFAIK DVD+RW drives cannot write to DVD-R media.
There will be a supplemental media released
"early" next year... DVD+R which will fill the
cheap recordable gap in the media line for
DVD+RW drives.
For the time being the only media you will be able to
get for the HP, Phillips, and so forth drives will be DVD+RW.
Which is one of the reasons I am holding off (saving up) for
a drive in a few months.
1. It will be clearer which standard is more compatible.
2. The media selection for both should be better at that point.
When DeCSS first appeared, I remember pundits saying, "Oh well, no biggie, nobody has that much disk space to spare." Repeat after me: Moore's Law. Moore's Law. Moore's Law.
Look at what the prices did once the standard was published, eh? Nothing! They didn't go anywhere! The reason modemn are so cheap is because they are winmodems! The good modems, such as the USRs, haven't ever changed in price, from the $99.99 I paid about 4 years ago, to the $99.99 they are charging now. Or $119.99 for their "gaming" modem. No, there's a bit more volume on modems, but the prices didn't change a bit, not because of the standard.
I put one in one of my Linux boxes last week. So far, I have read CD-Audio (grip) and CD-ROM (iso9660), DVD-ROM (iso9660), and a Video DVD ("Chicken Run") with no problems. I have written to CD-RW media, both CD-Audio and CD-ROM, with cdrecord.
As soon as I get some time, I will test DVD-Video and DVD-ROM formats on DVD+RW media. Any idea where I should post the results?
Did anyone else notice their "reliable" testing box was overclocked?
I couldnt help but respond in this way to a post like this sorry for the off topicness but isn't a dog the best place for the lord to hide weed never assume that the things our loyal pets do had anything grander in mind but think of all the heroic kind and loving things dogs do so I choose now to start a list that I hope others will add to 1. Dog is mans best freind, man is gods best freind...I hope.
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 :-)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
You would think the DVD-RW format would sound like the perfect solution. Unfortunately, there are some limitations. Probably the biggest issue right now is that not all DVD video players or DVD-ROM drives can play these discs. The other problem is recording video. This format does not support efficient encoding of video using variable bit rates. This limits the recording speed to only 1x and it can take a good 1 or 2 hours to write a DVD movie.
You would think there would be a better solution. So did a few other companies. These companies got together and formed the DVD+RW Alliance. The DVD+RW Alliance was originally formed by Dell, HP, Mitsubishi Chemical, Philips, Ricoh, Sony, Thomson Multimedia and Yamaha. You can see that this group was made up of leaders in the optical storage industry as well as in many other aspects of computing. Their solution was the DVD+RW format.
If these companies would give _me_ free equipment, I guarantee reviews that are at least written by someone with a better grasp of the written language.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
The technology is there but the media prices are ridiculous. DVD-R prices hover at around 15 to 25 bucks. The drives are not too bad, the HP drive goes for around $560 street but until the media comes down to earth it doesn't seem worth it for me. Now if I had an interest in video, I would pick it up in a heartbeat.
I personally want to see CDs and DVDs eventually (meaning I know they won't die off tomorrow) be faded out in favor of say 1394b buses + compact flash, smartmedia cards, SSDs, or <insert_your_fave_really_fast_non_volatile_mem_ type_here> :)
I mean think of the access times, Megs/sec, the size of the media, reliability, possible applications... It just seems the intelligent choice to make (and if not flash memory, maybe IBM's magnetic RAM or some similar non-volatile mem)!
The HP dvd100i also uses RPC-2 for region protecting. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware itself. You can change the drive's region five times and after that you cannot change it anymore.
Bummer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
http://www.dvdwriters.co.uk
This web site has some info on dvd recorders.
Apple troll
Heh. With witty comebacks like that, I can imagine Oscar Wilde will soon be forgotten. That poor AC will never know that you burned him so bad behind his back.
Seriously, though. Why do some of you troll? I'm asking you for a serious thought out answer. Can you give me one? Is there some story in the backgruond about why you do it?
"Derp de derp."
What is best for writing dvd video discs?
the only reason I want a DVD-R or RW or +rw or a r*(rw/r)^rw or whatever they want to call it this week is to make my own DVD flicks (Ok and maybe backup my PS2 DVD's..) but mainly for taking my DV cam's video and spitting it to a nice disc for friends, relatives, archival... basically to completely remove any need for VHS.
What drives will write a disc that is readable in any DVD player I wander up to?
what drives are supported under linux?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Fry's is selling 80 GB harddrive for $120 albeit after $50 main-in rebate. These are Seagate 7200 rpm barracuda drives.
For DVD+RW check this site For DVD-R(W), check this one: http://www.abcpages.com/~mache/cdrecord-dvd.html mache
The legions of anal retentive grammar nazis rise to salute you! All hail the king and master of the English language. May the sun never set on your perfectly parsed and formatted kingdom! I pine for the day when one so masterful as you can have full editorial control over all of the content across this vast network.
Please accept my apologies in advance for the shoddiness of this post. Alas I am just a poor grammar serf. I don't have the same divine control over the English language as your Royal Grammar Highness.
- Toby
Checkout the DVD+RW Alliance's page for more info.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I have the Pioneer DVR A03. It records DVD-R, and DVD-RW both. I also have a 3 year old Pioneer consumer DVD player. I assumed that DVD-R's will play on the DVD player, but what surprised me is that I was even able to play DVD-RW media on my DVD player!
A little off-topic: From experience, Dazzle DVC II is a great card for capturing TV/VHS video. I also have the higher end Dazzle "Dv Now.AV," and it's simply superb. To top it off, it comes with the full version of Adobe Premiere 6.0!
Again, people are commenting who are completly misinformed. Blank DVDs (unless you get a double sided disc, which will not be released at least for another month) only can fit 4.7Gb and most movies take up a much greater amount of space then that. None of the current conumer DVD writers can write the dual-density disks, so you are forced to chop out extras, trailers, vocal tracks, etc. Not to mention that you need to DeCSS the disk first. Even with the best software out there currently this is a very time consuming process.
-eric
-eric
So people will recompress movies to a lower bitrate to fit them in 4.7GB using the MPEG-to-MPEG transcoding tools that are already out there.
The last time I ripped a DVD it went about 2x, which isn't fast but you could easily rip a movie on your lunch break.
I paid around that for my first CDR drive - seriosly. It was Yamaha CRW4001T.
>Is there some story in the backgruond about why you do it?
b0red@work, MEEPT!!!, and Signal 11 would make some good starting points.
Look them up and I think you'll be able to fill in the rest.
I believe that this is the one bundled in the PowerMacs.
Since it burns DVD-R at 2x, DVD-RW at 1x, CDR at 8x, and CD-RW at 4x, and is available for what looks like a relatively cheap price right now, it looks like what I'd put on my christmas list. :-)
Especially since Nero now supports burning VideoCD (mpeg1) and MPEG2 DVDs.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Thank you.
"Derp de derp."
...here.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
DVD+RW is physically able to write to the content protection area of the disk. So with some firmware hack or something it could be done. The problem is that most commercial DVD's use a dual layer format and switches to the other layer part way through. No recorders support this right now so you'd end up with half a movie
You know in your hearts my joke was funnier than the parent!
The main things to consider are the drive itself (speed etc), price (drive & media), and perhaps availability. DVD+RW is supposedly a little more compatible that DVD-RW, but the difference isn't apparently that large in users' experiences.
That said, I'm personally holding off until DVD+RW drives can also write to DVD+R media. That'll be cheaper than rewritable media, and more compatible (rewritable discs - of either standard - have different reflective properties, which confuses some older players into thinking it's a double-layer disc).
HP don't have a clear position on whether current dvd100i drives will be firmware-upgradeable to support DVD+R (Ricoh make the drive unit itself for HP, and they won't say either). When I know that the drive I buy will do this too, I'll be first in line :-)
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Or you can just go for a $50-100 analog capture card (with no DV support).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
If you're doing open-air miking of live sets, why go through the effort of lossless compression?
I would think that some of the higher bitrate MP3 stuff would give you all the audio quality you need.
If you were doing soundboard stuff it might be different, but I have a hard time seeing an amateur open-air recording being good enough to require lossless compression.
And give me the complete address.
Love,
Osama, I mean, Santa.
I think the multiplication factor for DVD is 8 or 9 times faster than that for CD.
In other words, while 1x equates to 150-KBps on CD, it is about 1.25-MBps (or 1250-KBps) on DVD.
This is just what I think. The truth should be along these lines, but forgive me if I err.
First, metaphor and usage have extended the application of of the term "Moore's Law." If it were a real scientific law, that would be uncool (thought still inevitable). But it's not. It's just a observation about manufacturing costs.
Second, the number of transistors you can pack onto a chip has everything to do with the cost and power of electronic products. Prove me wrong: build a DVD player using vacuum tubes!
Um. Unless you're running a *serious* corporation's IT section, the degree to which DVD-RW\? is *already* proven is more than sufficient.
:) shorter MTBF, but high probability that the next one you're going to purchase will be $200 at Wal-Mart rather than $900 from a reseller specializing in obsolete media formats. Additionally, your media that can read from almost any modern computer, which can SAVE YOUR BACON during a serious crisis.
:)
For a small business, you have the following options:
(1) Tape drive storage. More space than you probably need in the immediate future, high-ish price, proprietary format (usually) and the usual incompatibilities between various OSes. Large, but not infinitely so, MTBF. Unusual drivers. Exotic hardware. High TCO.
For instance, at work we used to have a setup with a DP-30 Onstream parallel port 'Windows Tape Drive'. Terrible story: When the drive died, we lost access to 2 years of backups. Furthermore, even before its demise, it never really worked right. The W2k drivers were almost completely broken, and in fact the blasted thing would refuse to install itself on W2k-server, apparently because the included software (incl. driver!) was intended for 'personal backup' (read: had crippled fileperm/ownership handling) and therefore wished us to buy a 'real' archiving package in order to store the measly ~4gb of critical data. Evil! Bad!
Since the dratted thing also wouldn't talk dirty to WinME, we eventually ended up re-installing 98SE on a machine in the corner, which would drag 4gb of server-side data across the network every friday night. I was almost in tears from the aesthetic trauma alone, not to mention frustration.
(2) DVD storage. Improved versatility, cheap-ish media (esp. if you're re-writing). Reliable media with a very nice lifespan.
Yes, I hear you say, but what about that time when you *really* *really* need capacity? Well, with compression -- which is what all the tape drive figures are assuming, BTW -- you get ~9G of storage; having to swap CD's a couple of times for a large backup isn't that onerous.
Only when you're at the 5-6 swap-per-backup point -- that is, ~50gb+ -- do you really need to consider a more industrial solution. And at that point, you're interested in a $1700 tape drive, not a $400 model.
But what about Moore's law? Surely in a couple of years, your capacity needs will (at least) double?
Well, aside from being an incorrect application of Moore's law, this 'law' simply fails in the face of fact. We've been in business ten years, and in that time our data requirements have gone up from virtually nil to 4gb. Another 4gb in ten years is credible, so that's the figure we run with. (We're not a dot-bomb; no explosive growth, no explosive fall, just steady improvement in sales.)
Also, don't forget that a DVD backup solution (once the drives are cheaper) will allow 'localized' or 'workgroup' backups, wherein five or six computers handle their own data storage and backup. Rather than driving the whole wad of data over the LAN, we can just use cron to burn to disc in each workgroup, and collect those.
AAR, the small company I work for has had no problem with our DVD-backup solution. I should know; I'm the one who advocated and installed it.
- undoware.ca
HP makes both DVD-RW and DVD+RW...make sure you know what you are talking about...the DVD+RW is the individual drive, DVD-RW is what they put in their built systems. Go to any circuit city and check out the build it yourself station, and build an HP P4, no price limit, the top system will have a DVD-RW drive.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
Alright, so I'm lazy. Can someone please answer me this: is it possible yet for me to take my DivX ;-) movies, turn them into VOB files, burn them, and play them in my DVD player? Last I checked the answer was an uncertain "no." Or, more accurately, I tried to figure this question once before and was unpleasantly surprised to discover the myriad of formats out there: DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, blah blah. Every player seems to be incompatible with about half of them, but it's never the same half. So I assumed no. Has anything changed?
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
.... I'm still wanting a CD-RW, forget the DVD anythings! I have 2 cd rom drives (One being a DVD drive but anyway) and I still don't have a CD burner,..
Now, I'm still thinking that why don't we just stick with the poor buck a piece CDs which hold plenty of data, instead of trying out this newer technology just yet... I know I still have to be really careful with my DVD drive, as afaik, DVD drives have a tendancy to break after relatively short time spans, especially when you start using the cd rom AND dvd drive capabilities.
The fuss is simple, people just have big egos which they like to primp up using their computers. Well... well... fine then! I have a gig athlon with cd dvd and a ls120 drive! (
Seen it once seen it twice... if you want to have muscle matches boys (and girls!), get a 64-1/2 ford mustang all original parts... then you can boast. (or sell it and make 200k...)
-- RJ
Interesting. Thank you for giving me a thoughtful answer. I have to admit, my assumption about what I was going to hear back was ill concieved. I was expecting to hear something along the lines of "because so and so is gay", with really nothing more insightful than that.
:)
Bad of me to make assumptions. Good luck.
"Derp de derp."
And, of course, you are a totally impartial reviewer of the benifits of this solution.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
The Pioneer DVRA03 is available, for those interested in a DVD-R drive, for around $430. You can get it for $400 if you look around enough. (Try eBay.)
The firewire version of the drive runs around $575, though it's tougher to find.
(And many tv DVD players won't recognize DVD+RW discs, as the HP creates. Make sure you find out before you buy one.)
For me, it's not a question of backing up my HD or making MP3 discs. I want one so I can burn DVD videos of the stuff I record and edit on my D8 camcorder. For that purpose, a DVD-R drive is magnificently suited.