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 :)

Comments

PC Magazine Review

[wiredog]

Right here. They compare it with the Sony dvd+rw.

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.

Re:Comparison to Apple SuperDrive?

[yipyow]

there are many different formats of dvd recordable/rewritable formats: dvd-rw, dvd-r, dvd+rw, dvd-ram...

http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/video/dvd/

chris

Re:Comparison to Apple SuperDrive?

[Spencerian]

The SuperDrive is Pioneer's DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It does it all, including burning of DVD video (up to 2 hours with iDVD 2, Apple's free software for assembling video with a DVD interface that works on any DVD player or DVD-equipped computer).

There's still lots of infighting for standards, and the SuperDrive is list priced at $899, so I wonder which is the better bargain. "Combo" drives (plays DVDs, read/writes CDs) are used a lot with Apple hardware, and should be easily available for PCs, so I wonder what makes this drive so special.

Recordable DVD format chaos = more dead media

[Artifice_Eternity]

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...

VHS to DVD

[wiredog]

Now you can move your vhs tapes to dvd for less than $1,000. The Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge is $300 (it comes with a ieee 1394 card (Lucent chipset)) and converts analog inputs (from the composite video jack on the tape deck) to digital video, which goes over the 1394 link. The VCR looks like a digital camcorder to the card. Be advised that DV takes up about 15Gb/hr.

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.

Cost

[hether]

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.

DVD Demystified

[Agave]

The best site I've found that goes through all the differences between DVD formats is in the DVD FAQ at DVD Demystified

Re:Comparison to Apple SuperDrive?

[bigdavex]

and DVD-R (there are no DVD-Rs available AFAIK, but all DVD-R recorders can also burn DVD-RWs),

This isn't true. We have a Pioneer S201 which burns only DVD-R, not DVD-RW. Perhaps you mean the other way around?

Re:Price of Media, Price of Hardware

[sacremon]

CD-RW drives cannot burn DVD-RW or DVD+RW.

DVD+RW drives cannot burn DVD-RW, and visa-versa (until someone makes a drive that does both).

DVD-R media can be had for as little as $5USD apiece. Given that is 4.7GB, that is the equivalent of about 7 CDR's. Not too bad, in terms of price/MB.

Ever try to back up a 40GB drive to CDR? That's about 60 disks - a real pain. Eight or nine DVD-R's would be much easier and quicker.

That is not correct

[cqnn]

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.

Region Code

[ackthpt]

To answer the other half of your question, from the article:

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.

Pioneer DVR-A03 DV - $400, available now

[Hobart]

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.