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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 :)
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
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
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...
There are plenty of advantages to an external. First: an external must by SCSI, 1394, or USB, so it won't use up one of your limited motherboard IDE ports. Second: you can swap an external between many systems -- beats having to transfer gigabytes of data over a network. Third: you can turn an external off when you aren't using it. My external CD-RW has probably been on for less than 2 days in the three years I've owned it. This will extend its life. It also saves energy. Fourth: with all external drives, you can have a pizza-box computer. If you want hard disks, cd, cd-rw, dvd, and dvd-+rw in the same case, it has to be an enormous tower.
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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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 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)
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.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
...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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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