HP DVD+R Writers Examined

tedgyz writes "CDR-Info has an article on the new DVD-writer lineup from HP - the dvd200i and dvd200e. Both of these models include support for DVD+R. In light of the recent review by "The Tech Report" noted in a recent slashdot article, this is a very important step in the evolution of recordable DVD." I've got a USB HP external burner which works great - I'm strongly considering buying one of these.

Comments

HP.

[saintlupus]

I've got a USB HP external burner which works great

Hang on to it. You got the only one.

The poor RMA guys at HP know most of my coworkers by voice since we bought some of those.

--saint

I beg to differ...

[bmooney28]

Pioneer DVR-AO3 can be found at pricewatch for under $380; DVD-RW media can be purchased for $4 each, again found through pricewatch. These prices reflect a drive that writes CD-R/CD-RW/dvd-rw/and dvd-r... (Note that for video compatibility, dvd-r runs around 95% with current players, while dvd-rw and dvd+rw both work with around 30% of current dvd players...) At any rate, I do highly recommend the Pioneer model mentioned above... I purchased it from MicroPro.Com ($379) 2 weeks ago, and media from QTCCDR.Com ($4/each). To put the cost of media in proper perspective, at this price, you would only pay 50 cents more for a 4.7 GB of mp3's on DVD-RW vs the same on 80min CD-R's (assuming 50 cents each...)

My opinion: Don't buy HP DVD+RW!

[no_such_user]

... or any other manufacturer (Philips, for example) that put out a 1st generation DVD+RW drive and refused to honor their promise to support DVD+R on those drives.

To make a long story short, HP, Philips, and others marketed their 1st gen drives as being DVD+RW, with DVD+R supported by a to-be-released firmware upgrade. Now, six months later, they (quietly) claim that the drives are physically unable to write to +R media, and are being elusive in making good on their promise to support that cheaper, more compatible media.

dvdplusrw.org is a great place to get more information on the media and current state of the community. It will also give you updates on what these manufacturers are doing to support their early-adopter customers.

Re:My opinion: Don't buy HP DVD+RW!

[Zed Pobre]

It was a screwup on HP's part, and according to one poster, they are offering refunds to those people who bought the drive on the assumption that it would later support DVD+R.

Incidentally, HP is the only company that I know of that promised DVD+R support. IIRC, Philips only said that they *might* support DVD+R in a future firmware update, but didn't promise anything. The spec sheet on the box did not list DVD+R support.

Re:My opinion: Don't buy HP DVD+RW!

[Zed Pobre]

Huh... <...yanks box out to look at it again...>

I think it's referring to the ability to read DVD+R discs there. Note that on the lower left box on the back, it's talking about burning from a camcorder or VCR, and that that format will be compatable. I'll admit that the "Archive up to..." line is a bit deceptive, though, since it implies that you'd be doing the archiving from the device in question.

When I was mentioning the tech specs on the box, I was referring to the panel on the side of the box entitled "Technical specifications:" where it says: "Compatability for writing: CD-Recordable and CD-ReWritable, DVD+RW", but no mention of DVD+R. In light of this, I'm not entirely sure where I stand. In my mind, when I purchased the thing, it was entirely clear to me that I couldn't expect to use it to burn DVD+R discs, but I do see how someone could have been confused by that one back panel, but only if they didn't bother to read the technical specifications. Considering the amount of vague, misworded, or downright misleading advertising considered "acceptable" today, though, I'm not sure it warrants singling out Philips for attention.

Here's the Source of the Article from Yahoo

[NewbieSpaz]

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020311/110222_1.html

my take....

[-=Izzy=-]

I bought a HP dvd100i dvd+rw about 2 months ago. I havent had any problems with it yet. My only gripe is the lack of decent dvd authoring tools. Granted, Ulead's dvd studio is available, but the menuing (is that a word?) leaves much to be desired. nevertheless its good to see that dvd burners are becoming more and more mainstream.

Video DVD Burning Under Linux Almost There

[FreeUser]

Normally I wouldn't respond to my own post like this, but today while perusing the dvdrtools user mailing list archive I came across this encouraging tidbit:

> I just like to inform you about some preliminary wip howto-draft I've
> put up at http://www.vcdimager.org/dvdv.phtml

I've successfully written a video DVD with dvdrecord (mastered on a
friend's windoze partition though, as we don't have vob/ifo generators
yet), so steps 3 and 4 are working.

ifo files will be a large problem - they're (mostly) undocumented, and
require all sorts of weird stuff (such as start sectors of vob files,
which probably can't be determined by anything running prior to mkisofs).

Do you have any code to start from yet? (I do, but it doesn't do too much
yet. Mostly analyzes existing ifo files to help figuring out their
layout.)

Looks like we're closer than I thought to being able to burn our home videos to DVD, all with free(dom) software!

Re:i hear apple is going to support this:

[dunkelfalke]

afair it is a pioneer drive. you can buy the drive for pcs too