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DVD Burner Round-up
Julio writes "Gone are the days of storage floppies and zip drives... CD-RW drives do an excellent job in making cheap backups and just about every new computer is equipped with one. As computers and software evolve, so will media. DVD burner drives are already optional equipment on many computers, and will probably become a standard within the next year. Are you ready for a DVD burner? TechSpot has posted a round-up of flagship DVD recorders from Plextor, Panasonic and Pioneer."
-- not until all the standards crap settles down and I know what I get wont be useless 2 months later.
I don't even waste a lot of timing reading up on them. Just waiting on the market to decide what will be dominant.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The real reason zips are going away is the key-chain size USB storage device. Why carry around a 100meg disc and have to have a drive installed on both ends (or have to carry the drive itself around) when you can simply stick this pen-sized piece of plastic into the back of a USB port (one of the reasons new models have additional USB ports up front), and boom!, instant 32-256 meg filesystems.
The only significant delay was Windows 98 first edition and Win95, neither of which supported filesystems on USB devices. 98SE and beyond did, so once the majority of windows boxes moved on to 2K and XP, there was nothing stopping them.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
It's interesting to have that much backup space avail for a non-server computer. I got a Powerbook last December with the Super-drive and the only thing I can find to use it for is mostly cd-r. Dvd-r is nice to have, but I don't have much use for it. Maybe someone who d/l's movies or something can do it, but...
Otoh, for making movies and stuff, this is very useful via the whole iMovie (or PC equiv) thing. But where this would really come in handy is on a server of some sort where you have big amounts of data. But even then, you need to back up more than 4 or 5 gigs worth usually, so..
But for the end user, I guess it's nicer to have more than less. Who knows, I might start needing to back up more than 665MB soon..
I'm already favoring the Plextor above all others without even reading the article or doing my own comparisons.
The reason for this?
My Plextor CD/RW.
The lesson is this: If you build quality and get people to trust your brand name (based on prior experience), then the 2nd sale is *much* easier.
C|N>K
A while back I needed a large capacity backup device, and I had to choose between CD burners, Zip drives, Jaz drives, and those old optical disks. At the time, because of hardware and media cost, it would have been a tough decision, but by waiting, CD burners came to the forefront and were the most economical choice.
Where does this tie in to DVD burners? Well, they are a bit expensive (although coming down) and I want to wait to see if a better technology is just over the horizon.
There you go, my two cents, more or less.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
They don't cover Pioneer's newly released DVR-A06 (multi-format) or any of Sony's nice burners.
That's all thats gets me.. The best DVD burner out there is the Sony DVD+-RW 4x..
I could settle this would standards mess with $200. As soon as I buy a -R drive +R would become the standard, and if I bought a +R drive -R would become the standard. My refusal to buy a DVD writer is the only thing keeping the industry from standardizing.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
... using DVDs as coasters for the beer cans!
Even better than the pen-sized piece of plastic is this sweet watch
Yeah- zip drives are pretty pointless as far as I can tell.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like some Mac freak (which I am now :), but I've been doing DVD burning for years now.
:). The network and firewire is just faster. Plain and simple.
You've seen the chart (read the story), right? Yeah -- slow as heck it seems sometimes. The first time I really started using the burner it was on the Mac. Slow enough that I also got a Firewire card for one of the office PC's and confirmed it was, well, SLOW. 99% of my data is sitting on RAID-1 or 5 subsystems and backed up daily (thankfully
For corporate backups the data flows from hard drive to hard drive. Sits on RAID-5 servers going to a portable drive where it is dumped onto RAID-1 subsystems in multiple locations.
DVD is good for archiving movies/home videos in native format (so any DVD player can view them). Decent quality will give you 2 hours per DVD. Many more if you do something like I do and put them in MP4 format (~3 movies per DVD then).
A roaming laptop is great for a quick plug in to watch a archived movie as such. Otherwise any DVD player is good. The problem is it's only 4.7G worth which can easily be eaten up when users have 60-80G hard drives.
1-2G hard drives were the norm once CD-RW became the "norm" and you could do a lot of damage with 600 or 700M CD's. DVD's are barely usable (today) for backup needs and the speed still stinks for all flavors (+/-RW or RAM).
BLUE LASER with +20G is worth waiting a bit longer for, IMHO. That's large enough to be useful for movies (easily) and backing up data in chunks as needed. SPEED will be key or else it'll take too damn long. 4x at a minimum to start.
With blue laser coming along, what, next year (somewhat mainstream realistically)? I'm thinking the industry waited too long and bickered among themselves for too long (+, - or RAM) that the listed technology will be surpassed and old hat. It is for me at least...
I gave up using tape for backups because it was too costly and time-consuming. For my audio engineering work, DVD-R is fantastic. I recently did a project that archived neatly onto 6 DVDs. That cost me a grand total of $20 for media and about the same amount of time to archive as did my Ecrix VXA1. However, the archives are infinitely more accessible, as I can open the disc on any machine with a DVD-ROM, regardless of having a VXA drive around. And, the files are instantly accessible, without having to restore from tape.
DVD-RW is fantastic!
Jory
Please don't buy a combo drive! Then someone would come out with a new format that would become the standard and we would all be screwed.
Not only that, but the prices are coming down quickly, and the capacities are increasing almost as fast--you can get 2GB keychains now.
USB keychain drives are in that silly pricing phase right now where you can pay more for a 32MB model than a 128MB model if you're not careful (the local Walmart had a 128MB model last week for $40.00). High-capacity IDE hard drives went through the same thing.
I think keychain USB drives are going to be a real sleeper hit.
My neighbor picked up one of these and has loved it. The noise output isn't too bad, either. But one thing I'm surprised at is the lack of a review of the Sony DRU* drives. CD Freaks forum members praise this drive over and over, especially since it burns both +R[W] and -R[W] discs. The price isn't too outrageous anymore for a solid drive that burns most any type of media. We burn hundreds of DVDs each week here at the office with little or no problem on our Sony.
With the new high capacity disks/readers coming out I don't see much of a point buying these now.
Why get a dvd that holds a piddly 5gb when you can get 20gb capacity, hopefully these new discs/drives will come down in price soon.
One of the reviewed drives, the Pioneer A05, is the "golden standard" for creating DVDs that will play back easily on set top boxes.
Yes, they don't handle the +R/W standard, but I seriously doubt that -R/W is going away anytime soon. By the time it does, dual drives will be goinng for under $75, so the risk is small.
You can find them for under $150 now, and they work pretty well with cheap media. Although many folks caution against Princo's, I've yet to create a coaster or something that won't play back correctly on a set top with the newer 4x "purple" media. You can get them for just over $1 each in small bulk, too, and they Just Work.
Since the A05 is so popular, you can find all kinds of intriguing hacked firmware and the like that enable new abilities...there's even a rumor going around that the newer, dual media A06 is really an A05 with different firmware. Wouldn't hold my breath, but you never know...
but this review was lame: first of all it's reviewing the Pioneer A05 when the A06 has been available for quite a while (bought one last week, actually) and secondly it does seem quite short on content.
Things that should have been there if this was a decent review:
- speed/performance tests with DVD-RW/DVD+RW media (both, for drives that support both like the A06)
- compatibility tests with DVD+R/DVD-R media (aka burn in one burner, check that it's readable in the others)
- speed tests with CDR/CDRW media
- linux compatibility test (optional, but mentioning xcdroast/prodvd for burning data DVDs and the chain needed to encode video DVDs would've been nice)
- more drives! (LG, LiteOn, Sony + various off-brand ones)
etc. etc. etc.
-- the cake is a lie
1. "Roundup", hardly. Three drives does not a roundup make :(
2. "Expensive". The difference in price from highest to lowest is $45, not too shabby and hardly worth the difference once you take in other considerations (like how many toasters cheap drive a produces). I have fond memories of creating shelves of cd toasters on our $3000 Ricoh 2x CDR when the cd blanks were $25 a piece on this one project. Ouch, thank god we weren't paying for those things, I bet we wen't through over $10K worth of blanks.
3. No checking of valid DVD video. He mentions people wanting to backup their DVD's, but then never tests to make sure any DVD backups actually play in most dvd players. I know for me this is critically important and I would want to see the results of such a test.
Great, now instead of those nice 710MB Divx files, I'll be downloading 4.71GB 'Full Qualify' DIVX's off Kazaa.
At least I will finally get that collection of 710MB Divx's off my to-burn partition.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
I think keychain USB drives are going to be a real sleeper hit.
I would consider one as soon as most of the BIOS makers allow us to boot off of them.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Is there even a point to making disc RW and burners that can do RW? From my experience with CDs, RW are slower to burn, more expensive, and not as compatible. With CDRs costing less than what floppies used to sell for, RW capabilities are pointless. Just pop a new disc in instead. I can see DVDs going the same route as it matures. So why bother wasting the money for RW.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Most new drives are dual-format burners, so it's a moot point anyway. Pioneer has just released their A06 which burns both formats.
But as with all things, it's not always the technically superior product that's the standard, it's whatever is cheapest and easiest for people to get their hands on.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
In the UK a multiformat reader (a pioneer 106) is now the same price as a -R/RW only (a pioneer 105).
Last month a 105 was £200+. Two weeks later the 106 was £200 and the 105 was £100. Now the 106 is £100. (Ish, £130 inc vat - under $200 US.) Media is down to 50p a disk for -R.
For the people bitching about speed, the 106 is a 4x writer (except for DVD-R/RW) which is around 6 _megabits_/second - 4.5gb every 15 mins. You can burn off a 50gb backup in 2.5 hrs!
But in the end, it matters little what you buy, as all new players will be able to read both. It's not like VHS vs Beta, where the things were different sizes, if consolidation happens it will be because of pressure on media prices (2x DVD-RW is cheaper to manufacture than 1x DVD-R and 1x DVD+R) and not because of anything else. After all, do you know anyone who uses CDRWs reguarly? Nope, me either, so the problems with not being able to exchange DVDRW disks will be minimal - and go away entirley as most people will get dual format drives anyway.
Beep beep.
" As soon as I buy a -R drive +R would become the standard, and if I bought a +R drive -R would become the standard."
Great, he bought a combo drive. We all need to switch to DVD-RAM now.
Ok, I admit, I didn't read the article. Why? Because I looked at the drives they're reviewing and knew it was pointless.
First off, they're reviewing the previous generation of DVD burners. The new Pioneer A06 is a multi-format drive, capable of burning everything but DVD-RAM (which is a dead standard - it required usage of caddies and was incompatible with stand alone DVD players). The Plextor and Panasonic are so-so drives at best. They didn't review the Sony, which is considered the other "best" drive (Pioneer and Sony have been the only two major players until recently), which is also multi-format.
There are a ton of new companies on the DVD burner front too -- LiteOn, NEC, Mitsumi, etc. which I suspect OEM either the Sony or Pioneer drives (no, I haven't looked into it enough to know for sure).
If you want a real resource for DVD burner comparisons, don't even bother with Techspot. Their "review" is about 6 months out of date. Instead go to DVDR Help, which is pretty much the place for anything you could want to know about DVD players, burners, software, etc.
Format wars are essentially over too... most new (and even most 2-3 year old) players can read any of the formats except DVD-RAM. The new burners can write any format you choose, and are at or under $200 now (pricing from NewEgg). Buying a single format burner is just silly.
Honestly though, unless you're burning home videos then you're probably still better off with a CD-RW drive. At under $50 it's hard to go wrong, and there's a lot more computers with CD drives than DVD drives. On the other hand, more games are starting to come out on DVD now (HL2 will be, as well as CD and via Steam), so you may want a DVD drive in your computer (although DVD-ROMs are only $30-40, so CD-RW + DVD-ROM is less than half the price and gives you 2 drives).
If you shop around for media, you can find blanks pretty cheap. I think the ones I'm using now cost 1.26 a piece, which is much cheaper than hard drives.
As for movies, I bought my dvd player and burner around the same to time to ensure compatibility. I also have found that ALL of my friends home DVD players can play movies that I have recorded. And I think it would be fair to say, that most of the players have been purchased within the last two years. Of course, your experiences may vary, I have just had great luck with dvd-r/rw.
G
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
The latest in pioneer's venerable DVR-A0x series, the DVR-A06 also does +R/W as well as -R/W.
A quick jaunt around the folks who know the most about media duplication (PS2 and Xbox sceners) tells me this is the machine to own. -R for all your PS2/Xbox "legitimate backups" and +R for all your cheap archiving.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
DVD+R and DVD+RW formats are supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Ricoh, Yamaha and others.
DVD+R is a recordable DVD format similar to CD-R. A DVD+R can only record data once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc can not be recorded onto a second time.
DVD+RW is a re-recordable format similar to CD-RW. The data on a DVD+RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times without damaging the medium.
DVDs created by a +R/+RW device can be read by most commercial DVD-ROM players.
DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM formats are supported by Panasonic, Toshiba, Apple Computer, Hitachi, NEC, Pioneer, Samsung and Sharp. These formats are also supported by the DVD Forum.
DVD-R is a recordable DVD format similar to CD-R and DVD+R. A DVD-R can only record data once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc can not be recorded onto a second time. There also are two additional standards for DVD-R disks: DVD-RG for general use, and DVD-RA for authoring, which is used for mastering DVD video or data and is not typically available to the general public.
DVD-RW is a re-recordable format similar to CD-RW or DVD+RW. The data on a DVD-RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times without damaging the medium.
DVDs created by a -R/-RW device can be read by most commercial DVD-ROM players.
DVD-RAM discs can be recorded and erased repeatedly but are only compatible with devices manufactured by the companies that support the DVD-RAM format. DVD-RAM discs are typically housed in cartridges.
This set of reviews is absolutely useless. They don't do into covering the two most important things in any DVD-Burner: Player compatability and DVD-blank compatability.
All +/-R crud aside (and most of the newer drives like the Sony DRU500 and Pioneer A06 do dual format anyway), the biggest issue for someone who's going to buy a DVD burner is whether the discs they burn will play in their set top player, and other people's. This article doesn't even consider that fact.
Other posters will touch on this I'm sure - DVD's aren't the ideal backup solution. They're alright, but really what DVD is good for is storing video. I think the number of people buying DVD burners to use for backup is a whole lot smaller than the audience who actually want to make DVDs they can play on their television, or bring to their friend's house.
Finally, all these drives are OLD news. The A05 has already been superceded by the A06 from Pioneer, the review doesn't mention a Sony drive at all, and Plextor has just announced their new 8x DVD+R/4x DVD-R burner that will come out sometime in the next month. Perhaps if this review was posted maybe 4 months ago it would be relevant.
I could recommend a bunch of sites with relevant reviews, but I'd rather not get them slashdotted. Check the almighty google for reviews, hopefully ones which aren't practically devoid of useful information like this one.
"I want to get more into theory, because everything works in theory." -John Cash
If possible, I would wait until that hits the marked: Plextor PX-708A
But how long does a burned DVD last? That is my question. I don't want to burn a disk with all my digital photos on it only to find out 5 years later that the dye (or whatever is on a DVD) fades and is no longer readable.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Huh CPU overhead?
It's an ATAPI device, it'll use no more overhead than your hard drive. If it's using any real CPU time, you want to make sure it's using DMA.
Go to your control panel, system properties, devices, select your drive, properties, and check "Enable DMA"
2k/XP - go to the IDE controller and set same for appropriate device.
Of course, if you're encoding/decoding mp3/mpeg/mpeg2 on the fly, that'll use cpu time - but it has nothing to do with the drive.
For you simultaneos burning, put each drive by itself on its own ide channel. Buy an addon card with two ide channels just to run the drives. Or go SCSI if you feel like spending a lot of money.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Chris Finke
18165 County Road 50
Hamburg, MN 55339 USA
Keep up the great work!
Seriously, my MP3 collection is about 15 GB, and that is just the stuff I have taken the time to rip. My CD collection would easily be 10 times that, if I ever get around to digitizing them.
Granted, putting 15 GB on DVDs would be time consuming, but compared to CDRs, it is phenominal. I am kind of holding out for the blue lasers though.
What could you use a DVD+-R for? How about imaging your system for instant restores? Hard to do with CDRs. Disk drives are getting bigger, and we are finding ways to fill them.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
DVD-RAM may be crap, but if you REALLY want it all you've got to wait for the Iomega Super DVD All Format 4X
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Actually, I think Zip disks (and superDisks etc) are going away/gone already because they were too much of a middle step. They were bigger than floppies, but smaller than CDs, and yet the price of 100MB disks never dropped below about $10US each. This meant that they were not disposable the way $0.50 floppies are, and yet don't have the capacity of a CD.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I guess if your looking burn DVD video, then yes go buy a DVD burner, but if it is for storage, just buy another hard drive. You can pick up an external USB 2.0 drive enclosure for $25 if you're looking to take stuff on the road.
It's all very well to rave about using a DVD burner as a backup device but AFAIK there still isn't a Windows server OS that supports DVD burning yet. I haven't looked at this for a couple of months but I was researching this on a couple of HP Servers we had that only had a gig or so of data to be backed up. Pricewise a DVD kills any of the proprietary tape solutions. Tape software is bloated and overly complicated to use and you can only restore files to a server that has the same type of SCSI drive installed in it. DVD backup would greatly simplify the data only backup process for many many small businesses and yet they still get shafted on backup hardware and software that really shouldn't be required in this day and age.
I think it's a conspiracy between the tape vendors and M$. You can't image a Windows Server and you can't backup files on a Windows server using a DVD drive. It would be an ideal solution for many small businesses but the only way to backup files is to do it from a workstation.
It's a real shame too. When a 40GB SCSI tape solution costs $1500+ and most servers come with 80GB of disk space minimum you start to wonder what the backup industry has been doing over the past 7 or 8 years while the hard drive manufacturers have added so much more space to store data.
That's my 2c
John the Kiwi
Since then I've owned three different burners myself and exchanged discs with many people, and the one consistent "feature" seems to be you never know exactly when (or why) a disc will just "go bad." I've had discs that worked one week suddenly refuse to respond the next week even when trying to pull the data off with something like isobuster. I've lost I don't know how many thousands of files like this (no, not just porn) and it's not just discs from my own drives; I can watch one of four discs of the scifi channel's "Dune" series because the other three, which I got from a friend, simply refuse to play. Why? I don't know; there's no shmutz on the disc, and I can't find a single hole.
And that's the other thing: what happened to EFM and redundancy and storing nonconsecutive bits on the disc? A single tiny pinhole should NOT be making an entire file (or, if it's big enough, an entire disc) unreadable. The TDK I got a decade ago can still be read through many scratches. I can only assume it's because of the increased speed we all record at - which tells me that these DVDs - already an incredibly fragile format even in "store bought" form - are going to be even less reliable than CDR. No way in hell will I ever again trust my data to a CD "backup" alone - much less a DVD.
So far as I can see all these are good for is making DVDs - and who cares about those old fashion things any more? Sure, it's alright for bringing home a box of bits from the store - but if you're going to trade with a friend it's just as easy to stick a hard drive in a box. And the data transfer is faster, and the media, ultimately, far more reliable.
The Sony models that do four formats (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW) at 4x speed are going for US$225.
None of the reviewed burners do that.
To be left out of the compairision is like discussing hard drives without mentioning Western Digital.
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As soon as I buy a -R drive +R would become the standard, and if I bought a +R drive -R would become the standard.
Just buy one of those 10 or 15-bay external drive towers. Then, you'd have room for each DVD standard as it emerges while keeping all the old DVD drives around for legacy support. You should also get a PCI expansion enclosure, so you can be sure to have enough SCSI controllers to handle all the external drive towers you will eventually get.
With six PCI slots plus a built-in host adapter, you could, in theory, support 7x15=105--yes, that's 105--DVD standards before needing more PCI slots and SCSI controllers.
I'd say you would need only $15,000 to guarantee 100% compatibility with all the DVD discs you might come across. At such an affordable price point, why are you hesitating?!?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
why would you use +R for archiving vs -R? +R media is definitely more expensive around here BTW
-- the cake is a lie
Everything is standardized.
Any DVD-R drive will work with DVD-R aware software under Linux.
Same with DVD+R - FYI, all DVD-R recording software under Linux is based on cdrecord in some manner, while DVD+R requires some oddball program called "growisofs".
Both DVD-R and DVD+R work under Linux. The software for -R seems more mature though.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The biggest users of Zip disks has to be the print/publishing business. Ad agencies, book publishers, print shops, et al, all have stacks and stacks and STACKS of Zip disks lying around.
The first biggest problem was the price. The per disk cost is still up around $10. I worked at a book publisher and then an ad agency, and I can't tell you how many Zip disks we sent out that were unreturned, in spite of the fact that everyone we send them to knows about the high media cost.
Second, Iomega took too freakin long to get to 750 MB. They were upgraded to 250 MB just as the first wave of CD-RW drives were hitting the market. 650 MB CD-R media prices were in free fall, finally settling at around $1/per, just about the time Iomega came out with the 750 MB zip. A 750 MB Zip disk costs about $15; who the fsck is going to pay 1500% more for only 15% more space? And then who would you send a 750 MB Zip disk to?
And now that broadband internet is common in the business world, transferring 100 MB online is not a big deal anymore. Iomega has become irrelevant.
Well, I got a DVD drive rcently (a Nec 1300) and it writes both - and +. So I had the same problem.
:)
Here is a quick roundup of my DVD writing adventure.
The +RW tools (growisofs and friends) are very easy to use and work out of the box without any complicated thingies. The program has been called "oddball" by another poster. It is oddball and has the problem of having another interface than CDRecord so most GUI clients do not work with it. XCDRoast for instance does not. However, you could make an ISO with XCDRoast and hand-burn it with growisofs if you want.
The cdrecord-prodvd and dvdrecord, the tools for -RW, uses basically the same command line as cdrecord so the GUI clients are easy to use with it. XCDRoast can use cdrecord-prodvd.
However, however, however. The cdrecord-prodvd recording tool for -R/W is commercial. It does allow you to record full length DVD's but only at 1x speed. At 4x speed it limits you to 1 Gig. Its readdvd feature works very well though. And the demo license that allows this will run out soon. Its not open source either.
There is another GNU cdrecord-prodvd clone called dvdrecord but I could not get it to work properly on Suse 8.2. I have to admit that it could have been the discs though. The NEC is sentive to cheap crap DVD-R's (never buy Princo, even if the salesman who sells you the drive tells you so
With -RW you have to blank the disk first, just like CDRW. This did not work with one tool but did with the other but the other tool could record and the one did not. It was a mess. +RW does not need blanking. Pop in the disc and record. Use it again? Pop it in and record again.
In my experience, growisofs, the tool for +rw is easier to use and just works. Nowadays it also can record -RW media but AFAIK it cannot blank a -RW disk.
And it has another sweet feature: There is a kernel driver where you can simply mount your +RW disk as a harddisk and use it as a random-access device.
Of course, DVD-RAM could do this since 5 years ago but the disks are expensive and do not read on normal desktop players. This is an issue for me, because my desktop player can play an ISO full of MP3's and it works with a DVD so I can stuff 50 CD's worth of MP3's on a single disk. Also, few burners handle it, although this is changing.
DVD-RAM is recommended for backups in any case. -RW and +RW both have a maximum amount of times you can write to the disk. RAM does not, you write and rewirte forever. It was designed from the start as a true random-access system.
The maximum write time is a problem with random-access disks because every time you READ a file the Linux fs updates the filesystem to indicate the access time! Do that 1000 times and your +RW disk is wasted. RAM disks on the other hand are designed to be rewirtten pretty much forever.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Some other helpful sites:
Unofficial DVD+RW site
linux dvd+rw info and tools
Some choice quotes from linux info page:
Who is going to be the standard is irrelevant. -R has a better support on existing devices, cheaper media and all devices (existing and future) are going to be able to read it.
Where's the risk on buying a DVD-R ?
Even if +R wins the battle in the end, who cares? All your DVD-Rs are not going to the trash can: You can still read them on every device. And you're going to find blank media for some time anyways.
Now if you want to buy the more expensive and less compatible standard, go ahead...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Oh, shut up. Those silly Macs will try to boot off anything that even looks like it might have a filesystem.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
The article starts off saying "With 300 gig drives hitting pavement...." DVD drives hold about 4G of data. It doesn't sound realistic to back up a large amount of data in chunks that are approx 1/100th the size of the media. It's in the same ballpark as saying you'll use floppy drives to back up a CD's worth of data. Sure, technically you can do it... but it's not realistic.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Ok, I'll try and explain it once more.
Let's take the analogy of VHS vs. Betamax. People that went with the (now dead) Betamax format are screwed now because all their tape are as good as dead. In this case going eith the technically superior format was a mistake.
How come the DVD format war doesn't apply here?
You CAN read a DVD-R on a DVD+R drive. You CAN read a DVD+R on a DVD-R drive.
Now let's say you buy a DVD-R (because it's technically superior). All DVD players (ROM, boxes, Video etc...) will ALWAYS support your format. In fact you can read your DVD-R in most DVD players that were release before the DVD-R discs even existed.
So when DVD-R is going to die (if that ever happens), all your DVD-R that you have burned in the meantime (music, movies, data, etc...) are still going to play in ALL the players out there.
That's the main difference between DVD and VCR analogy. When Betamax died, you couldn't watch your videotapes anywhere because you needed a BETAMAX VCR to read them.
In the case of DVD-R or DVD+R, you don't need a DVD+R or DVD-R drive to read them, you need a DVD Drive. And they are not likely to die soon.
But why bother. I already explained that in your parent post. You probably didn't read through it anyways. So you're not likely to read through this one either...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I am (as I type this) wrestling with a Pioneer DVR-104. Ive updated MB bios, the drive's bios, this that and the other thing. Running under Windows XP Pro, and HATING the damn thing...
The Pioneer is max 4x burning speed with DVD-R recordables.
The Panasonic is max 2x burning speed with DVD-R recordables.
So the panasonic already lost even before the shootout was started. All of these drives do either only + or - burning but not both. So if i was looking for a new DVD burner today i would leave these drives inside the shop.
I would opt for the NEC 1100A or the Pioneer DVR-A06 as they burn both + and - media. It seems however that Plextor also will bring a dual-burn (+ and - burn capabilities) drive shortly.
So if your looking for a DVD burner which should last for some time, don't buy any drive from the report. If you want a cheap reliable drive and don't mind the burning format , take either the Pioneer DVR-A05 or the Plextor PX-504A.
Robert
One thing for OSX users to keep in mind is that iDVD will only work with the Apple drives. However the Apple drives are actually Pioneer drives. So if you want to buy a DVD writer and use the rather nice iDVD you should get a Pioneer DVR-103 or DVR-104.
There is a changing preference from the journalists, but basically, here are the technical facts:
...). If you click on DVD-R, you get 1484 results. Click on DVD+R: 1045 player only matches.
1. You usually find faster burners for +R than for -R (in the order of 2.4 vs. 2)
2. DVD-R plays in a wider range of set top boxes / Video dvd players. This means that the movies of your holidays that you're going to burn will play on a wider ranges of video players with the -R technology than the +R.
For an evidence of my assertion, go to http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ and click on "DVD-Players" on the left. This list represent "all" the DVD players available on the market since the creation of the DVD-Video (or pretty close) and can tell you which DVD player plays which formats (DVD-R, DVD+R, CDRW, CDR,
3. DVD-R are cheaper than DVD+R, DVD-RW are cheaper than DVD+RW. Just go check the prices on amazon.com or anywhere else (Amazon might not be the best example)
4. DVD+R is backed up by bigger companies with bigger bucks than DVD-R. This explains IMHO the good press that DVD+R is having these days. It will probably not help them impose their standard as "THE" standard.
5. Most DVD-R burners read DVD+R, where most DVD+R burners don't read DVD-R. Another good reason to buy a DVD-R burner: You can read every single DVD burned.
Giving that, I bought a Pioneer A04 19 months ago and I don't regret it. Even if DVD-R is to die (and I doubt it) I will not regret having bought a DVD-R.
As I said, my DVD-R are DVDs, they will play forever (or at least for as long as they last as a media) in any (or most) DVD player.
Write boring code, not shiny code!