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DVD-Rs go 8x
DiZASTiX writes "It seems that the next speed level for DVD Writers is here. "The race for Xs is still on and Plextor has gone into the lead with the PX-708A, what Plextor claims is the first commercialized 8X DVD recorder. At this speed, a 4.5 GB DVD+R takes under 9 minutes to record. That is about the same as a CD in just over a minute. What we wanted to know was whether the reliability and compatibility of blank supports suffer from this breakneck speed...""
Most DVD-R's struggle to work reliably at 4x...
Thought this was kinda funny:
;-)
from this breakneck speed...
Kinda like when the blazing fast 166 MHz pentiums come out, you know in a year people will be scoffing at 8x DVD speed
That description is just begging for someone to read this post a few years down the road and get a good chuckle. Back in the day, 8X CD burners were thought to move at breakneck speeds as well...
Who cares about speed? When will we see DVD-9 DVDs, so we can backup copies perfectly, isntead of having to resort to "shrinking" them to fit on a DVD-5? Is it even theoretically possible to burn multi-layer on a consumer device?
The present media won't stand it. I've yet to see a 4X writer, standalone or SuperDrive in a Mac, that will be 100% reliable at 4X. And if it's not the media, it's the writing technology.
This would be a major breakthrough if it works. IF. I'm skeptical.
Actually ...
its DVD+R at 8x and DVD-R at 4x
I still don't understand removable media such as DVDs. You might be able to burn a DVD at 8x, but you can write to a hard-disk many, many times faster than that, and with removable hard-drives you can carry them around much as you would do with a DVD, at less cost. Does anyone know of any reasons why this technology is any better?
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
I find that unencoding takes much longer than burning. While packet writing with a 2.4x seems to be more than fast enough. With the prices of 4x drives as low as they are geting the price point for 8x just wont be worth it for now.
Sig, You can't handle my Sig
8x is a pretty damn fast write speed for a 2MB buffer. I know Plextor have introduced a whole bunch of buffer under-run stuff, but I for one would be happier with a bit more. (especially since my hard drive is so horribly fragmented....)
8MB wouldn't (shouldn't?) be out of the question for a top of the line product such as this.
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
If you're getting lost, check out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
"That is about the same as a CD in just over a minute."
Well that certainly clears things up.
I'm guessing what you meant to say was that it takes about a minute longer than a CD to burn, but I don't know how that involves the words "same" or "in."
GL
Both the minus and the plus consortiums have announced such players, and have them in demo versions.
Philips intends to release to oem's its dual layer writer around about the same time it releases its 12X drive - which is sometime in febuary. Expect them on the shelves in March.
(The dual layer writer will only go at 2.4X at first though - and when you're burning a single disc and it takes two hours, you will care about speed.)
Id like to see two ratings for burnable media. Something like 8X when new and clean, 2X when smeared with grape jam and peanut butter or somethin. :D
I've had the Plextor drive in question now for bit over a week. Works like charm. Using Maxell's 4x DVD+R discs, which the drive detects to be 'good enough' for 8X, I've now written about a dozen of these with zero problems. It's a Plextor after all, which roughly translates to being the Ferrari of the optical drives...
So yes, based on my personal experience, while Plextor's 708A costs an arm & leg compared to low end DVDRW drives, it works as advertised and burns at 8X without problems to DVD+R discs. Have not tried DVD-R yet, but according to documentation, it's limited to 4X.
You just need to by the right media.
We've (philips) gotten our drives to >99.9% reliability on all branded 4X media that we have been able to find. 8x media is a lot harder to find right now - you *can* burn at 8x on some 4x media (we used verbatim) but it is, as you say, less reliable.
The branded 8x media (there are really only two manufacturers, branded by multiple people) are reliable for 8x writing, but you will probvably want to find which of the two works better for your particular drive.
12x and 16x are going to be really quite evil, since we are having to develop on 8x media and just kinda hope that the 12x / 16x stuff will come along and still work.
is as sticky competition as VHS vs Beta. No matter how fast they are I won't buy a burner until either of them becomes de facto standard. ...oh yeah, I know a lot of burners burn both formats, but it doesn't matter to me. I mean, what happened to DVD-ROM drives nowadays? Does anyone even remember?
You can't connect a removable hard drive to a TV nearly as cheaply as you can put a DVD Video Recordable disc in a DVD player.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Of course it is - I just bought a 4x DVD burner yesterday. 8+(
*glances at the aging, crippled SyQuest disk he's using as a coaster*
Personally I want more space on a DVD. I'm quite happy to wait twice as long if I can store more. In terms of a backup solution
Your typical HD costs 200 pounds for 250GB.
Removeable caddy for HD costs 10 pounds
One-off caddy container for PC is 15 pounds.
A DVD-/+/RW/RAM drive costs 105 pounds.
A DVD-RW holds 4.5GB and costs 17 pounds for 5 (=22.5 GB)
Total cost of 250 GB DVD media is (105+187 =) 292 pounds.
So, the DVD just about scrapes home as cheaper during the third 250 GB. You may be able to get something off if you buy your DVD's in larger bulk - those prices were all I could see offered, and they're the cheap end as well. The "branded" names make the argument even stronger since "Sony" DVD-RW's are 22 pounds, not 17...
On the other hand, you now have 165 DVD's with your data on somewhere. At that rate, it's surely better to have 3 HD's and a caddy slot on your PC ? In an emergency, you can even get by for a day or so using the data live off the disk.
If, however, you want to pirate DVD's and play them in your home cinema, then sure, that extra 7 minutes you'd have to wait over a 4x drive would seem an eternity...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I've always had the impression that gradually incrementing the speed of CD/DVD writers (and other products) is just a matter of marketing and not of actually beeing posssible to offer the technology.
When CD Writers started going up from 8x, 12x, 16x, 24x, 32x, 40x, 52x.... it seemed ridicolous! I simply thought the 52x technology was already available when the 8x was out in the stores.
I know that increasing the writing speed is probably not just making the CD spin faster.. but then, what else is it?
It looks like as if with the DVD, everything is repeating. Can someone give me a reason why DVD writers are not faster already apart from marketing reasons and companies just wanting us to buy all different speeds? Is it actually impossible to have faster DVD writers at market price right now? or is it a technical impossibility?
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
Here is a story about how laser output, drive speed and media properties is related in getting faster DVD writers:o nele_27449 0.html
http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/nea/200311/c
If you really want reliability go with dvd-ram in a cartridge. There is built in error checking as you write and no software is needed. Just mkfs /dev/hdx and mount and go.
Unfortunatly this format hasn't caught on and the latest LG 4040B drive doesn't support dvd-ram with the protective cartridge. It does do dvd-r +r -rw +rw cd-r and cd-rw. Maximum PC mag states it can write a 4g dvd-ram at 3x in 20 minutes and every bit of your binary file *will* be there.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
After getting it for my bday on halloween. Upgrading the firmware. It truly does what's advertised. On select media, if conditions are right it burns at (6x start, 8x finish). A Ripped DVD+R movie at 8x on 4x media plays fine in the $40 dvd player. or chipped ps2 (of course i only copy games for backup purposes).
You can also burn dvd-rw at 2x (no 4x dvd+rw to rest) and that plays in the dvd player and ps2.
The dvd-r's only burn at 4x, but play in the DVD and ps2 player.
The CD-rw's dont got any, but the CD-R's burn in like 3 minutes flat (audio/vcd) and play inthe car/ps2/dvd player.
Hell i got 8 vcd pr0n mpegs, threw them in a nero dvd data disc, and the mpegs just listed in the menu and played in the dvd-player.
rewritables are the affordable option. Since 99% of the data is trash, i'd rather see 8X DVD+RW or DVD-RW, but im sure the media giants backing the development of the drives don't want that! not right now
lol
Great drive. Burns 40x audio cd's on 24x media flawlessly, i explicitly disabled speed control to see if it would create too many errors on the pimp azz imation 24x nope.
Basically plextor own j00.
since my dvds are as reliable as Valve right now.
one day it can read the entire disk, the next if i ask for one 500k file it will say crc error. dvd burning is bullsh*t, much more cheaper just to buy another harddrive.
~Kompressor
I bought a 4X when they dropped to $125, and am pretty happy with it. I won't spring for a faster drive until I can get a DVD-9.
But to my real question: How fast will they go? Most seem to be married to the 33MHz IDE spec on which all removable media are based. IIRC that's one byte (8bit parallel) at 33MHz...or about 25X (118GB/hr) with the bus completely saturated. So, without moving to IDE100 or IDE133, 20-22X seems to be a limiting factor.
Someone above mentioned that 16X DVD speed has the same rotational velocity as a CD at 48X. Now, since 52X seems to be the CD-R limit based on the likelyhood of media disintegration that would seem to limit the DVDs to about 17X.
I suppose there is the proposition that a two laser DVD-9 could overcome the rotational velocity bottleneck by writing to both layers at once, given that the file layout cooperates. And if writing a DVD-18 becomes a possibility (unlikely), then a four laser system could write all four layers at once. But this requires moving the CD/DVD devices beyond the UltraDMA mode 4 they seem limited to.
So...where will the DVD speed end?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm not sure if the Plextor drive came out first, but TDK also offers an 8X CDR/CDRW +- drive as well. We've been selling them at our store for over a week now. Link to 8x drive at TDK
This is my post. Deal with it.
I tossed a black PX-708A into my new box on Friday, and had to give it a few tests.
Does it write at 8X? You bet. 4.38 gigs barely took 8 minutes. 5 DVDs and no failures. My only beef is the drive is a bit noisy. It is definitely the loudest component, by far, in my system.
What surprised me though is Tom's Hardware used the 1.01 firmware, when drives have been shipping with 1.02 for some time, and that 1.03 has been available for over a month. The performance improvements are small, but enough to edge out the old Pioneer in virtually everything now.
----- -----
Hi: When backing up your p()rn, write the date on the disc and transfer it again in under two years. Disc rot on a DVD-ROM is like disc rot on a CD-ROM, only better.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
..here in Finland a pack of ten HP 2.4x DVD+R discs costs 39.00 euro (=US$ 45.00) because of the levies paid to our RIAA/MPAA equivalent - and still it's illegal to backup my own DVD collection on them!
So if I want to backup let's say 80GB of data it will cost me 75 euro while a new 80GB hard drive costs less than 80 euro!
It's a shame your introduction isn't quite a good "sell" of the quality of the article, for example I quote:
Other people should go see the site, here's an HTML link to make it more interesting.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
instead of making FASTER DVD recorders, how about fixed this whole 'this burner only works with these media'.
For CDRW's, I can get any media and it will work...
But DVD-RW/+RW drives (especially the newer ones) seem to only have a limited number of types of media that work on them...
How 'bout we fix THAT before we go for Speed?
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
One of the major reasons is that the media is seperate from the drive that reads it... if your hard drive dies, you're SOL on your data, but if your DVD drive dies, you just get another one.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
You know, I've heard the DVD-RAM argument before. Since I do this for a living right now, let me mention that most people have no idea what they're buying as far as blanks go, nor as to how they treat them.
All media, including +R, -R and -RAM, need to be stored and treated properly. This means: being handled along the edges, using water-based ink pens and not labels with glue or solvent-based inks (and IMO writing along the clear spindle portion of the writeable and instead labeling on the case and making a head title in the DVD itself), storing in a covered case away from dust and mold, sunlight or any high source of EM radiation, temperature/humidity extremes, cycles of wide temperature/humidity change. This is where most people screw up, and where most people need to be educated.
Beyond that, you need to choose a blank that has good quality and the right format. Now, since the DVD Forum that makes all standard DVD players and, therefore, gives the user the best chance to play these discs 20 or 30 years down the road recommends DVD-R, use DVD-R. +R has known compatibility problems with older players though it has technical advantages. +RW and -RW are designed to be rewritten and for that reason the dyes used have less stability IMO. -RAM has inline error correction, but so do +R and -R (something like Reed-Solomon or Viterbi), and very few commercial players can use -RAM. You shouldn't need the error correction if you treat the disc properly anyway, because it's only meant as an in-line protection against small scratches. But as I mentioned, dye stability is of critical importance. Most formulations out there are crap, but there are two I have basically centered on for my customers: Mitsui Gold/Silver, and Verbatim Datalife Plus. They are expensive blanks, around $3 a piece in a spindle. However, if your goal is to retain your data, then who cares what it costs now relative to being unable to retrieve your data. Both of those specific brands of Mitsui and Verbatim guarantee data life to a minimum 100 years with temperature stabilized dyes and sealed CD surfaces. If you're a complete hard-ass, then I suggest at least going to the next tier down, which is something like Fuji, TDK, Taiyo Yuden, and possibly Maxell.
Finally, you need to use a good writer and writing methods. I trust Pioneer and Plextor, with my preference being to Pioneer primarily because they have bells and whistles related to some pretty severe error checking. That error checking takes a huge amount of time, but if you're paranoid about your data it may be worth it. Cheaper drives may do roughly the same job, but I've read some stories about people having problems with cheaper drives and compatibility. And keep your write speeds low! I wouldn't go any faster than 4x. I'm not so hard up with my time that I can't be bothered to wait an extra 8 minutes for 4x and 8x. Just like CD players, some DVD players have problems when you write faster media. Heck, I've suggested writing 2x just to be damned sure if you have the time. Paranoid? Maybe just a bit, but IMO it's not worth the risk if you really want to retain your data over the long term.
So, in short, DVD-RAM may be good, but you need to be able to read and use it in as many players in the end as you can. It has the lowest compatibility, though I think it would've made an excellent format choice in the end. Sometimes the standard isn't dictated by what's the best (i.e. -RAM vs. +R and -R), but you have to look at all the variables in the equation too.
While plextor was the first to release this, they are no longer the only one! Philips DVDR824P is available as well as Memorex's 8X entry.
Sony is also releasing the DRU 530A in Decemeber at about the same time as the Pioneer DVR-A07 and Cyber Drive 8X DVD+R drive.
Pretty soon we'll see 16x DVD recording speeds.
I had to order one (under protest) for our FreeBSD guys, all the while insisting the Pioneer was a better drive.
/.?)
The Plextor wouldn't work *AT ALL* under BSD. Works like a champ under Windows though.
The Pioneer works like a champ under both.
(Also, is this news? I ordered this thing over a month ago... slow news day at
Yep. That's probably all you know about Bush.
The write speed of an 8X DVD is about 11MB/sec, right? Does anyone have problems with their hard disks keeping up with that speed, especially when they are doing other stuff in the background?
What is the point of a 2MB buffer on this thing? It would run out in 1/5 of a second....
-R
...but the focus is in the wrong area.
They're wasting time making the 8X DVDs when what we really need are DVD9's.
So I can write a DVD in 9 minutes, great. Nothing is more annoying than trying to copy a movie/game that can't fit on a 4.7GB DVD and being presented with the choice of: "Compress it to fit on one DVD and have it look like ass, or span it across two DVDs"
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
You may be out of the loop, so I'll inform you:
Drives that write both DVD+R and DVD-R are on the market NOW. I own one and depending on what's on sale this week at Best Buy/CompUSA, I'll either buy DVD+Rs or DVD-Rs. It doesn't matter. Why? Because THEY BOTH WORK.
When I say they both work, I mean, they both work in my burner (NEC 1300) at 4x speed and they both play in my ancient Sony DVD player and my newer Samsung DVD player.
I don't care if there are a hundred standards--as long as they're cheap and work as I'd expect them to, I'm OK with it.
Heck, even DVD-RWs and DVD+RWs work in my two DVD players. Only reason I don't buy those is because they're limited to 2x (on my burner).
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
How did this even get posted? A couple of my friends have had this drive for well over a month, heh they even bought them at best buy. All thats new here is a review from tomshardware. Hell plextor is rumored to have a firmware upgrade in the works that will allow -R burning at 8X on the 708A. Someone needs to do a better job checking the articles before they get posted. For the record I saw allot of post talking about 4X +/-R burning isn't stable. I would like to say that I have not had a problem burning 4X on my Sony DRU-500a with branded media (except Memorex). I would also like to say that it's my opinion that my drive isn't really all that good.
The past is just the present only older -me-
Your typical 250GB HD costs $180 (here)
Removable hard drive caddy (that will not fit in every PC everywhere) costs about $10
One-off caddy container is $15
A DVD burner that burns all formats at 4x is $105 (here)
DVD-R media is $27/50-pack (about $0.54 each at Yesbuy.net)
Total cost of 250GB worth of DVD Media is ~$30.
So essentially, here in the US, things are either MUCH cheaper, or you need to learn how to shop around.
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
Possibly a bit of both. Over here in the UK we're used to paying the same figure in pounds as you pay in dollars :-( That's a factor of ~1.5
I was using branded DVD-RW not unbranded DVD-R (which are cheaper). If you're going to use them for backup, you're going to want them to be pretty reliable. The RW was because people tend to cycle backups...
And I wasn't shopping around to get the lowest price. I was using dabs.com, but they're usually pretty good (at least in our terms) for all but the media (couldn't find them on dabs)
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I'm not sure when it was officially 'released', but we got a TDK 8x DVD+/-RW drive in at Staples two weeks ago, it's priced at $250
Great, read this over at AnandTech and CDRInfo almost 2 months ago.
I guess I always wondered how much it costs Tom to get an article posted on slashdot.
I've got one of the plextor PX-708a's and have been using it for about a month and a half now. I've been very impressed with this unit for a couple of reasons.
:P
When I purchased it, it was the same price as 4x dvd burner/combo burner drives at the time.
Covered all formats (like a good combo drive should. DVD_+R/RW, CD-R/RW).
Still had a high burn speed for cd's (40x), quite a few of the high speed combo burners I was looking at would only cut a cd at around 24x.
It's offered with a white or black faceplate (I picked black to match the new pc I had just built)
This is the first plextor drive i've owned, usually staying in the yamaha camp. It came with 1-8x DVD+R and my attempts to purchase more at fry's/staples/compusa all failed miserably. Once that one was gone, I started trying to burn 4x rated dvd+r's at 8x and have gone through a couple of 10 packs with no problems. I use this unit in a winxp machine, with Nero Ultra to burn it (I didin't even look at the software that came with it, I think it was a plextor branded app) and have been very happy with it overall.
I started reading this thread and started seeing the usual "But why, 8x is too fast" bla bla bla type stuff, but until we get to the generation 4+ of these devices speed is still going to be the selling point of dvd burners. Remember when the 4x cd burners came out? People were saying they're a waste of money and you don't need something that fast then too. But now, we're at the point where you can pretty much just go and buy a new cd burner without checking the speed and you've still got something screaming fast and rock solid. So stop bitching about device enhancements.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
I am not sure about this whole deterministic computer thing. I mean, I keep hearing a lot about this new quantum computer thing. I am going to keep using paper and pencil until this quantum v.s. deterministic silicon thing plays out... This is just like VHS v.s. Beta. Oh wait..Not sure about the pencil. I hear the pen might win. I think I'll wait on that too. P.S. - Someone please make a slashdot filter that prevents any post that says VHS and Beta from showing up anywhere at any level. The comparison almost never really applies (and in fact it does not really even apply to VHS and Beta the way people think it does). http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/0,1 2449,881780,00.html
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
I love my px-708a.It hasn't failed me once.
All media, including +R, -R and -RAM, need to be stored and treated properly. This means: being handled along the edges...
You bring up some good points, but this isn't one of them. The whole point of DVD-RAM is that it is cartridge based. You never touch the disc, not even the edge. Now, I know there are non cartridge DVD-RAM media out there, but the original idea was cartridge, it was valid, and you can still get them in cartridges.
give it a few months, the dual layers are on the way :)
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
The Pioneer A07 can record DVD-R at 8x, but the Plextor can't.
Your typical HD costs 200 pounds for 250GB.
:-)
Removeable caddy for HD costs 10 pounds
One-off caddy container for PC is 15 pounds.
At first I thought you were crazy, talking about cost as a measure of weight. Then I realized you were most likely from the UK. I then realized that my first assumption about your sanity was probably correct.
And BTW, DVD media production costs for 8X media are currently around US0.30 cents a disc. So, if you're paying fifty cents or more consider how much markup you're forking over.
How much do you think that Intel/AMD CPU has in production costs? Very little. It's all R&D and plant investment. The cheapest 4x DVD media I found here (Norway, including VAT) was 2,11$ each, and they are so shitty they won't even burn at 1x in my burner.
Last pack I bought was 5,81$/DVD, high quality ones in jewel cases. But do I really care how much of that is mark-up? No. Why the hell should I care if that is costs, or r&d or investment fund or profit or whatever?? All I care about is the price to me, as a consumer. For those that know utility functions, it's simply that my utility value of those disks exceed the utility value of the money.
Just as the company doesn't really "care" about the mark-up margin, only total profits. If they could make more money selling 10x the volume at 1/9th of the profit margin, they'd do it in a heartbeat. The competition in the market is quite good, so you can't blame it on that either. Ask yourself - if it was that simple, why doesn't any of those companies simply slash prices and take over the market?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Not only have they been announced (I've heard dates as early as April 2004), but some burners apparently will only require a firmware upgrade to burn them correctly.
I guess if it's reading DVD9s with its laser, it can burn them too...it just needs to know how.
and the 708A will likely burn 'em at 8.
I have to trust DVD-R for archiving at the present time because I have no choice. The week before I bought my Pioneer 4x, I lost a 20G pocket drive full of data. I'm about 100 DVDs in (2 sets of each backup), and have had few problems with making or reading the discs. What I am worried about is the longevity. Is DVD+R more stable?
Remember back in the days there would always be a SCSI cdrom that dominated everything in the market.
Where are these devices now? Plextor used to always 1-up the competition with a SCSI device.
I don't want IDE device that can eat up anything on my processor. I want the processing done on the SCSI card dammit.
The Liteon LDW811S is capable of burning 8x DVD+R.
It is for sale a one shop here for AUD$315.00 (USD$227.00).
The Plextor PX-708A is AUD$499.00 (USD$360.00).
Plextor can claim "the first commercialized 8X DVD recorder" all they want, but
the LiteOn is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, and available at the same time.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I've seen this drive for about 2 weeks available on livewarehouse.com for $160 they even have a list of 4x media that works at 8x... OptoRite DD0401
ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/ pgdvd.iso (md5sum 59d8a193874349181122ff52e2e3e114, size 4139646976)
Help yourself, make a bunch of copies, and be sure to give them away! If you'd like to donate a few copies (or a few hundred) for the giveaway, drop me an email
This is old news, I thought from the headline that they had finally released 8x DVD-R, but 8x DVD+R's have been available for weeks.
#include <sig.h>
Anyone could have seen this coming. The digital age ought to be devoid of moving parts. CDs/DVDs are outdated, even though they are popular storage methods. I just got a Kingston 128mb USB key chain (1.1 nontheless), and I must say that I can't live without it now. The data transfers that I do completely replaced my CDr's..speed/efficiency/convenience unless I'm backing up big files. Now if only I can have my harddrive made out of RAM.
BenQ has already released an 8x DVD+R burner...look here: http://www.benq.com/storage/storage_dvdrw_dw800a.h tml
They released the actual first 8x DVD writer...granted it only does DVD+R and not DVD-R, but still for the sake of accuracy Plexor was second with 8X DVD+R burning.
Where'd we get 4.5GB? Is that a compromise between 4.3GB (actual capacity of a DVD blank) and 4.7GB (stated capacity: the same industry lie as used with hard drives - it's really BB). Yes, I know this came directly from tomshardware.com. They should know better too. ;)
Now that I think about it, I'm way too detail oriented.
This isnt really breaking news.. My store has been stocking the optorite 8x DRD+/-R/RW drives for about a week now... $219.99
Words are only yours until someone else uses them...
Buffer underrun is the reason why buffers don't have to be huge. At this point I think the buffers mostly serve as an area to offload data to from the PC, and if it's full, great, if not, it can still keep up.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
I've had the TDK 840G for a week or so, but no one carries the 8x media. In fact, production isn't even supposed to start for another month or two.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Here is a good review for those of you who dislike Tom's Hardware as much as I do.
This review isn't biased and has useful information.
Oh and those of you who think that 4x dvd writing isn't reliable should buy this drive, it's fantastic. If a Plextor product claimes it can do something, you can trust that it will.
GotApex Plextor 708A review
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
I've burned about 60 discs in the last week at 4x with the SuperDrive in my G5 with Reitech media. Not a single failure the whole time. And the discs perform as well - I've been able to play back digital media files with 20 Mbps peaks without a hitch. That's about twice the performance required for DVD video.
My video compression blog
I used to hot-swap parallel IDE HDDs in cartridges, without any problems.
I stopped doing this when I learned that it was a bad idea.
I guess that I was lucky that nothing bad ever happened.
It would be really nice if HDDs came with a write-protect switch or tab (or even a write-protect jumper), the way that floppies and old removable-spindle ("washing machine") HDDs used to.
That would help avoid accidentally (or virally) clobbering backup data.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana