New Low Cost DVD Burners Hit The Streets

SpinnerBait writes "DVD burners, until recently, have been a bit too pricey for the average consumer that just wants to backup large amounts of data or rescue a failing DVD movie disc. However, OEMs like AOpen have finally broken the $100 price point, as this article and performance analysis at HotHardware reports. Performance, for this sub $100 DVD burner was respectable as well, burning almost an entire DVD's worth of data in about 15 minutes. Not too shabby at all... just in time for the holidays."

Comments

Blah,

[BeninOcala]

This isn't that new Best Buy has had Sub $100 DVD burners for awhile but it was with the dreaded mail in rebate...

Re:Blah,

[DaHat]

going to http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1056281 016831&skuId=5720419&type=product links to what I picked up a week ago for 130 before a 30 dollar MIR. 100 bucks, not bad for a +/- R/RW :)

Re:Blah,

[stienman]

I couldn't neuter the link, so the best bet for everyone to see this particular drive is to search for the SKU, which is 5720419. Another click on the listing in the search and you're there.

It's a Digital Research 4x +-, with 2MB buffer. Prices is $149 with $20 instant savings, and a $30 rebate, making it $99 + tax (though the tax is actually on the $129 price) in the end.

Too bad it isn't circuit city - I love their printed rebates. So easy to fill and send...

-Adam

Re:Blah,

[Orangedog_on_crack]

I won't have anything to do with the rebate nonsesne either. If they want my business, then they'll give me the discount up front, othersise they can go get bent.

Re:Blah,

[Anonymous Coward]

Sleazy is the right word! The rebate processing companies are crooks, pure and simple. Here's the best comment I've seen on this subject:

"> only to those who go to the trouble of sending it it.

Not just those that go to the trouble, but only a small portion ever get a rebate. According to an investigation by our state AG's office (I did the database work and web-based interface for it), over 80% of the people that have sent in rebates didn't receive all of the ones they've sent in. Over 60% of the people that sent in three or more rebates had never actually received a rebate. Think of those odds, more than half of the people that had sent in three or more had never received a single rebate. I'm in that group. I've probably sent in four dozen of them over the past ten years, and I've never received a check from anyone. My address is a PO box, so my odds according to their study were much worse than those that have mail service to their home. The companies that process rebates know generally the poor and people that live far from an urban area are the ones that have to use PO boxes, so they're the first ones you want to screw. Rebates are simply a dishonest scam.
The AG's solution to the problem was to require advertisements in this state to show the price with and without the rebate. His, typical politician, solution didn't fix the problem at all."
I saw that here a few days ago. Of course since the moderators here are idiots, they actually marked that comment down! I've checked this site almost daily for the past five years, and the moderators are just getting worse and worse. It appears that most of them are hellbent on trying to destroy this site by making it less and less useful.

Re:Blah,

[Trauma_Hound1]

I'll never do business with best buy again. They have the worst customer service I've seen from any company, I've dealt with.

Re:Blah,

[banzai75]

I actually think best buy is pretty good with the rebates. I did the shopping thing on the day after thanksgiving last year, and I received all my rebates. It's a pain, but you get some good deals.

As for this year, 4 UPS, 2x100 CDR's and 1 CDRW for the grand total of 25$. That's if I get all the rebates back. I'm fairly confident I will...

Re:Blah,

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not multiformat.

Try a Pioneer A05/A06 or the various ASUS OEM's, much better deal and you end up with the most popular and a very well supported multiformat drive.

Alternatively wait until January and buy one of the new crop of 8x burners.

Re:Blah,

[ratamacue]

which means it doesn't count. The price of that DVD burner is not $100, it is $100 plus the labor you need to complete in order to get your money back, plus the temporary loss of wealth, plus the hassle of accounting for it all.

The fact that they won't sell me the product without strings attached tells me that they never intended to sell me the product at the "special" price in the first place.

They'd never be doing this if every single customer sent in the rebate. They only do it because they know that some percentage of customers will fail to do it, or fail to do it according to the requirements. They could operate more efficiently by just selling the product at the sale price, no strings attached.

Thanks, but I don't need gimmicks. I'll take my business to a vendor who does business in a more truthful manner.

Re:Blah,

[ncc74656]

It's not multiformat.

Try a Pioneer A05/A06 or the various ASUS OEM's,

The DVR-A05 isn't dual-format, either...like the DVR-105 I have, it's a DVD-R/RW drive. (At least it uses the recordable DVD standard, which the drive described in the article doesn't.)

The article didn't mention much about media compatibility...my understanding of the situation is that some of the low-cost burners coming onto the market are a bit fussy as to what media they'll accept. You might want to keep an eye on the list of burners at DVDRhelp when you're deciding what DVD burner to buy. (They also have reports on blank DVDs here.)

Re:Blah,

[yog]

I suspect they also offer rebates to prevent people from reselling the product at the lowest price, say, on ebay. You have to cut the UPC code off the box and send it in and so forth.

Having stupidly failed to redeem some rebates in the past, I now religiously send in the rebate stuff the same day and save photocopies of everything. With a routine like this, I find rebates become little more than a 5 minute chore when I get the product home from the store. Of course having a home photocopier makes the process smoother.

Re:Blah,

[Tycho]

Bah I stayed out on the day after thanksgiving in below freezing temperatures and waited until Best Buy opened to get a Lite-On LTR-411 for 130 before $50 MIR, which is a really good deal.

Re:Blah,

[Radish03]

While I haven't bought anything with a rebate from circuit city, I have recently from best buy, and I rather like their rebates. The rebate form complete with where to send it prints out with the receipt and then the two are stapled together. Write your name and address on the printout, send. Works very nicely.

Re:Blah,

[Anonymous Coward]

The A05 and A06 IS both DVD-R and DVD+R.

I'm not sure about the A04 or the drive you have.

Re:Blah,

[aardwolf204]

I got the same drive the other day, complete with only 1 blank dvd-r and crappy burning software, and dispite how much it claims to be 4x DVD+-R I cant get it to burn at over 2X in Nero 6. What has been your experience? I'm half tempted to take it back and get a 4x Sony or some trusted brand

Re:Blah,

[ncc74656]

The A05 and A06 IS both DVD-R and DVD+R.

The A05 is not. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Pioneer. They should know, since they built the thing...

Re:Blah,

[jaymz666]

That assumes that the rebate requests never get "lost", or they claim you failed to include all the information.

Re:Blah,

[spike hay]

I got the same drive the other day, complete with only 1 blank dvd-r and crappy burning software, and dispite how much it claims to be 4x DVD+-R I cant get it to burn at over 2X in Nero 6. What has been your experience? I'm half tempted to take it back and get a 4x Sony or some trusted brand

If you are talking about the Lite-On drives, I wouldn't get a Sony to replace it. Sony drives are repackaged Lite-Ons.

Expensive Media

[errittus]

I'm waiing for the media price to come down. The prices i've seen on the burner is competitive, but the DVD-R media is still alittle pricey for me.

Re:Expensive Media

[LedZeplin]

a dollar a disk is too expensive?

Re:Expensive Media

[AchmedHabib]

i remember the good old days where a single CD-ROM did cost 10$ and a bounci-bounci was one dollah.

Re:Expensive Media

[Anonymous Coward]

1 DVD-R = 7 CD-R's

Lowest CD-R price: $0.25 * 7 = $1.75

Lowest DVD-R price: $0.85 * 1 = $0.85

Why on earth would you backup using CD-R?

Re:Expensive Media

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I've been buying my Imation spindles at $5 for 50, so make that a dime.

I will say that I prefer DVD simply because it is a lot fewer discs to handle and I don't have to prune less necessary files so often.

Re:Expensive Media

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're using DVD-R for archiving purposes, then yes DVD-R is the way to go. However I've been using dvd::rip to backup my DVD's to VCD format which saves alot of money(if you have the right type of DVD player which can play VCD/SVCD format). I also like dvd::rip for its clustering abilitites, where is used to take me 2-3 hours to transcode and convert down to VCD format now only takes around a half an hour.

Re:Expensive Media

[spike hay]

I also like dvd::rip for its clustering abilitites, where is used to take me 2-3 hours to transcode and convert down to VCD format now only takes around a half an hour.

Try encoding DVD video using CVD resolution, 352x480. You can fit about three hours of video on a DVD using about 3000 kbps. That is still higher than the bitrate you would be using for SVCDs. Considering that you would be able to fit three hours rather than 1, it would actually be slightly cheaper than burning (S)vcds.

Re:Expensive Media

[King_TJ]

I agree that price per meg. stored is a little better with DVD-R/+R than CDR, but there are other things to consider.

For starters, almost every half-way modern machine in existance today has some type of CD-ROM drive installed in it. That means those CDR backups are readable in almost any computer. If your data is all on DVD-R, you're going to be much more limited as to which computers can directly access it.

Also, I have some concerns about potential for data loss with DVD-R/+R media. There's simply so much data stored in a small amount of physical space that a small nick or scratch can wipe out hundreds of megs. of critical data. At least with CDR media, a scratch or nick may just cause one or two files to be unreadable.

Re:Expensive Media

[ncc74656]

Also, I have some concerns about potential for data loss with DVD-R/+R media. There's simply so much data stored in a small amount of physical space that a small nick or scratch can wipe out hundreds of megs. of critical data. At least with CDR media, a scratch or nick may just cause one or two files to be unreadable.

If you don't keep your backups on your desk gathering dust and getting shuffled with your papers, they won't get scratched. Keep them in their jewel boxes, or use a sleeve or binder made for the purpose. If you handle them like you would've handled a record back in the day, they won't get scratched. If they do get a small scratch, there are disc-repair kits that work fairly well...but it'd be better to keep them from getting scratched in the first place.

Re:Expensive Media

[Zugok]

I remember when I read a review aboout the first audio CD recorder. Discs had to be made of gold and were AU$100 each.

Re:Expensive Media

[Wolfrider]

--Got a link? I'm tentatively considering asking for a DVD burner for Cmas, and it would be nice to point the family to an inexpensive media provider as well.

This must be...

[AzBats]

The end of CD-RWs?

Re:This must be...

[rickthewizkid]

No... it's the end of FLOPPIES! :)

I remember as a kid going from a 170k single sided 5.25 in my Commodore to a 1.44 meg 3.5" disk in my PC and thinking "Wow! I'll never use all that storage space!" Of course, I said the same thing about my 1 GB hard drive that cost me $300, and my CD-R (not RW!) that cost nearly as much.

Needless to say, this might just be the time for me to acquire a DVD burner - Staples has a nice DVD burner for $129 after rebate that does support DVD -R[W] and +R[W]

-Rick

Re:This must be...

[evilviper]

No... it's the end of FLOPPIES! :)

Man, do I wish. Unfortuanately, when you are going to be using someone else's computer, you have no guarantee that they will have a CD-Recordable drive, just yet, so you can't put things you want to edit, on CD-RWs. DVD-RWs obviously aren't popular enough yet either, and removable hard drives are out of the question.

USB devices have potential, but they aren't ready yet, especially since many of them require software before they can be used on a system. So, here we are, still stuck with floppies, until hardware manufacturers get off their asses, and finally get something that can replace the floppy, we just aren't there yet.

Re:This must be...

[Anonymous Coward]

USB flash drives are the way to go if the computers you use have USB. I have a SanDisk Cruzer (USB 1.1) with a 256MB SD card which I use all the time to transport stuff between home, work, and friend's computers. On my keychain I also keep an empty 32MB no-name USB (1.1, again) drive just-in-case. I've been thinking about getting a USB memory watch also, but have been waiting for prices to come down and better looking models to show up.

Think Geek sells a USB watch (Xonix/Laks) which has an attached USB cable in the band which is a big plus -- less to forget. Overall I don't like the way the watch looks, unfortunately.

There is also another USB watch which has a slightly better look to it but is much more expensive.

Compatability?

[77Punker]

Will these DVD's play on all decent players? It doesn't really matter how cheap these are until they actually work. Last I heard about these devices is that there's many formats what aren't interchangeable.

Re:Compatability?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it said +,not +&-

Re:Compatability?

[LedZeplin]

The key to getting them to play on set top players is the booktype.

There is a bit on the dvd that tells the software what kind of media it is. and naturally dvd+r's will say 'dvd+r' but you can override that with 'dvd-rom' and finicky dvd players will play the discs in blissful ignorance.

Re:Compatability?

[u-235-sentinel]

I had the same concern. A year ago when I started looking at DVD burners I intended to convert movies from VHS to DVD and even make my own movies (family camcorder movies and photo slideshows). I noticed there was DVD-R, +R, -RW, +RW. What the heck is all this?

After checking out this site I learned that the formats -R and -RW were not standardized. Apparently some companies jumped the gun before the format was fully worked out. This would explain why 'some' DVD's I rented would not play. Thus +R and +RW was born. The story is these new formats are what everyone will be supporting on your DVD players for the future. This is what I bought though I highly recommend a burner which does all the above mentioned formats (just in case).

My burner only does the +R/+RW format which seems to work on just about every new DVD player I've come across. I did notice a few older models which were unable to play my movies. They were pre 1999 models (so far). I always warn people when they buy a player to check what formats it will support.

BTW, that dvdrhelp.com web site is great! They have tons of info on burners, players, editing software, how to convert formats and so on. Very good site to bookmark if you are serious about making movies, capturing or editing them.

Re:Compatability?

[Dahan]

AFAIK, only older DVD+R drives (the ones that max out at 2x writing speed) let you change the book type. But if anyone knows how to set the book type on a Sony DRU510A or Plextor PX-504A, let me know.

Re:Compatability?

[Cramer]

Well, yes and no... DVD+R/RW discs look more like dual layer DVD-ROMs, but are only one layer. Some (most?) old DVD players won't be able to read those things no matter what the booktype is. My "ancient" Sony changer can almost read it as a DVD+RW, but sees a "bad disc" if I mark it as a DVD-ROM -- it looks for the second layer and fails to find it. (If I were so inclined, I can go to the diag settings and tweak the power levels to get it to read the +RW, but it might not be able to read -ROMs any more.)

Disregarding booktype, recordable DVDs are harder to read. My new 20$ KLH DVD player (even cheaper crap than Apex :-)) can read DVD+-R/RW, but not always at 1x+ *sigh* The old Apex players had an actual IDE DVD-ROM in there making this sort of thing moot. (just put the DVD burner in it.)

floppy

[potpie]

Now we have CD burners and rewritable CDs that can store over 650 megabytes of data. We have writable DVDs that are able to store entire movies in very high quality video. There are countless other data storage formats such as memory sticks, smart cards, and others that can store wide ranges of amounts of data from 8 megabytes to 128 megabytes and up. So which do I use most often? My 1.44 megabyte floppy drive.

Re:floppy

[tgd]

I'm sure you can find guys out there still using slide rules, too.

Doesn't mean it makes any sense. :)

Re:floppy

[BriSTO(V)L]

Is that just because PC manufacturers don't make PC's that can easily boot from any common removable RW media other than 1.44MB floppies? I could carry round a Knoppix-like bootable Linux partition on a 256MB flash keydrive with its own /home, say, but you can't boot from them, so it's either floppies or CDR's and CDR's are not half so convenient. That's my thoughts anyway...

Re:floppy

[110010001000]

"So which do I use most often? My 1.44 megabyte floppy drive"

For what? I haven't seen a floppy disk in about 2 years.

Re:floppy

[JamesP]

WHy, oh why?

It's been some years since I don't use floppys... Unreliable, small...

Zip Drives rock and fi it doesn't fit, CD-RW... Network transfers (even dial up) work better than floppies...

Re:floppy

[blankmange]

I know they are here somewhere..... there they are, covered with a layer of dust -- hell, the drive itself is penetrated so seldom it thinks it is a virgin...

Re:floppy

[jamincollins]

They are when you use the credit/business card sized CDRs. After all you're just looking for a boot device, right? 35 MB per disk sure beats the hell out of floppy.

Re:floppy

[jamincollins]

All of my new systems (built in the last 6-8 months) don't even have a floppy drive in them.

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my digital camera or mp3 stick or mobile phone memory to boot my machine or as a transfer drive. Why buy useless memory sticks when you can have one that plays music too! Music while you copy :D

Re:floppy

[dvdeug]

So which do I use most often? My 1.44 megabyte floppy drive.

So have you completed your first hard drive backup yet? Only 20,000 disks to go . . .

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs has your adress and will be visiting you to find out how you can possibly block his reality distorting field...

Re:floppy

[autocracy]

I once did that on my old 486... 300+ disks later...

Re:floppy

[nolife]

Chick..
"Hey, what's that in your pocket?"

You..
"Ahh, a 1.44 floppy"

That's just not cool
Chicks dig 4.5GB of pure DVD+RW

Re:floppy

[ErikZ]

What about the 8cm CDRs that can fit in your wallet?

Re:floppy

[Alan]

Hehe, I use the floppy disk to back up my 1.44mb quickbooks backups and that's about it. I can see if you're a student that it'd be more useful for carrying around reports and assignments and such though, but for the sort of data storage I do, CDs are just barely cutting it, and as soon as I see one of these cheapass dvd drives up here in .ca, I'm buying it!

Re:floppy

[Alan]

"Fit in wallet" and "be safe in wallet" are two different things :) I carried around one of those bootable business card cds from linux care for ages and when I finally needed it I found it had split in two at some point :( I'm sure you can find a better case for them though (I just had a plastic sleeve).

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't even seen a floppy disk in maybe a year.

And my computer (a PC) doesn't even have a floppy drive. Everyone at my workplace carries those 256 MB USB disks around on their keychains to transfer files.

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

My first PC (486, I had used Amiga before), I went to a friend of mine and copied games. They were all in a single zip-archive spanning almost 100 disks. I hadn't used pkunzip before, so I didn't use the -d switch to create the directories. Everything was put into a single directory. Since some games worked, I couldn't be bothered to spend hours unpacking it again

BTW: I don't copy games now. Most games are crap anyway, not even worth the hassle of cracking/installing/playing for 5 min./uninstalling. When I see a game I know I like, I buy it and play it.

Re:floppy

[ubermod1]

actually it's more like 1.38 megabyte on a floppy

Re:floppy

[taernim]

Ahh... so it behaves much like the typical Slashdot reader? ;-)

Re:floppy

[WeblionX]

When the only connection is a WiFi card that isn't supported by Windows, it's a little hard to do a network transfer. I used a floppy disk recently to copy some drivers to a laptop for the WiFi card. Apparently, Windows does have support for the cards, just not the brand I have.

For small files floppy disks are pretty good, though for any large data transfer, obviously one would use a CD drive. Though unless you have a reason to burn lots of CDs, it's quite easier to be using floppy disks more than CD-Rs.

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I used a slide-rule on a Civil Engineering exam just this semester...I needed a straight edge and couldn't find my protractor, so I slid out the slide and...

Re:floppy

[ssstraub]

Zip Drives rock and if it doesn't fit, CD-RW

I find it interesting that you say this in the same sentence. Not only is CD-RW vastly more compatible and Zip, but the media is about 100x cheaper as well!

Re:floppy

[ncc74656]

What about the 8cm CDRs that can fit in your wallet?

You can get DVD-Rs in the same size now. They're not cheap (CD-Rs in the same size have always been more expensive too), but they hold the same amount as two 120-mm CD-Rs in the same physical space as one 80-mm CD-R.

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Chick... "Hey, what's that in your pocket?"

You... "A 5 1/4-inch shiny."

Huh. Doesn't sound much better than the floppy, actually.

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

For the amount of hassle it takes, and the amount of options that require a legal cd key, sometimes its just better to buy the damn things!

Re:floppy

[blankmange]

Exactly!

Re:floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see if you're a student that it'd be more useful for carrying around reports and assignments and such

aargh don't give students ideas like that! i work in a University computer lab, and you have no idea how much of a headache (and heartache) it is to tell a student that their senior thesis, which they were continually saving to floppy without any other backups whatsoever has just been destroyed by cosmic rays, bitrot, bad karma, or whatever it is that consistently makes floppies fail. everyone who needs to transfer files should be using USB keychain drives.

hopefully Dell will finally stop shipping their educational machines with floppy drives, and the madness can end.

Re:Nice...

[avalys]

Since DVD is a digital format, the quality of the picture isn't influenced by the quality of the burner.

Don't pay retail

[Megor1]

If you scan the fatwallet.com hot deals forums you can get DVD burners for less than $100, sometimes a less than $50. Also crazy deals on media etc.

Only Does '+' Formats

[Flave]

Note that this burner only does the '+' formats. Any DVD burner worth its salt these days should be able to do both '+' and '-' formats. I'd stick with Pioneer or Sony for now -- they do all formats, have good quality/reliability, and their prices are coming down.

Also, new 8x recorders are coming.

Also, new double-layer recorders are coming.

The target is constantly moving...

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[JordanH]

Regardless of format, this still makes a great low-priced backup device. As backup media goes, it's cheap when you take into account GB/$.

I guess the only thing that really concerns me about buying a very low cost drive is a guarantee that the media would be readable by other drives if this one goes out.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[DarkEdgeX]

Agreed, you can get a Pioneer DVR-A06/106 for $140 with shipping, if not cheaper (I bought one two months ago). There's no reason to get locked in on media choices if the difference is just $40.

FYI-- Pioneer DVR-A06/106 do 4x DVD+/-R and 2.4x DVD+RW and I think 2.4x DVD-RW. There's a newer 8x DVD+/-R drive coming in January from Pioneer (DVR-A07/107) so it might pay to wait another month and check out the pricing on that.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'd only play the waiting game for so long.

If you wait for what's next, and it comes around, then you'll hear people saying to wait for what's next. There will always be newer and better but if one just waits then you'll also be putting off using the thing.

The '+' format seems to do well enough although I've preferred to keep the dash format available too because it is in the "real" DVD standard. The '+' format is kind of a bastard offshoot and only served to pad Sony & HP's profits at the expense of market confusion.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[DrEldarion]

You can actually get a DVD+/-R for under $100 as well (affiliate link).

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

why would you need +/-? As I understand, "+" is technically superiour to "-" (at least reading docs to "growisofs" made me think so). Recorded disks can be read anywhere, so +/-R matters only at the record time and whether or not your DVD is compatible. With RW situation is a bit different, but again RW disks can read by all recent DVD readers regardless of +/- and many consumer DVD-players. Personally, I think people should worry more if x4 is supported for RW (as many drives have only x2.4). The BenQ DW400A (which is +R/RW 4x4x12) ,that I bought in Sept for ~$100, works extremely well for my purposes.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[mm0mm]

A buddy of mine burnt several DVD+Rs for me. After I came back home, they became coasters as I found out none of the PCs I own read them. My laptop is less than a year old for god's sake. Despite its hype, DVD+R format is useless unless you have a compatible drive(players should be ok).

Also, new 8x recorders are coming.
Also, new double-layer recorders are coming.
The target is constantly moving...

As far as the next generation high capacity DVD format is concerned, Blue-ray is currently under development, headed by Sony, Matsushita(panasonic) and phillips. Meanwhile, (oh what a surprise) there is another high-cap DVD standard using blue-laser technology, headed by Toshiba and NEC. It is called HD-DVD and it stores 5 times more data than current DVD+/-Rs can hold. Needless to say they are incompatible to one another.

while neither of new DVD standards is available in the market yet, it is a matter of time that they will replace the current standards. Then again, we will face incompatibility issues between Blue-Ray and HD DVD. Competition is good, but consumers have got enough of those with VHS/Beta, LaserDisc/Videodisc, Win/Mac, yada yada yada.

Despite its hype and promises, DVD+R may live a short life (maybe 10 years) IMO.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Sangui5]

There are some technical reasons why + is better. It uses a much more robust scheme to record the timing information that a drive needs to properly burn. It isn't really a bastard offshoot--the original - format has a fairly direct lineage from CDR, and didn't really improve on the spec any. + did, and will probably end up dominant in the long run. Of course right now - is still ahead, so a dual format burner is probably the best bet.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd stick with Pioneer or Sony for now

Besides, DVD writers aren't THAT expensive. I just bought a Pioneer A06 retail for $149 from some online place. I could've gotten the OEM version for $125 I guess, but I prefer buying the retail package of it. I consider that a steal considering I spent $199 on my Yamaha CD-RW drive just last year. Plus you get a decent well-respected burner instead of some generic AOpen version.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[SophtwareSlump]

Hint: You can get the dual format +/- drives for about $105 shipped. Check out newegg.com. I think the 8x drives are only about $50 more too.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an ancient pioneer 10X DVD-Rom and a sony set top DVD player and the + media I burn works fine. I believe it will be + that will be most prevalent but I'm glad I got a +/- just in case.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD+RW kicks ass though...

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[spike hay]

Note that this burner only does the '+' formats. Any DVD burner worth its salt these days should be able to do both '+' and '-' formats. I'd stick with Pioneer or Sony for now -- they do all formats, have good quality/reliability, and their prices are coming down.

Also, new 8x recorders are coming.

Also, new double-layer recorders are coming.


Good point. I'm holding off for the dual layer burners myself. But, there's always the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. By the time the dual layer burners come out, the Blu Ray dvds might not be too far off in the horizon. So I might actually end up holding off for those, if their price ever gets >$300. Mmmm. 25 gb on a single 12 mm disc.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[ncc74656]

You can actually get a DVD+/-R for under $100 as well (affiliate link removed).

Y'know, you could've avoided that Troll mod by just providing a direct link instead of pimping an affiliate link.

Besides, TigerDirect sucks (compare their score to Newegg, for instance).

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[DarkEdgeX]

nod, but the 8x drives out right now don't do +/- both at 8x, they just DVD+R at 8x and DVD-R at 4x.

I'm pretty sure Pioneer's DVR-A07/107 will be the first DVD-R writer that can burn at 8x. (If I'm wrong, and I'd be happy if I was, please someone post model numbers and such).

You can read about the DVR-A07 here--

http://www.pioneer-eur.com/eur/company_news_pressr elease.jsp?category=news_121103_DVRA07

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of...
I back up my work files, mp3s and digital photos to a networked 120 GB drive. The drive cost around $150. It is about 1/3 full, and this includes versioning. It should last for a few more years before I need a larger disk.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Simonetta]

I would buy a DVD writer, except...

I don't want a repeat of the experience that I had with buying CD-RWs. I'm on my fourth now:

CD-RW#1 : Mitsumi 2x4x10 Paid $160 in 1998
After eight months this unit stopped recording CDs accurately. After about nine months it wouldn't record or read CDs. Tried to contact Mitsumi for a RMA, no telephone number to call and no response to my e-mails. Fuck 'em. Mitsumi's are junk.

CD-RW#2 : BTG 4x8x16 Paid $99 in 2000
This unit stopped recording CDs after seven months. Got a replacement unit from BTG for $10 shipping charge. Still works but not often used.

CD-RW#3 : QTC 4x24x32 Paid $85 in 2001
This unit was a 'best-buy' in PC-WORLD. After five months it actually started destroying CDs while attempting to read them by scuffing them so badly that they were unreadable thereafter. Destroyed six library audio CD's and stopped reading. Could not contact company for warranty return. Would not answer e-mails. Fuck 'em!! I don't trust any review in PC-World from now on either.

CD-RW#4 : Artec 10x32x40 Paid $65 in 2002
This unit is still working well after 18 months!
I burn about two or three CD's a week without any problems. These guys rule!

I think that I'll wait for another year or two before getting a DVD writer. I'm SURE the sub $100 US DVD writers being sold now are junk. It will take a year at least for all this garbage to get sent back to the manufacturer under warranty and be failure-analysized. It will take another six months after that to incorporate all of the design corrections into newer models. Just like Microsoft.

I'll wait, thank you, Of course, there is always the risk that there will be mandated DRM added to the DVD burners by that time. But it's not as great a risk as buying an early sub-$100 model and have it fail (and not have a warranty service because the company won't answer e-mails)

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[SophtwareSlump]

Yep, I should have made it clear the affordable 8x drives right now aren't +/-. I'm holding off for an 8x +/- and I'm in the DVD burning game :)

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

+ did, and will probably end up dominant in the long run.

I don't see that happening, considering the compatibility problems it has that -R does not.

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[DarkEdgeX]

nod, that's what I'd do if I hadn't bought a DVD burner already (I got impatient and the price dropped below my $150 purchase threshold). Since I already did the 4x deal (I think it's like 15 minutes or so to burn a full disc), I'll skip 8x and either wait until they do 12x or faster, or wait until the 2nd generation of dual layer drives hits the market (for those who care, 1st generation is supposed to be sometime in 2004 (later part of 2004 I bet)).

8x should keep you happy well past that and hopefully until dual layer gains a good foothold and has proven itself. =)

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[jo42]

What did you expect? You bought junk drives and spent more for them than for one good drive - I've still got ancient Yamaha 4x SCSI CD-RW drives chugging away...!

Re:Only Does '+' Formats

[beui]

does this drive work under linux? would it work to put it in a usb 2.0 ide / atapi adapter? i want to run a dvd burner that does +- r / rw under linux.. any sugguestions oh smart slashdot friends?

thanks impulse @ slavehouse.org

beui/impulse/npt

DVD-R and DVD+R

[Hatechall]

The article does awknowledge of this rivalry...can anyone let me know what this battle ground looks like? I have not been following it for a while, but it was to my knowledge that DVD-R and the occasional combo drive were the ones that were more likely to be adopted in the future. I told myself I would wait until one came out the victor but now as far as I can tell, it's still up in the air. Advice anyone?

Re:DVD-R and DVD+R

[aldoman]

DVD+R seems to have taken the lead now - they have announced 9gb DVD+Rs (dual layer), and they have got 8x drives to the market first. Also, DVD+R seems to be cheaper (almost all +Rs are cheaper than -R ones)

Re:DVD-R and DVD+R

[silas_moeckel]

While they seem to be the first with dual layer disks and the drives themselves are cheaper the media is more expensive. -R also seems to be more compatable with normal DVD technology.

Re:DVD-R and DVD+R

[Florian]

...true, but DVD-Rs are more compatible to standalone DVD players and older DVD-ROM drives. So far, I have been out of luck with all my DVD+Rs on them, but successful with DVD-Rs. Dual standard DVD burners therefore are not just a marketing gag, but of serious practical value.

-F

Re:DVD-R and DVD+R

[AstroDrabb]

I thought most +R's don't play in most home DVD players? Is this still the case?

Re:DVD-R and DVD+R

[xigxag]

I thought most +R's don't play in most home DVD players? Is this still the case?

It was never the case. What is true is that -RW discs are significantly more compatible than +RW, particularly on older players, and also that -R seems to be infinitesimally more compatible than +R. And also, no matter what disc type you use, burners never seem to produce discs which are 100% compatible with all readers. This was true even of CDR but appears to be much more of a problem with recordable DVD. It would be nice if the next advance is a single standard and not so finicky as DVD+/-R. Personally I think they should skip the blu-ray level 20-25GB, wait a few more years, and release a 75-100GB format.

who cares for low price at this stage?

[intuit]

despite the low price, i'd have to say that i'm still waiting for the majority of dvd burners to come sub-$100. once that has happened, i can be sure that i'm actually getting quality for my money.

Re:who cares for low price at this stage?

[Cumstien]

I agree. With the 8X burners commming out in January '04, we'll simply have to wait another month or so until most of the old burners are sub $100. I love when new technology comes out becuase the previous technology, which is nearly always still really good, goes down in price.

The bleading edge of technology is a wallet stabber.

Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[HidingMyName]

I realize these may be foolish questions, but I don't own any DVD Drives (but that might change). Do DVD burners/drives have an interface standard and what is the status of Linux support (e.g. is it like cdrecord)? If not, are any of these drives supported? Have DVD drive owners been happy with Linux run time support? And finally are there any good GUI wrappers, for CDs they have xcdroast, which does what I want.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[proverbialcow]

Haven't updated cdrecord in a while, then? Yeah, what was once cdrecord now includes utils for burning DVDs.
The hard part would be actually creating a playable DVD from the command line...

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[bored_SuSE_user]

I have a Sony DVD Writer in a Formac firewire case (not orig combination) and I have had no problems with the drive itself. You can download cdrecord-PRODVD which works pretty much the same as cdrecord. K3b pops up when I put a blank DVD in (kind of it isn't it?) so I can burn the DVD very easily from an .iso image or select my own data. I checked that this drive worked first here: cdrecord site . There is also DVDR tools which I haven't used. Both are free though. I do however have occasional problems with firewire, but under SuSE 9.0 it's not stable yet.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

cdrecord supports DVD's now, practically all frontends that use cdrecord support DVD's now too (so you can use xcdroast for burning DVD's - it works for both + and -).

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

I do however have occasional problems with firewire, but under SuSE 9.0 it's not stable yet.

Not stable yet? My mac from 1999 has firewire and has been stable as bedrock. What's holding Suse up?

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[DrEldarion]

For information on just about anything related to DVD/CD recording, DVDRHelp.com is a great resource.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Florian]

Some of them not. I had bad luck with a BTC lowcost DVD +/- that had very good specs (4x DVD-R/+R, 32x CDR burning), but worked neither with dvdrecord, nor growisofs, nor the nonfree dvd-capable variant of cdrecord. I wouldn't be surprised if the drive was identical to the LiteOn DVD+/- that has identical specs.

Fortunately, I was able to exchange the BTC against a marginally more expensive LG drive (4040B). While it burns CDRs only at 24x and CDRWs at 12x, it worked out of the box and like a charm with all programs under GNU/Linux.

A nice plus of the LG is that, besides DVD+-R[W] and CDR[W], it also reads and writes DVD-RAM. Unlike the other writable DVD and CD formats, DVD-RAM is true random access optical removable storage (similar to an MO cartridge, not just a userspace simulation of random access like Mount Rainier packet writing). It works as standard IDE device without any specific drivers or software frontends, so that DVD-RAM media can be partitioned and formatted with ext2/xfs/reiserfs under Linux just like a removable hard drive. Since it is possible, for example, to rsync directories to DVD-RAM and since the media are affordable (~$13 for a double sided 2x4,7 GB disk), it strikes me as a near-ideal backup solution.

-F

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[bored_SuSE_user]

I am not sure about that. Firewire WAS a mac thing. It works pretty much 99% of the time, but has problems with hotplug - it is hot pluggable but not hot unpluggable..you have to type a load of commands before you can unplug the PC card and if you unplug the firewire cord then try and plug it back in, it doesn't always work. I have to turn off everything, unplug everything including my laptop battery then plug it all back in again and it works again.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[u-235-sentinel]

For burning data I've been happy with Linux and my burner (Verbatum DVD/+R/+RW). For burning movies and building your own menus (and so on) it's a growing industry. I understand that Gear Inc has something for Linux but it's rather new. I'll check them out again in about a year or so. See if they had made progress.

xcdroast seems to work well when burning to DVD's. It's an exciting time for Linux users. The tools are coming.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly right, cdrecord works great with -RW, but it doesn't work at all with +RW.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that dvdrecord is for all practical purposes unmaintained, and cdrecord-ProDVD is proprietary software. Andy Polyakov created growisofs which does both minus and plus, and is GPL to boot.

From reading the cdwrite@other.debian.org mailinglist this seems to be the best option for now, although Joerg Schilling (author of cdrecord) is actively working on cdrecord again as well, amongst others to add DVD+ support.

Lourens

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[axxackall]

cdrecord is not good for even CD recording: all audio CDs it burns (I've checked all the length of 'man cdrecord') are playable on all other PCs, but not on hi-end DVD/CD players (again, I've tried all compatibiity advises from 'man cdrecord'). My friends with Windows do not have such problems on exactly the same hardware. I think it's cdrecord that is broken.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[Chris Siegler]

cdrecord-PRODVD is a mess. You have to deal with license restricitons, time-limited keys, and limits on the speed you can write discs.

A much better solution is to use the regular cdrecord with growisofs, which lets you lay down and grow an ISO9660 file system on (as well as to burn an arbitrary pre-mastered image to) all supported DVD media.

Re:Are these low cost DVD Burners Linux Compatible

[whereiswaldo]

xcdroast seems to work well when burning to DVD's. It's an exciting time for Linux users. The tools are coming.

Good to hear, but I'm still disappointed with the CD burning software. XCDRoast has a zany configuration setup - I installed the software as root and IIRC couldn't start it as a user until I had configured it as root. Then when I started the program as a normal user, it made me configure the software again! Just dumb.

Then it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how the program worked for making a basic data CD. There is no integration with the KDE file manager (Konqueror) which really sucked. What's with the tabbed interface? Why not make a Nero lookalike which many people (incl. me) are used to and find to be intuitive?

I just wonder if people make these decisions because that's what they really want, or they just need to get it done and will fix it later.

But anyway, the state of things today is much better than it was a year ago and I am thankful and grateful for that.

Just in time...

[heironymouscoward]

Backing up my media onto CDROM is taking too long and is too painful.

Now, I'd love to see a portable FireWire DVD rewriter for $100. Then we truly have the floppy for the new millenium.

Re:Just in time...

[Anonymous Coward]

what is the deal with dvdr(s) durability compared
to cdr(s)? Are they plagued by the same flaking(or whatever) layer problem? Wondering if there is any information on this? (serious data or anecdotal)

Not sure this is a good idea

[bedouin]

Especially if they're anything like cheap CD-ROM drives. All my moderately priced drives are still working and some are 5 years old or more. Yet the $30 52x drives usually never made it past one year . . .

Re:Not sure this is a good idea

[Jedi Alec]

I still think the 16 speed cd-rom drives were the best. Fast enough to be fast and slow enough to avoid equalling a Concorde taking off in noise levels. Drives that only last 1 year can be entertaining though, with the laws stating that all pc-addon products in Europe need to have 2 years of guarantuee on 'm. Usually harassing the helpdesk long enough will get you what you want in the long run anyway...

Re:Not sure this is a good idea

[red floyd]

with the laws stating that all pc-addon products in Europe need to have 2 years of guarantuee on 'm

How does the EU deal with the 1 year warranty on inexpensive IDE drives?

Re:Not sure this is a good idea

[mobby_6kl]

I don't know how the EU deals with it, but it results in all products having at least 2 years, except for stuff like Intel processors and high-end drives which have 3 years, etc.

Re:Not sure this is a good idea

[jo42]

Yeppers, I've still got ancient Yamaha 4x SCSI CD-RW drives chugging away...!

Re:Nice...

[Hatechall]

I guess it depends on what film you are burning. If you are fair-using "A Wonderful Life" or "Indiana Jones" then the picture will be pretty good, but if you bootleg crossroads, it may suck.

You can't do that

[Rick Zeman]

Contrary to what the headline says, you cannot copy/duplicate a commercial DVD in them, even if you had a DVD player and a recorder.

Re:You can't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

I do it- and with a wintel machine

Ok, so they're around $100

[ktulu1115]

But what about SCSI models? I can't find a decent SCSI one for under $300 something. Anyone have any information on this?

Re:Ok, so they're around $100

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

That would be like owning a ferrari on a planet with a 25 MPH speed limit and cops on every corner.

Having the fastest scsi connection isn't going to speed up your burns, reduce your failure rate (close to 0 now), or benefit you in any other way. Period.

Re:Ok, so they're around $100

[Dahan]

Maybe he wants to use it in a computer that has SCSI, but not IDE? They do exist.

Re:Ok, so they're around $100

[benzapp]

People don't use SCSI cdroms for the speed, they use them for the bus mastering. There is no way you can run 8 DVD writers in a single machine using SATA or IDE. That is no problem with SCSI. You can get external cases with 16 drivebays, which you connect via external SCSI cable. People have them filled with CDRs or DVD writers. Imagine being able to copy a DVD to 8 drives all at the same time. Pretty cool eh?

Re:Ok, so they're around $100

[ktulu1115]

Yes, my PC is almost all SCSI minus a large ATA drive.

OK, but are they real or the fake mail in rebates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waiting six months to a year or never to get my money back is just retarded. I hate how goobers proclaim how cheap something and they're talking about scam rebates.

Re:Nice...

[MURD3R3R]

Since DVD is a digital format, the quality of the picture isn't influenced by the quality of the burner.

Ummm, what?? I think your sorely mistaken! The quality of the picture can be greatly affected. What about movie skipping? Or not playing at all? Crashing?

Only Does '+' Formats-Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

That raises the most important question. Buy now or wait till next year for the new stuff? And the present burners only store about 4 Gbytes. Not really good enough to back-up our monster drives, and most people don't make their own DVD movies.

Price no object

[Apreche]

I don't care how much money. The Plextor PX-708A is still my most desired piece of hardware. It's so freakin' hot. And newegg's got it for $220, not bad at all.

but how well do they work?

[Monkelectric]

I've owned *quite a few* CD burners in my life (6+), and the one thing I've found to be true is you are always screwing yourself if you buy the cheapie model. What good is a CD Burner if it chunks 20% of your discs?

I decided I woudln't buy a DVD writer until plextor came out with a dual format burner (I've never had one of their CD writers mess up a single CD -- ever), and low and behold they did.

Re:but how well do they work?

[einstein]

What good is a CD Burner if it chunks 20% of your discs?

I love word problems!

*ahem*

80% good.

Re:but how well do they work?

[GiMP]

I bought a sub-$100 BenQ DVD+RW drive and it rocks. I've made about 10 dvds and 10 cdr's and haven't had a coaster yet - and I'm using it over firewire /w a cheap enclosure I grabbed on ebay.

Sometimes cheap is simply inexpensive.

Re:but how well do they work?

[JavaJoint]

Agreed.

I would look at the low prices, go up a level or two in quality for a known-good brand for the drive, and especially for the media (I want to be able to read it back 10 years from now!) Rock bottom cheapness usually spells trouble.

And as an indication of how prices come down, here's an old posting of mine from 1995:


I notice that ISN (Internet Shopping Network) is running a special on the Sequel 5400 5.25" 4gb drive for $699.99. Anyone have any opinions on this drive?


Ah, the good old days :-)

Re:but how well do they work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come back and post when you've burned 1000 CDs and 100 DVDs.

Re:but how well do they work?

[jo42]

But you can only use so many coasters around the house...

Keep an eye out for deals

[billyradcliffe]

I got myself a LiteOn LDW-411S at Best Buy for $80 after mail in rebates. After reading a few reviews it seemed like a solid drive. The nicest thing about this one is that it does 40X CD-R, which most others only do 24X. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more of these drives under $100 before and after the holidays.

Someone made a point about the cost of the media. This is very true; it's still rather expensive. However, that's mostly on the retail level. If you take a look around online, you sould be able to find really good media for $1 a piece or slightly more. Ritek is one of the brands that's hailed as highly compatible and overall very good, and you can get a spindle of 50 from newegg for about $55. Not bad!

One last thing, one of the best sites for all things DVD+-RW, check out DVDRHelp.com.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Sangui5]

My local Best Buys are so wonderfully kind to never stock anything, so I had to pay $10 more for my 411S at Circuit City. Still a real bargain.

Not only does it do 40x CD-R, it also does DVD+RW at 4x, which is faster than most of the other writers out there (they usually only handle 2x for +RW). This review is what convinced me to finally go out and buy it. The 411S, with the original firmware, had serious issues recognizing the cheaper - media. The new firmware, "FS0F", mostly fixes this. - is more difficult to write properly, so the drive does slow down and produces not-perfect (but still few to no errors) output on some cheap - media, and other - media isn't supported. OTOH, it loves + media of all sorts, and doesn't give a crap about how cheap your CD-R/RW media is.

LiteOn is not some off brand. For a long time, they've been an OEM supplier for Dell. Indeed, my first LiteOn drive was a CD-ROM in a Dell, and it has been and still is rock solid. They've since made quite the name for themselves with their excellent CD-RW drives--among the first to support buffer-underrun protection technology, among the first to do DAO-RAW96, and among the first to correctly deal with the EMF encoding of regular bit patterns. They certainly don't have the brand recognition of Plextor, or even of any of the large electronics manufacturers, but their products are as good as Plextor, and better than the others.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Florian]

Have you been successful in running this drive under Linux? I am suspicious that it is identical to a BTC drive with exactly the same specs which, as my own experience and (unfortunately, two days too late) a test of the German "Linux User" magazine told me, does definitely not work under Linux.

-F

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[DarkSarin]

You know, that is the thing that is always so hard to know--DO I trust this brand. Personally I prefer to stick to name brands, and I wasn't sure about LiteOn's quality--and when media is not cheap, you don't want to end up with coasters.

This is why I do 99% of my burning under linux--I generally have had less problems that way (except for with a certain GUI burning prog that deleted some of my data [cdbakeoven2.0]). I know what I did wrong in that case, and won't repeat that mistake, but it is poor design.

The last question--does it play nice with linux? If so, I will make it my next burner.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Reziac]

Haven't bought any DVD writers yet, but I figure quality for a given manufacturer is probably similar for all their drives of this general type, so:

I've bought four LiteOn drives: 2 CDRW and 2 DVD, and that was after asking around the better clone dealers at the swaps. No one had ANY failure reports, in fact several passersby contributed positive opinions about their CDRWs (swapmeet folk are not shy about butting in :)

So far I've been nothing but pleased with all of them (the CDRWs have had heavy use lately, and not a single glitch or coaster). Also, was rather surprised that their IDE CDRW didn't bog down my old P233, so that's another plus point. (Used to be you'd burn a lot of coasters with an IDE CDRW on anything slower than a P2-300.)

I also have a Plextor CDRW which I'm equally happy with. However, at this point I don't see a good reason to pay Plextor's premium price over the LiteOn price. This may well be what shapes my choice in a DVD writer.

Nothing to offer re whether they'll work in linux, tho... mine are all running under various species of Win32.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Sangui5]

I've not yet had need to run the DVD burner under linux, so it's not set up. My old LiteOn CDRW drive, however, works fine.

I wouldn't think that the brand of drive would matter much, though, given a modern IDE device. Just set the burner to be IDE/SCSI and it ought work.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Lord Kano]

I bought the exact same drive last saturday at Best Buy. I have had problems if I try to burn a DVD with more than 4.2GB of data on it. I upgraded my firmware and even tried other software. Have you had the same problem?

LK

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[evilviper]

I got myself a LiteOn LDW-411S at Best Buy for $80 after mail in rebates. After reading a few reviews it seemed like a solid drive. The nicest thing about this one is that it does 40X CD-R, which most others only do 24X.

Never has any Lite-On drive qualified to be called "solid". I know this because I have a few myself. The "40X" thing is quite interesting, because I find Lite-On is falsely advertising their products greatly, and the 40/12/48 lite-on CD-RW drive can't POSSIBLY burn a CD at more than an actual 20X.

Computer hardware is getting to be more and more of a big scam. Why else would companies make dozens of sub-brands? They want to falsely advertise, turn out crap, and make a profit on all those not weary enough to stay away, and realize that truth in advetising laws don't mean shit anymore...

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[evilviper]

They've since made quite the name for themselves with their excellent CD-RW drives

I don't know where you get your information, but I have numerous of these "excellent CD-RW drives", and I can say, without a doubt, that they are whopping pieces of crap. The only brand that's worse is ACER/Benq.

but their products are as good as Plextor, and better than the others.

Plextor isn't at the top of my list, but near it... Lite-on is practically at the bottom. I can't imagine how you could say that Lite-ON drives are better than Plextors, unless, of course, you've never actually owned one.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure your machine isn't at fault? cdrecord tells me my LiteOn burns at 40x.

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[DarkSarin]

You wouldn't think so, but there are occasionally companies that do things half way just to save a buck, and their stupidity ends up breaking linux compatibility.

As an example, I have a friend with a Jaton video card based on the nVidia geForce 2 MX 400 chipset. Works great under windows--can't get the sorry thing to fire up under linux--not for anything. This is a problem with lesser known brands, and you can't ever be sure.

However, if the Lite-on stuff works, I'll give it a try. BTW, anybody know how Plextor DVD burners compare to, say, Pioneer's stuff?

Re:Keep an eye out for deals

[#undefined]

bought a lite-on ldw-411s from office depot for $90 ($100 after tax, which was my price point) right before thanksgiving.

i've used it exclusively in linux as that's all i run, except to flash the firmware with the windows executable.

it works great for the data storage i've needed (daily incremental & weekly full tarballs of /etc & /home on a few machines). only used dvd+rw media. the ricoh media included with the drive works well, and only had 1 out of 5 optodisc dvd+rw fail (expected though as optodisc is of inconsistent quality, but cheap). the written media reads fine in my year-old lite-on ltd-163 dvd drive.

- grab the drive
- download the latest firmware (FS0F last i looked),
- install dvd+rw-tools ("apt-get install dvd+rw-tools", though i rebuilt the sid packages for woody)
- install k3b (kde 3 required) or tkdvd (really simple app for my basic needs and a great way to ease into learning the dvd+rw-tools command-line options/arguments)
- patch the kernel if you want packet-writing capabilities (also useful for cd-rw, but not rock stable)

here's a list of urls i found during my research during the last two or three weeks.

authoritative source
http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/

packet writing reference
http://www.pond-weed.com/dvd/

k3b v0.10 & growisofs
http://k3b.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/inde x.pl/news2

tkdvd
http://www.nongnu.org/tkdvd/

enjoy!

NEC-1300A for $103

[Rick Richardson]

Livewarehouse has the NEC-1300A 4X/-R/-RW/+R/+RW for $103 shipped, if you are a bit nervous about buying these off brand drives.

Note that the reviewed drive came with software (the NEC-1300A doesn't), but the reviewer didn't use it.

Why is that, you might ask? Well, because most of the video to DVD software is a complete crapshoot, depending on your particular machine and capture card, etc. Blasting the DVD is the easy part.

I spent a good number of hours *just last night* (yawn) running down just exactly what software would work with my setup (Intel D845PEBT2 mobo, AverTV stereo). Nero 6 Ultra? Nope. Roxio VideoWave 5? Nope. MainActor? Nope. Power VCR II? Yep, we have a winner.

After my experience, no way would I pay extra to get a recorder plus software unless I knew for a fact that software would work on my computer. If not, better to buy a bare drive and try the test drive download versions of various retail software until you find one that works for you.

Re:NEC-1300A for $103

[drinkypoo]

As an aside, Nero has gone straight to hell. It refuses to overburn on my system with the latest version, but the older ones worked fine on my lite-on 48x24x48 ATAPI. I've all but given up on it - the only things I use it for now are burning DVD-Video and ISO images.

Re:NEC-1300A for $103

[anteater424]

I recently purchased a NEC 1000 for 55 and it works fine. It's DVD+ only but so what. The blanks are about 80p each if you buy online and they work perfectly in my low-end Philips player. Can't fault it at that price.

Re:NEC-1300A for $103

[benzapp]

get Alcohol 120%. It is way cool, and handles every copy protection scheme under the sun so you can backup all of your games. Doesn't do a straight DVD copy, but what software does?

Its also put out by those pesky Germans, so it must be good. Has a nice interface too, much more consistent with the windows motif.

Re:NEC-1300A for $103

[drinkypoo]

I did finally get alcohol for the burning of images. My problems with nero center around burning of ordinary files to a ISO filesystem CD. I used to be able to overburn to fit those 701 MB divx movies :)

And of course, no software can do a straight DVD copy, because the physical structure of a DVD(+/-)R[W] is different from a pressed DVD...

That's why they're cheap

[gilesjuk]

Any sensible person will wait for dual layer drives. Will be able to backup DVD films and fit nearly twice as much data on a disc. Not to mention you can still do single layer if you really have to.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[dpilot]

And once the dual layer drives are out, it'll be time to wait for shorter-wavelength burning, or some other must-have feature.

Computing and electronics is always a game of 'enough for now, at a price I can handle.'

Re:That's why they're cheap

[pair-a-noyd]

Yes. Don't jump on the bandwagon the day stuff hits the streets, wait until it hits the streets. As in the curb. People are throwing away old systems like mad now.
I just picked up a CLEAN (non smoker) PII 400 with a CDR & a CDRW & a ZIP. 8 gigs, plus loaded with win98 and and a few games. All I had to do was pick up up from a trash pile and wipe the dust off of it. The power supply was dead. It works GREAT now. Yeah, slow but, it was all but free. $15 for a new ATX power supply and I have a PC that people would have once KILLED to have.

Guess what? Load it up with Linux and you've got a damn nice server for next to nothing.

I've got dozens and dozens up more dozens of old PC's this way. Just drive and and scan the rubish heaps, see something, stop and grab it. It's FREE..

Now, when will people start throwing P4's out??

Re:That's why they're cheap

[gilesjuk]

Maybe, but then most DVD players will only support dual layer.

Imagine if when CD-R first came out it only could write half a CD, would you buy a drive then or wait maybe a month or two for one that can do a whole disc?

Single layer DVD writers are just that, a crippled DVD writer incompatible with all the DVD film formats out there.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got dozens and dozens up more dozens of old PC's this way. Just drive and and scan the rubish heaps, see something, stop and grab it. It's FREE..

You wouldn't be too happy with my garbage. The last time I through something out was when I moved a year and a half ago. In the trash went a broken Vic-20, Packard Bell XT 8088 (still worked, but my fiance convinced me I would probably never use it again since it was sitting in the attic for 10 years), a Packard Bell 386DX/33 (everything except motherboard and CPU stripped out of it.. hey, I may need an ISA VGA card and 4 megs of 30 pin simms some day). Oh yeah, and the mighty 486DX2/66 in the full tower AT case with the broken power supply, stripped as well. I would've taken out the CPU but it was before ZIF sockets so it was soldered to the motherboard. That one was a real bonus to scavengers since it had 3 vesa-local bus slots!!!

Meanwhile I'm queuing my next garbage run for a few years from now with a dual PPro-180 (overclocked to 200MHz) IBM, an AMD K5-133, and a PPro-150. The Pentium Pro systems were well over $1200 when I built them. Ah well. Time for the rubbish heap.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[Luscious868]

Single layer DVD writers are just that, a crippled DVD writer incompatible with all the DVD film formats out there.

While what you say is true, there are plenty of programs out there that let you drop some of the extra features and/or extra audio tracks so you can fit the entire video on a single DVD. There are also programs out there that let you recompress the video so you can fit the entire thing on one DVD, with all of the extras and special features intact. If you don't want to lose anything, there are programs that will split the main movie onto two DVD's and leave the extra's intact on each DVD so you don't lose anything but you will have to change the DVD half way through the movie (which you have to do with the special editions of the LOTR movies and some other movies anyway ... not really a big deal IMHO).

Are they prefect solutions? No. Do they work well most of the time? Yes. I've spent too much money on my DVD collection not to have backups. A single scratch can totally mess a DVD up. I make backups of every DVD I own and put the originals away for safe keeping. Then when friends and/or family come over and are messing with stuff I don't have to worry about anyone scratching or misplacing a DVD.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[advocate_one]

"$15 for a new ATX power supply and I have a PC that people would have once KILLED to have."

What do you mean WOULD... there are people out there in the world who _will_ kill for them... they're the ones who're having to make do with clapped out old 486's and 386's...

Re:That's why they're cheap

[pair-a-noyd]

Aw man! I would still kill to have a VIC-20!

I remember lusting for one, way back when.

I would love to have some of those oldies, just for nostalgia sake. Some of the old games were really fun then, simple, clean fun.

I've got boxloads of old 386 and 286 mobos.
One of these days I'm going to screw them all to the walls and ceiling so that ALL of room is completely covered with computer mother boards.
Then I will have a REAL computer room..

Re:That's why they're cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

PII 400Mhz deserved to be in the trash heap.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[gilesjuk]

The solution to the backup argument is for the film companies to replace damaged discs free of charge. Then they can argue that there's no need to backup a disc and therefore they can use strong copy protection methods.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[Cramer]

• but then most DVD players will only support dual layer

Wrong. ALL DVD players are required to read single and dual layer media to be labeled as a DVD player and carry the officially licensed logo. The reason for 99% of the market being dual layer is simply to reduce piracy -- if you cannot burn 8G per disc, then you obviously cannot duplicate the movie, right. Of course, to actually fill the space, movie houses have to load a bunch of junk and encode the movie at unnecessarily high bit rates.

Reading a multi-layer disc is certainly not a simple task. However, we've gotten pretty good at it over the years. Writing a multi-layer disc is quite difficult. And researchers have only recently devised a scheme to do it at all -- don't expect the first generation technology to be fast, stable, or cheap.

Re:That's why they're cheap

[jo42]

No kidding, I picked up a refurbished Compaq P4 2.4Ghz 533MHz FSB, 256Mb DDR300, 40GB HD, CD-RW drive system with USB 2.0 and Firewire ports for $375 US the other day. Nice small case and it is quiet. Someday we'll be picking G5's out of the trash...

for backup this would suck

[Anonymous Coward]

With the price of media, you are far better off buying a few 80 GB IDE hard drives.

Faster too.

Re:for backup this would suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you're a moron... Lets say you find a 7200rpm 80gb hard drive for about $50(rebates and all)... DVD burner is $100... blank 4.7Gb discs are easily found for $1 a piece... Shall I do the math for you?

Re:for backup this would suck

[praedor]

Depends. The math strongly favors the hdd over the burner if the backups you refer to are system backups (rather than movie backups, etc). You OVERWRITE your last backup with the most recent. One hdd is all that is needed for this.

Re:for backup this would suck

[toddestan]

Well, you can always wipe the hard drive and reuse it next time you want to backup. Didn't think about that, now did you?

Also very fast, and you can set it and go. 80GB can be done in a couple of hours with no supervision. 80GB on DVD disks would mean over 20 disks, and you have to sit there and babysit the computer, feeding it a new disk every 15 minutes. Ugh.

K3b!

[Balinares]

For burning anything (audio CDs, data CDs, mixed CDs, DVDs, eMovix projects...) K3b is king. Never found a better burning frontend (including on Windows).

Don't worry about burning stuff under Linux, that problem seems solved for the time being, which is way cool.

Re:K3b!

[AstroDrabb]

I have to agree. I am a Gnome user so I never tried K3b until this week. The interface and functionality is just great. I wish this or a similar app would come out for Gnome/GTK. Until one does, I will stick with k3b, though the integration with Gnome of course is non-existent : (

Re:K3b!

[afree87]

I want a G3B :(

I just bought a dual format for $89 at Fry's...

[Svartalf]

The prices ARE down. Now, if I were facing a $200-250 price tag, I'd have to give pause considering that it's only going to be double that for one of the double-layer burners (which is niftier than the 8x speed burners...).

Will It work with Apple Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it can be made to work with a macintosh. Any one know?

Spend the extra $1.99

[bryanp]

How about a dual format burner for $101.99 delivered?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, maybe you need a reason to use DVD-R as it might, sometimes be more capatible with more DVD players. This is not as big an issue as it used to be though.

However, for general computer usage you flat out can not beat DVD+RW. It's sorta like flash media in that it has a limited number of write operations but it allows completely random access. This is great because you can use the DVD almost like a hard-drive. It's better to use a filesystem that limits rewriting the same spot too many times (like the flash filesystems) but you can use pretty much any filesystem you want. Plus, at 4.7 GB it holds a lot more than any flash media and for a lot less cost. I love it.

I own the Sony DRX-500ULX which handles any format out there and I have to say that I mostly only use DVD+RW for computer stuff. I've never had a problem with the DVD+RW media in any DVD-ROM or DVD player I've tried.

Re:So what?

[Nogami_Saeko]

I have a dual-format burner and have tested both -R and +R format discs in a variety of set-top and computer DVD drives.

The +R disc didn't play in any of the set-top players I own (ranging from 1-4 years old).

The -R played in 3 of the 4 initially, and 4 of 4 once the last machine had a firmware update.

The results were a little better in DVD-ROM drives, but -R still has a sizeable edge. Naturally this will change with newer players, but if you need compatibility with older players, then -R is definately the way to go.

That said, I do a lot of professional, and industrial DVD authoring, and I need to have the best compatibility (aside from authoring-mode blanks) for stuff I send to clients to preview.

Sub-$100?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I can't find the price anywhere, but it's $99.95, isn't it?

SATA anyone?

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Why aren't we seeing any SATA CD/DVD drives yet? Is there some technical reason? How long do we have to wait to see the end of PATA support?

Re:SATA anyone?

[xyote]

I don't think there's enough of a market to justify making them from the OEM's perspective. When they do, they will probably just tack on a bridge chip which is what some of the hard drive OEMs are doing. You can get a SATA/PATA bridge board now for about $20~$25 which will be less than the premium charged by the drive makers when they eventually do come out with them. If you do that, make sure the SATA/PATA bridge chip supports ATAPI as some of the early bridge chips only supported SATA for hard drives. The Silicon Image SiI 3611 supports ATAPI. Make sure your SATA controller also supports ATAPI, same issue there.

Addonics makes such a bridge board here. Note their comment about compatibility. Also, AMS makes two styles here that use the 3611 chip according to their data sheets.

Re:SATA anyone?

[0x1337]

Boy aren't you anxious for a new totally-incompatible interface that will make your Winodws XP blue-screen every 5 minutes with the beta non-WHQL drivers, and will make your Linux/(Free/Net/Open)BSD/Darwin/Hurd distribution scream with glee as it has no effin idea what your new toy is.

YAY! Expensive, incompatible, non-standard block-storage interfaces!!! Expensive cables... non-existant, badly tested, out-of-date drivers!!! Yippee!!!

Boy - you would fit very well in the 80's-early 90's - the time of obscure winchester interfaces, and even more obscure cd-rom interfaces.

"What do you mean I can't use my Aztech/Sony CD-ROM with my Micro-Channel SoundBlaster?"

"rescue a failing DVD movie disc"

[Anonymous Coward]

How do I go about doing that under Linux? or even OS X?

Links please. Thanks.

Re:"rescue a failing DVD movie disc"

[Anonymous Coward]

www.google.com

The birth of DVDR ISOs

[disc-chord]

DVDR isos have been around for a couple years now, slowly gaining popularity (especially among console gamers). But this is going to be the real step towards mainstream DVDRs.

DVD Player $40
DVD Burner $80
DVD Media $1/pop
MPAA going down like a $2 hooker... priceless.

It is now a lot cheaper to pirate DVD movies than it is to rent. Forget your Divx, delete your P2P programs. It's time to embrace the new age of digital piracy. I'll see ya all on alt.binaries.dvdr ;)

Re:The birth of DVDR ISOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Micrsoft is distributing a lot of their developer tools on DVD media now. For example, Visual Studio .NET on DVD is included with the VB.NET textbook at my university. Also, the MSDN library is too large to fit on a CD; had to burn my "borrowed" copy to DVD.

Re:The birth of DVDR ISOs

[Soban]

hi whats this? alt.binaries.dvdr i will appreciate any inf :) thanks

Re:The birth of DVDR ISOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Google search for Usenet

Welcome to the internet, hope you enjoy your stay.

Re:The birth of DVDR ISOs

[Cramer]

• see ya all on alt.binaries.dvdr

Are people actually posting DVDs in there now? (eg. not f***ing Divx copies of DVDs.) And good luck finding a USENET server with the group intact... I swear some people are expiring that group three times a day. (and web usenet tends to corrupt the group 30x an hour -- I actually suggested suing their software vendor (highwinds?).)

How about a bare drive?

[pair-a-noyd]

I have no use on earth for all the "bundled" and "value added" crap they throw in with the drive, if they think the software is so freaking valuable, how about they keep it and sell me the drive for a bigger discount?

And why does the DVD software come on CDR's???

Re:How about a bare drive?

[Liselle]

And why does the DVD software come on CDR's???

Presumably because near everyone has a CD drive these days, and perhaps there is some troubleshooting software on the CD should your DVD writer not work perfectly.

Re:How about a bare drive?

[/dev/trash]

The same reason CD-ROM software had to come on floppies. You can't install a driver for a piece of hardware that has yet to be installed.

Re:How about a bare drive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn right! I went out to Besy Buy after frying my cdburner, bought a dvd player/cd burner. I use VmWare and the software they sent with the drive thinks my Vmware video device has some sort of TV/OUT port and wont play DVD's, thats just silly.

Re:How about a bare drive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost. CDs still cost less to mass produce.

belgian shop sells liteon ldw401s for 99

[softwave]

Carrefour, a french chain of big stores, is selling the LiteOn LDW401S for 99 in Belgium. This promotion is only valid today, december 6th.

Re:belgian shop sells liteon ldw401s for 99 euros

[softwave]

And here is the link, forgot to include it
http://www.hypercarrefour.be/Popup_December.cfm?la ng=nl

So can you copy a movie DVD?

[smallfeet]

Sorry, but I know nothing of this stuff. Is it possible to make a copy of a commercial movie DVD with one of these recorders? Can you then play the copy in a set top DVD player or only in your computer?

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[Shaklee39]

Yes, but you need to have software that shrinks DVD-9 (9 gig) movies down to the 4.5 gig barrier. DVDXCOPY does this as well as the guides on doom9.org

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[Naffer]

Quality loss?! Thats half the bitrate! Does it give you the option of splitting across two disks?

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[spike hay]

Quality loss?! Thats half the bitrate! Does it give you the option of splitting across two disks?

Yes, there would be quality loss. But remember, the bitrate would still be a sky-high 4000 kbps. Have you ever seen an SVCD before? I burn those all the time. I can encode nearly perfect quality video, much better than VHS, at 2000 kbps. You don't see any artifacting at all unless you get close and examine the picture carefully. At double the bitrate, burned DVDs would hardly be lacking for quality, assuming whoever encoded it knew what they are doing, and used a good encoder like TMPGENC.

However, there will be dual layer burners coming out in March. These will store 9 gigs just like the commercially produced dvds. Although I'm sure the media would be ridiculously overpriced.

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[Monkelectric]

You dont have a 62" HDTV. VCD's are unwatchable and artifacts are visible on even well encoded (original) DVDs.

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can use a left-hand product called DVD shrink that will let you control the level of compression on each file and optionally delete things of little value such as language tracks, lame extra features and so on. Finally, it flattens menus; by that I mean that if you notice on mainstream DVD menus they are animated in some fashion. This means there is extra space on the dvd being taken up by that video file. Flattening simply takes a screen shot of that video file and that becomes your menu. You would be surprised at how much space on a dvd is taken up by such things.

The point is that you can keep the compression on main feature at 100% and trim the rest down in many different ways and still bring it down to 4.7 gigs so the quality loss is pretty much a non-issue if you know what you are doing. Having lost hundreds of dollars-worth of paid-for commercial DVDs to scratches and so on, a tool like this is priceless because it gives you the security that the MPAA and buddies can't or won't.

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[spike hay]

You dont have a 62" HDTV. VCD's are unwatchable and artifacts are visible on even well encoded (original) DVDs.

You're right, I don't. And 99% of the population doesn't either. There is no video standard that is available in the U.S. (besides digital VHS) that can offer HDTV resolutions. By the way, VCD quality is shit. It's worse than VHS. It's 1150 kbps mpeg1. What you want is SVCD, mpeg2 480x480, or CVD, which is mpep2 352x480. SVCD can have video bitrates up to about 2500 kbps. And it can be variable bitrate, as well, not VCD's constant bitrate.

Anyway, for a normal 24" tv, SVCD is perfectly acceptable, and damn better than VHS by a longshot. Everything will look like shit on a 62" tv.

Re:So can you copy a movie DVD?

[mixmasta]

Dvd shrink does the same, is easy to use and is free.

Really, I have several older dvd's that were 4 gigs originally and look fine. The newer ones that are 8 gig that I have shrunk to 4 look fine. I can't tell any difference. Infact I have been able to get down to 2 before it starts looking crappy.

This tells me that the extra bandwidth is just approaching the land of diminishing returns.

Unless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Single layer is more than enough for your backup needs...

9 gigs on a single disc might be nice, but I'm fine with 4.7 gigs; they're both really large numbers. If you want to copy dvds, then yeah, I'd say wait for the dual layer drives. If you want data backup, typically 4.7 gigs is plenty.

Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[KC7GR]

The belief that 'You Gets What You Pays For' is one to live by. I have to wonder how long one of these $100 or sub-$100 burners will last.

The entire attitude of "Just toss it when it fails and get a new one" is a poor excuse. That sort of mindset is exactly why there's such a huge problem with solid waste (much of it old electronics) in the world.

While I like a bargain as much as the proverbial 'Next Guy,' I also expect equipment I buy to last a bare minimum of five years, more if the price is above a couple of hundred. I don't mind paying a bit more for stuff that's better built.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[Rick Richardson]

When the 8X recorders hit $100, people will want one of those instead of the old, slow 4X. Any drive bought today is likely doomed for the trashcan in 1 year regardless of how well its built.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[ilsie]

I am also a big proponent of "You Gets What You Pays For"- however, this does not necessarily apply to electronics. When manufacturing & R&D costs drop, margins go down. Period.

I bought a 12x CD-R burner (AOpen, in fact) as soon as they hit the sub $100 price- that was probably 3 or more years ago- and it's still chugging along fine.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[stubear]

I agree 100%. When I purchase computer equipment I decide what the best quality component is within reason then I search for the cheapest price on that comnponent. Sometimes I wait a generation or two to help drop the cost even more but I don't wait too long as the difference in price is often minimal if I can even get the component anymore anyway. I have a Dual Xeon PII450 system running on a Supermicro board and it has yet (knock on wood) to fail me. I've had friends systems burn through two or three motherboards because they bought cheap components (cost and quality).

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[Reziac]

While I generally agree -- in computer components, you get what you pay for -- I've found it's not so simple with CDRW, and likely won't be with their cousin the DVD writer, either.

Frex, the Yamaha CDRW debacle -- I know of 20 of these $230+ drives that went tits-up at an early age (2 years or less), and NONE that didn't. If they're going to BEHAVE like cheap hardware and die young anyway, why not save myself a lot of bucks and buy a cheap one? Especially if I'm only going to get a year or two out of it regardless. And the price of wasted media is no longer a big concern, blanks being down around a dime apiece.

That's the point where I decided I would treat CDRWs like an investment that will only last one year, and started looking at the low-priced drives. After some asking around (and finding zero complaints) I decided to try a LiteOn, at under $50 for a 48x CDRW. Worked well enough that I've since bought another (plus two of their DVD reader drives), and have zero coasters to show for it. :)

Yeah, I've got a Plextor CDRW too, and so far it's been fine -- but it cost almost 3x as much as the LiteOns, and will it last any longer? That remains to be seen.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[/dev/trash]

Five years? I must be old, I expect my stuff to last at least 10 years.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[prockcore]

well, considering my past experience with cd burners, spending $100 on a dvd burner that's going to die in 3 years is better than spending $400 on a dvd burner that's going to die in the same amount of time.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[ttfkam]

...except that you aren't just replacing it with the same item. This isn't like getting a disposable camera. The newer drives are usually faster, more reliable, and much better feature-wise than their predecessors. It's common for folks to upgrade their CD burner for example because the previous one was "just too slow." This is commonly done about every few years. If the drives can last three years, where's the problem?

The landfill? Sure, not throwing the drives away would be better than throwing them away, but let's be realistic here. Computer waste is not nor has ever been the biggest portion of total solid (and possibly toxic) waste. That honor would go to disposable diapers, newspapers, and fast food packaging. Packinging in general is a major contributor. But computers -- yes, even with the materials used to make them -- are just a drop in the bucket.

Then again, my cheapest price hard drives, CD-ROM drives, burners, motherboards, etc. have all lasted more than five years for me. Now I'm running into the problem of perfectly usable hardware that just sits around doing nothing. Who really wants a used 4X CDROM drive when a new 24X CD-R costs peanuts?

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[ttfkam]

And paying $100 now, $75 next year for a faster model, and $50 for even faster one the following year, I will end up paying less than the expensive model overall *and* will end up doing things faster.

Sad but true.

Re:Doesn't anyone worry about reliability?

[Scudsucker]

I expect my stuff to last at least 10 years.

If you can't do maintainance on it, expecting 10 years of regular use out of something with moveable parts is probably a pipe dream, no matter how old you are. :)

Re:SATA anyone? NO one? Firewire should be ...

[adzoox]

Why do we need it right now? The burning speed is currently supported under the current ATA spec. Adding SATA would only add to the cost right now and not increase burning speeds at all. Besides, a trend towards SATA would mean a move away from ATA, which means people would upgrade less component wise. I like standards. SATA added another standard to the long list. I wish everything were just firewire 800 samer connector interior as exterior, That way, we could have smaller enclosures, no confusion of what end to use, what cable to use, and with which device to use it. Making a cable ronded and sheilded (like 1394 cables are) would also cut down on clutter inside and outside a box!

Re:Nice...

[CrazyClimber]

Suckage would depend on whether you're duping the Crossroads with "Karate Kid" Ralph Macchio or the one with Britney Spears. ...on second thought, you're pretty much guaranteed suck.

Do the reviewers have a clue?

[trampel]

I thought the review was OK, until I read at the end:

In our last test we loaded MusicMatch 8.0 and a 69 minute audio disc to test the drives capabilities while ripping MP3s. We set the quality to 192Kbps and turned off error correction to show the best possible performance attainable with each drive.

Looks like they mainly benchmarked MusicMatch against itself here - no wonder the results were identical.

I'm waiting.

[lisany]

I bought a 2x SCSI cd-r for $400 when it came out (it even came with a nice ISA SCSI controller). It took almost 50 minutes to burn 650 meg. A few months later wouldn't you know it, there are 4x IDE, then 8x, 10x. I bought a 10x IDE (SONY CD-RW CRX145E, so says /proc) and its lasted.

The moral of the story is: I'm going to wait for all these corporations to settle out their double density quadroople side, 40,000x, R+/-W and all that jazz before I buy a DVD burner. The bonus is that the price will be low enough that I can afford it (cool deal, huh).

Re:SATA anyone? NO one? Firewire should be ...

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Why do we need it right now?

For exactly the reasons you stated - not speed. One standard, smaller cables and connectors, removal of the Master/Slave crap (and not for Political Correctness reasons).

I'd go with IEEE1394 too, but now the reason against that appears to be cost...

Just FYI

[bogie]

Just FYI there really are no "OFF" brands in the cdr/dvdr world. There are only a couple of major drive producers the two largest being Acer/Aopen and Lite-on. So the "OFF" brands like cendyne, buslink, etc are all pretty much either Acer or Lite-on drives. So if Compusa is selling a "Megapower 4xDVDR" realize that Megapower never had the R&D budget to design and make a high precision part like a DVDR. That's why they all buy them from Acer and Lite-on.

So next time your shopping keep in mind the only two things that matter are 1) who REALLY made this drive and 2) how much does it cost?

Re:SATA anyone? NO one? Firewire should be ...

[xyote]

I should have mentioned on my other post that, AFAIK, all "non PATA" CD/DVD drives use bridge chips/boards for USB2, Firewire, and SCSI. So, again, you can get your own bridge board and provide your own solution. You can try here for a selection that might suit your needs. They even have USB/Firewire combo and Firewire2 (1394b) bridgeboards. I got my Oxford 911 chip based firewire bride for an external case w/ mobile rack for hot pluggable hard drives. SATA is supposed to be hot pluggable but I have concerns about the SATA connector duty cycle rating. It seems to be a little low to be using it for removable drives.

AOpen advert..

[Anonymous Coward]

..what do I need to look at a disguised Slashdot AOpen advert,when there is no word about the Plextor DVD burner who OWNS!!!

Planning to get a DVD burner?

[Wheaty18]

The site that the MPAA does not want you to know about!

Spell Check

[xintegerx]

SpinnerBait writes "DVD burners, until recently, have been a bit too pricey for the average consumer WHO just wants to backup large amounts of data, or rescue a failing DVD movie disc. However, OEMs like AOpen have finally broken the $100 price point, as this article and performance analysis at HotHardware reports. PerformanceNO COMMA for this sub $100 DVD burner was respectable as well, burning almost (Performance was burning?)an entire DVD's worth of data in about 15 minutes. Not too shabby at all... just in time for the holidays."

Reminds me of the article I read....

[Kjella]

Despite its hype and promises, DVD+R may live a short life (maybe 10 years) IMO. ...in the early 90s, about how the upcoming DVD standard would be obsolete in a span of 3 years, replaced by Blue-Ray discs.

I think both CDs and DVDs will live on for a long long time. Because they're the smallest common denominator for audio (CD) and video (DVD), in much the way most of us still have that 1,44mb floppy which was outdated long long ago.

The way prices are going, I rather think we'll see a push for removable HDDs. While somewhat more fragile, CDs and DVDs aren't exactly perfect either, they bend and scratch more easily.

With SATA, disks can now be hotswapped just like a CD/DVD/floppy. Even a harddisk small enough to fit your pocket could hold 30gb (check out the 1,8" HDD in Toshiba Protege 2010, smaller than even standard laptop HDDs) without problems.

Kjella

Re:Reminds me of the article I read....

[evilviper]

The way prices are going, I rather think we'll see a push for removable HDDs.

I would like to do that right now, myself, but there is one problem. There is no universal filesystem format that will work on ever major OS.

As I pointed out just 3 days ago, FAT32 is limited to 32GBs (which won't cut it for 320GB drives) and it isn't that good of a filesystem anyhow. UFS would be perfect if a filesystem driver existed for Windows (already support in every Unix system, including Linux/BSD/Mac OS X).

So, what's the filesystem going to be? Removable hard drives just aren't an option quite yet, unfortunately.

Re:Reminds me of the article I read....

[at_18]

As I pointed out just 3 days ago, FAT32 is limited to 32GBs

It's not. I have a single-partition FAT32 80GB disk (I know it's inefficient, but for large files it's OK).
Win2000 refused to format it. I had to put the disk into a win98 machine and let it format, then put back in the win2000 one.

Re:Reminds me of the article I read....

[evilviper]

I had to put the disk into a win98 machine and let it format, then put back in the win2000 one.

That explains a lot.

Of course I still doubt you could even have a 320GB FAT32 partition. Even if you could, FAT32 is very ineffecient in many ways.

The end of CD-R's? not likely

[Savatte]

not unless traditional cd players can read audio cds burned onto dvds.

Be wary of media compatibility...

[Gorphrim]

I like my NEC (same model as above). Have had no problems with +-RW media, but it doesn't like certain DVD+-R's.

I checked the reviews and such, and they said AVOID Verbatim and Imation...which is pretty much what my local OfficeMax stocks...grrrr.

The TDK's came highly recommended and I have had 100% success with them. Even made what looked like a flawed VOB rip into a perfect DVD movie!

boot from USB keydrive

[gbjbaanb]

you can boot from those USB keydrives, well, with a motherboard/bios that supports it.

lets see...
https://www.codidirect.com/shop/thefactsbe hindboot ability.htm

Re:floppy == DVD-RAM

[gbjbaanb]

I think the biggest deal with floppies is that you just drag and drop files on to them (and I never had quite that much joy with packet-writing CD software.)

DVD-RAM apparently is just as good - so, assuming you get a DVD writer that supports the format (like the LG superwriter models), then these may be the true end for floppies.

My advice: get a DVD writer with DVD-RAM support. The LG model is available in the UK for 75UKP ($129, but DVD writers are cheaper in the US anyway), and can write DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW too.

For your convenience: a review

Check Wal-Mart for Lite-On

[grondu]

The local Wal-Mart has a dual format Lite-on 4X DVD burner for under $100. Sorry, I don't know the model number.

This made me laugh out loud

[LordKazan]

I read your post and literally started laughing loudly, startled my girl friend :D I like it!

Experience with Debian & Emprex / BTC 1004 dr

[jhoger]

Fry's has a sub $100 multi-format unit no rebate required.

$90 (I got one on Thanksgiving sale for $80).

Burns DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW.

I bought one, and I have it working with Debian. I could only record on DVD-R with growisofs, not dvdrecord or cdrecord-prodvd.

Some things I've learned about DVD-R:
1. Don't buy a lot of media till you know it will work. Most of these devices have genuine media compatibility problems. The firmware has to be tuned to each manufacturer's materials. That is, each DVD media has a MID code and if the firmware for the burner doesn't recognize it, it'll probably be incompatible until the next firmware update. If you buy a DVD burner, go to their web site and look at their media compatibility list. I mean it. If you pay $80 for a burner then pay $50 for 50 discs that don't work, well, not much of a bargain.
2. Make sure the recordable media plays in your dvd player if you want to backup your dvd movies
3. Note that typical off the shelf DVD movies are dual layer. They won't fit on a DVD-R, you need to use tools to split them. Rip it with dvdbackup, split it with GOPchop, build the directory structure and TOC files with dvdauthor, build the image with mkisofs and burn it with growisofs (from latest rev of k3b). Hmm... seems it would be a nice project to connect these things together with a Python script (unfortunately 'splitting' the dvd seems to be an unavoidably manual process).

BTW the Emprex cheapo drive is actually the same as the BTC 1004.

<B>http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linu

[Anonymous Coward]

I pasted the URL on the subject line because I don't expect to be modded up. The URL points to the second most popoular DVD burning backend on Linux, dvd+rw-tools. Most uninformed Linux users will point to dvdrecord, which is basically just a patch applied to the opensource version of cdrecord (cdrecord-proDVD is a binary-only release). It's also availabe here, as a pure patch. The author of cdrecord, Joerg Schilling, is well-known for his dislike of dvdrecord, which he considers "illegal" as it purportedly violates certain provisions of the GPL. Andy Polyakov's dvd+rw-tools, on the other hand, is a totally independent implementation, at least as far as the burn strategy is concerned. For the creation of the burn data, it uses mkisofs as a backend. Despite the name, dvd+rw-tools can also burn -R/W!

Mine are fine..

[msimm]

With electronic its always been a huge crapshot. I believe you have a better chance of getting something of higher quality if you pay top dollar, but I'd be a fool believe that was always true. I've got cheap CD-roms, burners and DVD players (one DVD burner) all around and they haven't given me any trouble (or blanks).. Well, actually one didn't survive the dust with the San Diego fires, but the cheap DVD burn filled its spot nicely.

Somehow, you get what you pay for doesn't perfectly apply to electronics. You get what their engineers designed with or without help from parts manufacturers and the fabrication plant, sometimes.

http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay I'm just putting in the "correct" title. It seems that slashdot's html parser is broken. The title previewed correctly but when I pressed enter on the Submit button, garbage came out.

An Exception

[ChrisMaple]

Rite-Aid drug stores allow entering rebate information over the internet, and so far have been 2-for-2 for me. No third party, and the entry form tells you quickly if your data is acceptable.

backup to DV video tapes!

[Anonymous Coward]

they have this Mac OS X, it's not free (but is cheap) ... but maybe someone can do this for GNU/Linux. it couldn't be too hard. You can back up to firewire digital video cameras, and get baout 5-10G per tape. this is so cool.

check it: http://coolatoola.com

Nice to see price drop

[failedlogic]

Question though: What's the optimal setting for the DVD Burner:

Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave

I'm sorry I don't mean to offend. Afterall, I might offend not only those in L.A. County Read more but now all /. readers.

Re:Nice to see price drop

[toddestan]

My guess would be Secondary Master with no slave. Primary slave would be bad, as it would be sharing a channel with your harddrive, so don't do it. It usually isn't a problem if it shares a channel with another CD/DVD/CDRW drive as long as you don't use the other drive while burning a disk, but you never know.

What about digital restrictions management?

[Anonymous Coward]

A review of hardware, yet the site fails to mention if the drive has any digital restrictions management in the firmware.

Can I play/rip the music and videos that I own without encumbering restrictions?

Can I play/rip the music and videos that I own without worrying about loosing keys?

Can I play/rip the music and videos that I own on the multiple digital devices that I own in multiple locations without restrictions?

Can I easily make back up copies, or transfer across my lan for backup/streaming/archiving, the music and videos that I own?

Will the drive's full functionality be available to me on my linux powered computers?

Aren't these questions relevant to a hardware review of audio/video hardware?

Why aren't these questions being answered in the review? Are all hardware sites going to conform to this model? How do I find out about digital restrictions management in hardware if the review sites make no mention of it?

Why worry about the formats?

[PCM2]

It seems to me that both DVD+R and DVD-R are going to be around for a little while yet. Plus, we're talking about burners that are sub-$100. If all of a sudden your supply of blank media dried up completely, how much of a tragedy would that be? By that time, you'd probably want to buy a new drive anyway -- like one of the aforementioned double-layer models.

So I don't really understand why people fret so much over which format their drive supports. As far as I understand it, once you've burned the media, anyone can read it. It can be put in any DVD-ROM drive or any home DVD player (more or less). So the choice of media really only matters to the person who's got to burn the disc, and makes no difference to anyone trying to use the disc.

So what's the big deal?

dvd's are great for backups

[ShadowRage]

I'm not worried about movie quality because I dont burn movies...
however.. the double layer burners will be nice, then I can back up my hard drive in segments, or back the whole thing up and compress the image... comes in handy.

I will NEVER be burned by AOpen again!

[grolschie]

Just a word of warning. AOpen drives are notoriously bad. You do get what you pay for. Buyer beware!

I previously bought AOpen 40x CDRW drives. This was that notorious model that dies completely with the blinking light after only a few months/weeks. Replaced under warranty a few times - with the same model! Only to have the same thing occur. My small-time retailer was getting at least one or two of these back a week. The 48x model was almost the same. However, before this model died, it would intermittantly not-read/write cds, before becoming completely dead. It took a little longer to die (a month or two more) than the 40x model. The AOpen distributors kept replacing with dead drives with more of these short-life span drive, until the warranty period was used up. Getting a refund is all but impossible as they claim to be able to rectify the situation with a new working CDRW drive. Your consumer laws may differ. Basically, it was not worth pursuing any further, so we just wrote these drives of and replaced with LG's. No more problems.

I still have an Acer 12x CDRW is still working fine after all this time. No matter how cheap an AOpen DVDrw becomes, I don't want it.

Re:Compatibility?

[Briareos]

Well, using Nero 5.5.10.54 with my Ricoh RW5240A (which writes +R/+RW with 4x) lets me set the book type without problems. And yes, the one video DVD I've burned with it using DVD-Shrink to make it fit on the disc played flawlessly in my rather old Pioneer DV 525.

Oh, and I got it for 99,90 EUR at a local electronics store. (Granted, that makes around 120 USD, but it still fits that "just below 100 $CURRENCY" marketing gimmick... :)

np: Triosk Meets Jan Jelinek - Theme From Trioskinek (1+3+1)

Zip Drives

[Phil Wilkins]

...click click click click click click click...

Re:Zip Drives

[Anonymous Coward]

*KA-CHUNK* click *KA-CHUNK* click *KA-CHUNK* click *swoosh*

"Shit."

Zip drives, to put it bluntly, are reliability disasters.

Re:Zip Drives

[Scudsucker]

Zip drives, to put it bluntly, are reliability disasters.

They're still 100x better than floppies.

No.

[The Wicked Priest]

For a long time, I felt like I couldn't justify upgrading my slow, old 4x2x24 HP burner because it still ran (runs) perfectly after four (or five?) years. In this context, less reliable hardware might've been a blessing in disguise. ;-) I finally did replace it a few months ago, with a $150 DVD+RW, and passed it on to my mother, who only had a CD-ROM. Of course, it's still outperformed by new $20 drives. I also just replaced my laser printer, after a ca. 1990 unit that I bought for $2 at a thrift store died. I only got a few years' service out of that. But I was annoyed when my new (2000) monitor died this year, just out of warranty. My motherboard, also three years old, died a few months earlier, just inside the warranty. It does make me wonder if quality is declining... I have much, much older monitors (like a Commodore 1084S) still hanging in there.

Re:No.

[Ray Radlein]

I have a 1084S right in front of me now -- I use it as a television. That was one big advantage to the really old monitors -- they could always be used as TVs, in a pinch (before I replaced it with the 1084S, my previous television in here was an old Commodore composite monitor from someone's dead C=64).

How appropriate!

[Like2Byte]

I don't care how low the price of an individual DVD (media) is. My time invested is worth 25 times that value. (My DVDs were $3/DVD.)

I don't care how inexpensive the drives becomes. I just spent all day *burning* a DVD using Sony's "Click to DVD." When the first DVD was burned, I popped it into my DVD player and the DVD worked flawlessly. I didn't like the way the layout was created so I redesigned it and created another DVD with 12 different 'chapters.'

This DVD didn't work one bit (no pun intended) in either the burning DVD writer or the standalone DVD player. Nadda. I opened the DVD up in Hex Editor and looked at the various sectors - 99% of them were NULLs. WTGDF!?

I basically spent the whole day creating these two DVDs to have the final product, which looked fantastic in layout, turn to complete *shit* after the burn.

Time line?:
1 hour designing(importing, etc.) - DVD #1
2 hours burning first DVD - DVD #1
1.5 hours redesigning DVD layout - DVD #2
3.5 hour burning period - DVD #2

All for naught.

Moral of the story?

Who gives a rats ass what the cost of the blank DVDs are when the software burning the DVDs doesn't work properly.

Why should they care if the product is sold on?

[DABANSHEE]

It makes no differance to them

Re:Nice...

[asquared256]

ummm i think if it skips or crashes that's either a *very* defective burner, or a software problem (that would mean the player doesn't understand the file structure on the disk.) If it just doesn't play, the media may be incompatible with a specific player.

will it work with mac

[cheezus]

anyone know if it works in a mac / with iDVD?

Re:will it work with mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it cheap? If yes, it doesn't work with a Mac.

Re:will it work with mac

[jo42]

The only compatability problem on Macs seems to be that you have to hang the DVD-/+RW drive off of the internal IDE bus. For some reason, Apple decided not to support most external Firewire-based DVD-/+RW drives. Disclaimer: This is what I have read on various Apple sites. See http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ for the real hoe down.

Rebate tips

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a slave to the horror that is Best Buy's (and Future Shop, if you're in Canada) rebate department.
I'm sure ./ers read all the fine print, but here are some hints anyway if you do decide to participate in the mail-in rebate dance:

• Photocopy the hell out of everything you mail away. Stuff gets lost all the time, and even if it means you're out $1000 on your new plasma TV, well, with no copies you're screwed.
• If you don't get your cheque within the allotted time, for God's sake call the phone number on the rebate slip. They're no good after about 6 months, but you wouldn't believe how many people wait 4 years and then want to know where their money is.
• Be nice to the person on the phone, 'cause they could be a fellow ./er.. :P

Seen this today

[Boltronics]

I was at the Royal Melbourne Show Grounds swap meet today, and saw a burner there advertised for $205. Not sure what brand it was, as I wasn't in the market for one. This is the cheapest I've ever seen in Australia though.

Fry's EMPREX for $89 DVD +/- RW

[Anonymous Coward]

At Frys or outpost.com

Why I didn't buy a sub-$100 player

[parliboy]

I considered it strongly, but I decided to buy an 8X burner instead. The reason for this is that the 8X's also have much faster CD-burning rates: mine has 40x CD burning, while most 4x's have 16x CD burning.

In this case, it means I don't have to shop the market for a faster CD burner to replace my 12x, as I'd planned on doing. In addition, it means that I was able to build a system with only one optical drive (I don't do a lot of optical-to-optical burning), save one bay. And of course for the mini-systems, the 8x's can provide all of the optical needed in the one alloted slot.

LiteOn quality in firmware

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a LiteOn LTR-24102B (24x10x40x CDRW) a couple years back because at the time it was one of the few CDR drives which worked correctly with CloneCD. At the time, Plextor and most others didn't write correct EFM information but most LiteOns did.

Here is a compatability chart for LiteOn drives.
Here is a compatibility chart for Plextor drives.