DVD burners

Me old CD burner has conked out so I thought I might as well get a DVD burner to replace it since the prices have dropped nicely now. Any recommendations?

And what's the difference between all the different formats? DVD-R / DVD+R ? DVD-RW is kinda obvious, are the limitations the same as with CDRW, ie. slower, less compatible and more expensive media for re-writables?

Oh and which are good blanks to get? There's about 1 billion different ones as usual Oo

Cheers for any advice

everyone seems to think that the pioneer 106D is the daddy atm. as to your other questions...I don't know either

I bought a Liteon writer just last week, as I've got a CDRW from them too and thought very highly of them. If you get a dual drive (such as that liteon or pioneer 106) it reads and writes both - and + formats, so there's no 'betamax syndrome' worries. The one I linked to writes @ 4X (4.5 gig in about 13 minutes), rewrites +RW @ 4x and -RW at 2x.

Blank media wise, I bought a 25 pack of Bulkpaq orange-top from bigpockets and it's worked in the different players I've put it in. Expect to pay around 50p per disc atm. Ritek is allegedly the daddy of media.

I heard the Pio106D are becoming obsolete, and are getting replaced with a more buggy 107D? I was looking at getting this Sony one.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=59679

I dunno if there's much point in getting an 8X burner though, as the majority of DVDs sold are 4X, and the 8X ones cost too much

granny said:

And what's the difference between all the different formats? DVD-R / DVD+R ?

Click to expand...

I would also like to know, thanks.

Only thing I can remember for sure is if you want to burn DVDs for a DVD player for your TV then you need to burn DVD-R.

Beyond that:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3

Cheers for the replies peeps, clearly I need to do some more research

I have a LiteON 8x DVD writer, it's lovely. Most of my drives are liteon now actually, never had any problems with them. My brother has a Sony DVD-writer, his works fine too, both dual-DVD type writers.

My Sony (big dedicated DVD player that sits under TV) can play DVD+RW, DVD-R, and DVD+R, don't have a DVD-RW to test with, so I've never really seen the need in +'s. I mainly use -R's.

+R's can be written faster (at 8x, whereas 4x is the max for -R afaik)

That's about it ...

The Liteon 4x DVD Burner is going for £62 incl VAT at Insight UK.

SheepCow said:

+R's can be written faster (at 8x, whereas 4x is the max for -R afaik)

Click to expand...

The new Pioneer DVR 107 can do 8x on both.


http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,2076_4249_39099161,00.html

Can you buy 8x -R DVDs though?

Pioneer x4 106D (A06) The daddy, Good drive, Will burn anything with firmware update, Stable and very reliable.

NEC x8 (forgot number, 5200 or somit, prob wrong ) Good stable drive. Will burn Ritek tangos and prints -r, Datawrite red/yellow -r, Bulkpac orange -r, mountian & water - & + r , Arita -r, and a few other x4 dvd's @ x6 out the box.

Liteon x8, good stanle drive, will burn ritek x4 at x6, and also mountian & water and Arita out the box.

Pioneer 107D, As said, Buggy atm, but will improve with firmware. Little unstable at times, But good firmware updates will improve this, Maybe aviod this for a bit.

Hope this helps

Pricing range from £50 - £80

Media.

OK working from a memory so if am wrong, Don't flame -r is a single layer dye that always recording of 4.7 gigs of data on to 1 dvd without the need to turn it over, +r always the recording of 8.5 gigs on 1 dvd by having a dual layer, 2 burn layers seperated by a space layer without turning over.

Blanks norm come in 2 dye sets, Princo (lightish purple) seems to be most common, Datawrite, bulkpac, Phoenix, Platinium and some Mountian & water All use princo dyes. Ritek G04 (dark purple) little less common, But highly avail. Riket all (ofc ), Arita and some Moutian & water use this dye. I find Riteks dye more stable for Picture data, But others may argue

Lastly my advice, Hence the sperate post.

Aviod Pioneer 107, Either get Liteon, NEC or 106D, Just for stablity reasons.

Get a selection of media first time you buy, Try to find a small independant comp shop close by and buy 1 or 2 of each, Look out for Bulkpac orange, Mountian & water, Ritek and Arita. All good stable discs. Aviod phoenix, My pet hate

GL and happy burning

Ohh and get 1 dvd -rw and 1 dvd +rw. Handy to have.

Plextor will be showing a 12x +/- burner at CeBit this month.

Xav

Bob007 said:

Get a selection of media first time you buy

Click to expand...

www.blankdiscshop.co.uk sells this sort of thing, one disk of each.

And is it disc or disk?

Clown said:

www.blankdiscshop.co.uk sells this sort of thing, one disk of each.

And is it disc or disk?

Click to expand...

Depends if you're English or American...

There aren't any double sided writers out there at the moment, I seem to remember one is being devised though ...

Is it not disc, as disk is short for diskette?

Is disc short for disco?

Cos that'd be cool.



Edit: it stole my sig! :touch: