DVD Burner Advice?

[Marc 182]

I'm thinking about getting a DVD burner and you guys seem to know a lot
more about multimedia stuff than I do, so maybe you can give me some
advice.

I have a HP dvd100i burner and now that I understand the software,
I love it. The 100i has been superseded by the 200i (that is why I got
a 100i reasonable).

What is the difference between the +R/RW vs the -R/RW?

The blank media for the DVD+RW is more expensive than the DVD-RW,
but the price is coming down. Was $29 for 3 when I started 1 1/2 years
ago.

Pricing has gotten very variable. I've often found the + media to be
less expensive then the - media is.

According to users, DVD+RW discs play much better on a wide
variety of drives and set-top DVD players with less errors.
The hardware part is very good, but the software portion leaves a
lot to be desired unless you can afford near professional software,
especially the authoring software.

I'm not sure what you were trying to say. The "software" that runs on
the computer is the same (good or bad) whether you use + or - media.
The software doesn't care what media it is going to write to, whether
it's CD, DVD-R, DVD -RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW, or the hard drive, or a
floppy drive, or a SmartMedia card. All the software knows is that
its sending data out to a storage media.

That said, I've made DVDs of several TV shows, transferred stuff
from VHS & S-VHS tapes, and non-digital movie cameras. All results
were very good (this is assuming you set the resolution properly for
the source you are transferring).
A lot depends on your intended usage, if it is to copy DVD movies,
forget it, much cheaper and easier to buy the movie. Lots of reasons
for this, let me know if you want a few.
If you want painless usage of a DVD burner, figure on an extra $50
of adequate software or upgrades to the included software.
All that said, I'm happy with my Toshiba DVD drive and HP burner,
especially making personal music CDs.

Right now www.tigerdirect.com has an iomega DVD+RW/CD-RW burner for
about $135. It comes with Nero software, which seems pretty good. I
bought two for my office and bagged Easy CD Creator.

I like the DVD+R tech because it seems superior to DVD-R in every way,
except price per disk. But the price is dropping like a rock and there
is no reason why it shouldn't reach the level of DVD-Rs once the volume
of sales gets high enough. I don't think there is much of a future for
DVD-R.

Marc

[Marc 182]

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 21:25:07 -0700, AZGuy

I'm not sure what you were trying to say. The "software" that runs on
the computer is the same (good or bad) whether you use + or - media.
The software doesn't care what media it is going to write to, whether
it's CD, DVD-R, DVD -RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW, or the hard drive, or a
floppy drive, or a SmartMedia card. All the software knows is that
its sending data out to a storage media.

I wasn't talking about the "burning" software, I was referring to
the authoring software which is needed to configure the menu for the
pix & audio you are making to burn on the DVD.
After trying several authoring programs and spending as much as $50
to "upgrade" some, I still am not happy with my results. Really
can't/won't go to expensive "pro" authoring software for my limited
usage.
Just my opinion, if anyone has any suggestions for decent authoring
software reasonable, I'd be interested.

We're using Adobe Premiere, but I don't think that's exactly what you're
looking for. Sounds like a market niche for some young savy startup
company.

Marc

[a***@MIX.COM]

I wasn't talking about the "burning" software, I was referring to
the authoring software which is needed to configure the menu for the
pix & audio you are making to burn on the DVD.
After trying several authoring programs and spending as much as $50
to "upgrade" some, I still am not happy with my results. Really
can't/won't go to expensive "pro" authoring software for my limited
usage.

And even the 'pro' stuff screws up enough to keep more than one guy
working full time manually cleaning up after it here in Los Angeles...

Just my opinion, if anyone has any suggestions for decent authoring
software reasonable, I'd be interested.

I'd wait a while and see who eventually gets it done corrently.

Billy Y..

[AZGuy]

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 21:25:07 -0700, AZGuy

I'm not sure what you were trying to say. The "software" that runs on
the computer is the same (good or bad) whether you use + or - media.
The software doesn't care what media it is going to write to, whether
it's CD, DVD-R, DVD -RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW, or the hard drive, or a
floppy drive, or a SmartMedia card. All the software knows is that
its sending data out to a storage media.

I wasn't talking about the "burning" software, I was referring to
the authoring software which is needed to configure the menu for the
pix & audio you are making to burn on the DVD.
After trying several authoring programs and spending as much as $50
to "upgrade" some, I still am not happy with my results. Really
can't/won't go to expensive "pro" authoring software for my limited
usage.
Just my opinion, if anyone has any suggestions for decent authoring
software reasonable, I'd be interested.

The package that's inexpensive and generally gets the best reviews is
Pinnacle Studio 8. Some people love it and other hate it (crashing
problems). I haven't had any problems with it once I got it and my
ATI board talking to each other properly. It will capture, edit, and
author to DVD, VCD, MPEG, etc.