DVD burners, too soon to buy?

[ginfest]

I'd like to jump in here with a couple ??
I want to buy the Pioneer DVD -R/-RW DVD-105 (4X) , currently at under $300.00. Is this a good drive to get at this time?
I assume from the FAQ that the DVDs will work in most standalone players?
Also, which media should I buy, generic, Ritek and Verbatim are listed at the site where I'm getting the drive (HyperMicrosystems)
They only have 1x-2X media is 4x even available?

I'm getting my wife a Digital Camcorder for Christmas (please see my other thread on camcorders if you have a suggestion on what to buy) and already have an extra 80 GB drive and will order a Firewire card to transfer the movies into the PC for editing, then hopefully burn to DVD.
Would also like to transfer some of my extensive VCR tape collection to DVD.

Mike G

 

[Eug]

So now can you connect your computer to those stand alone units so you can burn to dvd from your computer? Thus making copies of moves i take with my DV Cam for others to have with fancy menus and all. I would think no as that's why we have DVD burners for the computer.

No. The DMR-E30 doesn't have a Firewire port anyway. (Other higher end units do though but still cannot be used like a computer DVD burner.)

A question about the recording times on that panasonic site. Are all those quality formats DVD or is it just SP?

All will play back as DVD, but the longer the record time the worse the quality obviously. XP mode is 1 hour, SP is 2 hour. There are modes as long as 6 hours (that still play back normally in a DVD player), but not surprisingly the quality is poor. Like bad VHS quality. With XP, usually I have an extremely hard time telling from the original source (including another DVD). With SP and a good video source, the quality is excellent as well. I'd say you can fit about up to about 2.5 hours per disc (from a good source) with pretty good results.

I want to buy the Pioneer DVD -R/-RW DVD-105 (4X) , currently at under $300.00. Is this a good drive to get at this time?
I assume from the FAQ that the DVDs will work in most standalone players?

Never used that drive myself but it should be good. 4X media is coming in Dec. if not already out. 4X media is gonna cost a lot though. I'd stick with 2X media for now. Don't buy the cheapest stuff though, because the quality of the cheapo media isn't so good. If good media, the discs should work in most (but not all) DVD players, esp. the recent ones. You can check the VCDHelp database to see if your DVD players support DVD-R.

 

[LeStEr]

Originally posted by: cliftonite
If you really want a DVD burner, you should perhaps wait for the TEAC DVR-50E drive. It is supposedly a rebadged Pioneer DVR-A05 and it will supposedly retail for around $199 (that is the price it is currently being sold in Japan). Here is the link.

When might this be coming to the US?

 

[Coherence]

Until there is one format that has the same versatility as CD-R/RW, I won't invest in a DVD burner. Some will burn data, but won't work on normal DVD players. Some work on DVD players, but not all players. Some will burn movies and data, but can only be read by the same drives. It's all a mess.

We didn't see this with CD-R/RW. From the beginning, if you wanted to burn data, all or most PCs could read them. If you wanted to burn music, all or most players could play them.

Granted, Sony has that burner available that supports all the formats, but that's still not enough for me to take the risk in that kind of investment. Personally, I think it's things like this that contributed to the slowdown of the PC industry. Too many competing standards from companies looking for licensing fees means nobody buys, and therefore the industry suffers.

 

[chizow]

I'm gonna wait after reading through that Sony DVD burner thread. That drive was supposed to burn everything on ANY kind of DVD media, but turns out it wasn't the case. Also gonna wait til the quality of other types of media other than movies (audio DVD and video capture) is good enough to make it worth putting it on a DVD.

Chiz

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Coherence
Until there is one format that has the same versatility as CD-R/RW, I won't invest in a DVD burner. Some will burn data, but won't work on normal DVD players. Some work on DVD players, but not all players. Some will burn movies and data, but can only be read by the same drives. It's all a mess.

We didn't see this with CD-R/RW. From the beginning, if you wanted to burn data, all or most PCs could read them. If you wanted to burn music, all or most players could play them.

Granted, Sony has that burner available that supports all the formats, but that's still not enough for me to take the risk in that kind of investment. Personally, I think it's things like this that contributed to the slowdown of the PC industry. Too many competing standards from companies looking for licensing fees means nobody buys, and therefore the industry suffers.

Coherence, but the state of CD-R/W was the same at the beginning. Part of the changes were in the drives/CD players themselves to make them compatible with CD-R/W.

 

[yeedog]

lots of good info here. Thanks all.

I'll have to think if i want to dive in now or wait and see what happens. I'm kind of leaning towards the DVD burner for a comptuer so i can copy DVDs i make for others. Plus i have a method to get things i record on TV and VHS to my computer anyways.

 

[DaCurryman]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
1. It takes 10 minutes to rip a DVD movie.

2. DVD movies are MPEG-2, not MPEG-4.

3. It would take 2 DVD-Rs to backup a DVD movie, or you could get it to fit on a single disc with a little work. (just keeping the movie)

4. DVD-R are pretty chep these days, and considering they're equal in size to almost 7 CD-R discs, they're not expensive.

5. If you have a lot of stuff to back up, DVD-Rs will take 1/7 the space of CD-Rs.

So if I have a DVD Player on my computer and I install a DVD-R/RW into my second bay, could I copy my retail DVD movies to make a copy for my younger brother while he's at college? And how long would it take to do a drive to drive copy?

And another dumb question: Since I only have 2 bays, I'd have to get rid of my CDRW, but then does a DVD-R/RW only burn DVDs or will it burn onto CD-R/RW also? Thanx.

 

[kursplat]

Too many competing standards from companies looking for licensing fees means nobody buys, and therefore the industry suffers.

he he Apple seems good a creating a single standard....
go ahead and buy a burner. is it a good one ? does it stink ? tell everyone you can . you'll be helping to decide on a standard with you wallet and experience.
hopfully i'm going to be voting early next year myself

 

[Nailbunny]

So if I have a DVD Player on my computer and I install a DVD-R/RW into my second bay, could I copy my retail DVD movies to make a copy for my younger brother while he's at college? And how long would it take to do a drive to drive copy?

You can't do a disc to disc copy of retail DVDs. They are encrypted/copy protected. You have to use certain software to decrypt the disc to your hard drive, then write that to a writable DVD. Since most retail DVD's are dual layer (9.2GB) it would take 2 writable DVD's for one movie. Unless you compress the footage, then we're talking time to compress and decent processing power. IMO it's not worth the time and hassle, just to save $15-20.

And another dumb question: Since I only have 2 bays, I'd have to get rid of my CDRW, but then does a DVD-R/RW only burn DVDs or will it burn onto CD-R/RW also? Thanx.

Yes DVD burners write to CD-r/rw format. I only know the specs for DVD+RW (that's what I have)...12x CD-R, 10x CD-RW, 2.4X DVD+RW.