DVD Burners

[Gerbil333]

I plan on getting the limited edition DVD version of UT2k4, but until now I've had no need for a DVD drive on my gaming machine. I've been using a Lite On 40x12x48x CD-RW drive for the past year or two, and I watch DVD's on my home entertainment system or my other computers (they're in rooms with comfier lounging). Since I'll need a DVD drive for UT2k4, and I could easily take advantage of the 4.7gb's per disc a DVD burner offers, I started looking at drives.

It looks like the black NEC 8x DVD+RW/-RW drive is the best choice right now, for only $97 shipped. However, it can only burn CD-R's at 32x, and I only want one optical drive in my machine.

I looked at the Lite On 8x DVD+RW/-RW drive, which burns CD-R's at 40x, but the Newegg user reviews didn't seem nearly as positve as the NEC.

Should I just wait for the drives to mature some more? I could get a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive for now while I wait...

 

[EeyoreX]

I guess you can wait, though I don't know how much work is going to be put into improving CD write sppeds. Also, what's 30 seconds more wait after all? If you wait too long, something newer and better comes along. If you buy too soon, you often end up an unwitting beta-tester. Personally, I think now is a great time to get DVD burner, if you need or can use the capacity. Frankly, I bought one with all these aspirations of backing up multi GBs of data. All I really have done, after the first few intitial "this is cool!!" DVDs, was a DVD-RW Ghost image. I guess I didn't really need a burner, but for $130 it was a decent investment I guess.

\Dan

 

[Budman]

Get the NEC,a few people here including myself got a Lite-on DVD burner & we had nothing but problems & I ended up returning it for a Pioneer drive.

Grab the NEC or even better a Pioneer.🙂

 

[Imdmn04]

The NEC is a bit slower in the reviews, but it's one of the few that can do 8x for dvd-r

 

[Gerbil333]

Yea, that's what I gathered from reading the Newegg reviews.

I burn CD-R's fairly often though, and I don't want to downgrade from 40x to 32x. I have a 48x24x48x CD-RW/DVD combo drive in my other machine and I really like it.

Basically, I'm trying to decide if I should go for the NEC 8x drive and deal with the slower CD-R burning speed, or wait a while for DVD burning technology to peak out (and get a combo drive in the mean time). Plextor has a new 12x DVD+R drive out that burns CD-R's at 48x...so it is possible. However, I can't afford Plextor, much less their high-end model!

 

[ponyo]

I personally think it's rather silly worrying about 32x cdr burning vs 48x but if it's that important to you then you should wait. But you're only talking about seconds difference. But then again I don't burn lot of CDRs. I haven't burned more than 30 cdrs in 4 years. I've burned over 50 dvds in less than 2 weeks. I guess it really depend on if you plan on using the burning feature. If you don't really have the need then just buying combo drive might be better although 8x DVD burners are only like $70 now.

 

[Gerbil333]

There's quite a difference. My 40x drive burns a CD in a bit over 3 minutes. My girlfriend's Lite On 52x24x52x drive burns a full 700mb CD-R in roughly 2 minutes. Yes, that's possible:

1x = 150kb/sec
52x = 150*52 = 7800kb/sec
700mb = 1024*700 = 716800kb
716800kb / 7800kb/sec = 91.9 seconds

91.9 seconds = 1 minute and 31.9 seconds theoretically.

Theoretical math isn't exactly true though...according to that formula, my 40x drive could theoretically burn a 700mb disc in one second less than 2 minutes. I think the best I've managed was about 2.5minutes.

The point is, I want to at least maintain my CD-R burning speed, not downgrade 🙂

I doubt I'd burn a whole lot of DVD's. It's just something that could be highly useful on occasion, and like you said, the drives aren't all that expensive. It's not that much more than a combo drive. The only thing stopping me is that I'm concerned with losing media compatibility and CD-R burning performance.