DVD Creation Station

[jjessico]

I am building a PC for a friend who wants to take his old VHS tapes and convert them to DVDs. I checked around and came up with the following system for doing the job as cheap as possible. What do you guys think of this config?

Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2100+ w/HSF------------------------------$100.58*MWAVE
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X DLX----------------------------------------$145.12*MWAVE
RAM: CORSAIR CMX256A-2700C2 32X64 333MHZ 256MB CAS2--------$094.14*MWAVE
Video Card: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 7500 64MB--------------------$118.65*MWAVE
Hard Drive: WD 80GB 800JB EIDE ULTRA-ATA/66-100 8.9MS-------------$108.00*MWAVE
Floppy: SONY 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE------------------------------$011.90*MWAVE
DVD Burner: SONY DUAL DVD+RW/RW 4.7GB 24X/10X/32X CDRW DRU500A----$345.65*MWAVE
Sound Card: N/A Integrated----------------------------------------$000.00*MWAVE
NIC Card: N/A Integrated----------------------------------------$000.00*MWAVE
Input: MS MULTIMEDIA OPTICAL VALUE PACK-KEYBOARD & MOUSE-----$028.00*MWAVE
Case: Antec 350-Watt ATX Mid-Tower Case Model: 80841--------$099.00*BESTBUY
Monitor: Samsung 17in SyncMaster FD Trinitron------------------$159.99*BESTBUY
Totals: Shipping and Tax not included---------------------~~~$1197.00

 

[LethalWolfe]

I'd get him a 20gig or so HDD for the OS and proggies and another 80gig (120 would be better) HDD or two for the a/v files. Does he want to copy some VHS home movies, or copy some of his retail VHS titles to DVD. Remember that you can only fit 90-120minutes of video (depending on compression) on consumer DVD blanks. Keep in mind that after drives become around 75% full they might start slowing down and dropping frames. So, to be safe, if he gets an 80gig HDD for a/v he should plan on, roughly, only 60gigs of usuable space.


Lethal

 

[jjessico]

All home movies, so it should work out ok. Does anyone have a suggestion for a different DVD burner? That one is realy expensive and I'm not sure he needs all that functionality just to make set top DVDs. Anyone have other ideas?

 

[LethalWolfe]

The only other option is something like the Pioneer DVD-R/RW burner. It won't burn "+" media, but if "-" media works in his DVD player that shouldn't be an issue.


Lethal

 

[jjessico]

Hmmm, is there any master list of what players play what new DVD recordable standards?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Duvie]

I can tell you my dvr-104 pioneer burned a dvd-rw (not just a dvd-r) and worked in my panasonic dvd-rplayer that is over 1 year old...It also played in 3 dvd-roms I tried. I heard and read in a pc magazine that dvd-r is almost a sure bet to work in all dvd players 1 year or newer...

The sony offers the most format proofing since there are so many competing formats. The +r/+rw models offer a bit of speed advantage in the sense I read they do not have to close session at end of disk and I guess they can allow editing right on the media without having to reburn it!!! Pretty nice.