DVD Media for those BB DVDR purchases next week

[t0lik]

I burned several DVDs with about 4GB of data each (home videos mostly). On average, it's about 30min process. Make sure you have powerful enough computer for all the DV Video - AVI- MPEG2 encoding/decoding - that's what takes the longest - hours and hours in some cases. So, the burning part is rather short in comparison.

BTW, if anyone interested, this place sells this Pioneer drive for $389 (retail PC kit)

http://www.esbuy.com/piondvcomdri.html

 

[Dood]

These guys (cd-recordable.com) are FAST!! Ordered Monday, arrived Wednesday!!! $3 for a dVD-R is amazing!!!

 

[vaylon]

Here is just a taste from my experiences, 2 cents take it or leave it. The toshiba and panasonic drives are ok but I found a lot of my dvd players hate the disk these 2 record. They are also kind of picky about what type of dvd disk you put in it. I have a pioneer a03 and all I can say is WOW! I have put all kinds of dvd disk media in it, it recognise it and records it properly. I read somewhere that pioneer is going to try and adopt every type of recording that it can into its drives. I havn't tried a r+w disk yet, but at this point I don't see why I would want to. Another thing about the pioneers are that an update to the firm ware should give it the ability to read a r+w disk if the need arises. Like I said ,at this point I have no idea why someone would want to. The ao3 is just like a cd writer except for the fact instead of burning cd it does dvd. The rw disk works just like a cdrw disk, infact nero5.5 has added support for dvd-r drives. Another thing I didn't like about the other drive was their noise levels, way to b52 sounding. the pioneer is nice and quite, cant even tell its there.
As for the disk from this place, They are great, I ordered some 2 weeks ago as a test batch, so far I have been able 2 duplicate every dvd movie I have thrown at it. and not a coaster yet. I also burned a dvd full of mp3's ( over 800 songs on one disk) it works perfect. Go ahead and take the plunge guys you won't regret it one bit. Also with these drives I would really suggest getting the retail box, the added software is worth the extra bucks. also cloning a dvd is a snap( such as green mile)

 

[vaylon]

And one other thing, for those that say you cant copy a dvd movie! I have yet to find a movie that didn't copy. Here is what I have noticed. on a couple of disc while using making a disc 2 disc copy, at the end where the system goes back to verify the writting it will be unable to verify the process. but that is all. It burned the disk correctly, or at least enough that you will never be able to tell the diff, or your set top dvd player. Here is another way that is really easy, drag all the contents on a dvd disk into a folder on your computer should be 2 audio and video. then just burn those 2 folders onto a disk as a data dvd. works 2 easy. I am sure that in the future something will happen and it will become more difficult, but as of right now their copy protection , seems more to discourage someone from buying a diskwriter than from actually making a copy. Like I said earlier not a coaster yet. But if you are going to do something like this make sure you have a system that can handle it. My amd xp loves to make disc, my p4 takes longer and frezzes up, also plenty of ram.

 

[Dood]

<< I burned several DVDs with about 4GB of data each (home videos mostly). On average, it's about 30min process. Make sure you have powerful enough computer for all the DV Video - AVI- MPEG2 encoding/decoding - that's what takes the longest - hours and hours in some cases. So, the burning part is rather short in comparison. >>



Yeah, the MPEG2 encoding process is what really sucks. It is usually a 6:1 conversion process (6 hours encoding for every 1 hour of video) or more. So even if you have a DV cam/firewire connection, you still gotta encode to MPEG2 for DVD authoring.

This is why I love my USB Instant DVD hardware encoder. It captures real-time so your original output file is MPEG2. Makes the process much, much faster. And the quality of the videos is AMAZING! This box uses the new StreamMachine encoder chip which is much better than any other consumer device on the market. No pixelization to be seen. And the box is under $200.

However, if you want to do alot of editing of your files, MPEG2 source files may not be the best. MPEG2 is not meant to be an editing format, it is meant to be a final format. I can do simple cuts and trims to MPEG2 files, but anything more than that will usually require re-encoding the file anyway. If you want to cut/edit/splice, add titles, add effects, etc., you are probably better capturing DV format then software encoding to MPEG2 (6:1 conversion time). For most of my VHS archiving, I don't need to edit much at all, so I just use the raw captures from the Instant DVD!

 

[WinkyBlinky]

I have purchased from CD-Recordable 3 times with no problems. They sent one of my orders over night after e-mailing them about my order. The double sided disk used to be $4.95. I have not had any problems burning them on my Pioneer DVR-AO3. The disk played fine in my standalone DVD player. The shipping is free if your order is $100.00.
Best price I could find on DVD-R media.


To Dood
How is the Quality of the video captured with USB instant DVD?
What DVD authoring software are you using?
Thanks.

 

[rj2828]

Whoa - now you guys got me thoroughly confused (though that's not so hard to do these days

All I want to be able to do is take my home movies, via my digital camcorder, pop them via firewire to the HDD, and write a DVD that will play in a set top player. Some data storage would be nice too (damn - 5GB worth of MP3's on a single disk - then, only $3 to make a backup of that and throw in the safe, for protection).

Will DVD-R let me do something like that? If so - do the writers normally come with DVD authoring software, or is that another feature to look for in a prospective drive?

I'm waiting until March (b-day) anyhow, but I'm licking my chops in the process...

 

[WinkyBlinky]

A DVD-R drive will let you burn your home videos to DVD that should play on most set top DVD players. The software that comes in the box with the Pioneer drive should allow you to burn your DVDs.

 

[volfan]

<< I also burned a dvd full of mp3's ( over 800 songs on one disk) it works perfect. >>


vaylon, thank you so much for the information. It's so nice to have some personal experince posting. Have you tried to play the MP3 DVD disc on a DVD/MP3 stand-alone player? I have heard that it would not work, but it would be pretty sweet if it did. Plus, how do you make a copy of a DVD? Do you rip it to the hard drive first? How long does the "backing up a DVD" process take? Thanks again!

 

[ChunkyBarf]

I have ordered from cdrecordable.com a few times before and have been very pleased. I liked the quality of the CDs and they even throw in a few freebies (like a dual-CD jewel case, etc...) too. I think they are a good company to buy from.

I have not seen the dual-sided DVD-R blanks before, it is cool that they are finally on the market.

I will be getting a DVD+RW burner tomorrow, I cannot wait for the prices of blanks on those to come down in price.

Great post,
ChunkyBarf

 

[Dood]

<< To Dood
How is the Quality of the video captured with USB instant DVD?
What DVD authoring software are you using?
Thanks. >>



The quality is excellent. The only thing I can compare it to is the Dazzle2 (which I used to own). If your source is good, you cannot tell the difference!!

I use Ulead's DVD Movie Factory. It is $50 (there's a free demo download on their site). It lets you do some nice menu effects. The biggest plus is that you can insert chapter stops in any mpg2 file during the authoring process (MyDVD doesn't let you do that).

 

[DefRef]

I'll be interested when burners come down to reasonable prices (drives ~$200, media ~$1-$2) because it sucks to film Digital8 video, capture thru FireWire, edit digitally and print to tape digitally, on to have to dump it down to VHS and lose HALF of your resolution!

I shot my cousin's wedding and dumped the raw footage to VHS for them to look at immediately. The preview looked sharp, but when I checked the dub, I was horrified at how bleah it looked. Ideally, I'd like to get one of those camcorders that record to mini-DVD-Rs, so I can start cutting faster than it takes to rewind and spot tape and capture it. Waiting....

 

[breweyez]

THIS LINK May be a good place to look at. When the dvd burners come down in price I may switch to them.