My Lite-On DVD R/RW burner also burns CDs !

BentValve

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 2001
4,190
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Hey, I am sorry but it did not say on teh package anywhere when I bought it that it burned CDs...and I was all bummed out that the only burner I had was a DVD burner!

I discovered this by accident yesterday while creating a bootable Memtest 86 DVD...I was pissed off too cause I was wasting an entire DVD on such a small program...so I tried burning a CD and it burned perfectly. :)


Welcome to yesterday right? :D
 

gobucks

Golden Member
Oct 22, 2004
1,166
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Yeah, they both use red laser, the DVD just uses a better one, so it's pretty easy to downgrade it and burn CDs. Unfortunately, this will not be the case with next generation, at least not if the corporate powerhouses, i.e. Sony, Philips, etc. have anything to say about it. They want their proprietary Blu-Ray format to be the next high-definition standard, and it uses a blue laser, so it'll be incompatible. Also, apparently it'll make things much harder for people to copy. The other HD-DVD standard is backwards compatible, but I don't hold much faith in it, since the Blu-Ray camp has more powerful companies than the HD-DVD camp.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,580
10,216
126
All PC DVD-ROM (or burner) drives have two lasers, or one more-modern adjustable one, to handle both CD and DVD laser wavelengths.
So as for Blu-Ray compatibility, they'll probably put one blue laser, and one adjustable-wavelength red laser on there. They wouldn't risk making them backwards-incompatible, no way.

Interestingly enough though, because of the reduced space/power requirements of laptops, some that come with factory-installed DVD drives, cannot read or write to CDs, because they only put the DVD laser in there. Early DVD set-top players were like that too.
 

Ike0069

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2003
4,276
2
76
Thanks. But the reason I asked is that a buddy of mine has an E-Machines computer that came with a DVD burner. He has told me that it will not allow him to burn CD's, but DVD's burn fine. I don't personally have a DVD burner, so I wasn't sure what to tell him.
 

Slick5150

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 2001
8,760
3
81
Originally posted by: gobucks
Yeah, they both use red laser, the DVD just uses a better one, so it's pretty easy to downgrade it and burn CDs. Unfortunately, this will not be the case with next generation, at least not if the corporate powerhouses, i.e. Sony, Philips, etc. have anything to say about it. They want their proprietary Blu-Ray format to be the next high-definition standard, and it uses a blue laser, so it'll be incompatible. Also, apparently it'll make things much harder for people to copy. The other HD-DVD standard is backwards compatible, but I don't hold much faith in it, since the Blu-Ray camp has more powerful companies than the HD-DVD camp.

Blu-Ray is also backwards compatible.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,055
1,697
126
Originally posted by: Ike0069
So, do ALL DVD burners also burn CD's?
Originally posted by: LoudTIGER
yes...
Actually, no, not all DVD burners also burn CDs. However, I don't remember seeing ANY DVD burner released in the last couple of years that doesn't burn CDs. The ones that don't burn CDs are from 3 years ago or older.

Originally posted by: BentValve
Welcome to yesterday right? :D
No. Welcome to 3 years ago. See above. ;) And even then, DVD burners usually did burn CDs too. :p