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Pioneer DVD-Writer DVR-104 $359.99 (possibly $324)

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Buy the A04/104 buffer underrun protection for DVD-R(W). Also suppose to have "less noise" to increase compatibility with set top DVD players.

And don't worry about DVD+RW, too expensive media and Pioneer beat them out of the gate with the DVD-R format by over a year. And HP having that DVD+R fiasco with their first DVD+RW burner does not help.
 
My 2 cents:
Intro
I actually purchased the DVR-104 a week and a half ago from Jazz for about 30 bucks more than the Geeks have it for. I got the OEM version and there were a couple of reasons for my purchase. First off, the 104 is identical to the A04 retail box but of course minus the software. I'm not sure what the geeks will give you for s/w but Jazz gave me a CD for burning data etc but I forgot the title b/c I haven't installed yet. One of the inspirations for my purchase of the DVR-104 was from the fact that my iMac 800 G4 includes the very same drive and I absolutely loved the output. I also owned an HP DVD100i which you now see going for around 300 bucks or so (uses the DVD+RW spec). So for those who don't know, there are basically 3 major specs - DVD-RAM (fading), DVD-R/RW, and DVD+R/RW. i won't go into details about the drives

Stuff and observations
In any case, since I've used both the DVD+R/DVD+RW and the DVD-R/DVD-RW drives, these are my personal observations. Making a choice between DVD-R/RW vs DVD+R/RW will really depend on what you want in the long run though. There are tradeoffs to both standards.
[*]DVD+R/RW have faster burn rates mostly because of their slightly better technical specs and their method of burning.
[*]DVD-R/RW drives offer more compatiblity to today's current crop of set top DVD players but DVD+RW should gain more traction as time goes by.
[*]cheap priced DVD authoring sacrifices A LOT at least on the PC side. If you want to do some serious authoring work, you're really not going to get from products like MyDVD etc. Unfortunately Apple did get it right with iDVD.
[*]DVD-R media is slightly cheaper than the current crop of DVD+RW disks but that will probably equalize once the DVD+R disks come out
[*]AND an important note: The current first generation DVD+RW drives DO NOT support the DVD+R spec. Almost all of the DVD+RW drives out now (including the DVD100i from HP) is based on a Ricoh drive. If you want to burn DVD+R disks, which should provide more compatibility, you will have to wait for the 2nd gen DVD+R/RW drives in May

So my original DVD burner was the HP DVD100i. The drive itself is great for backup purposes of large data files etc. The speed that it burns at is I believe DVD 2.4X (forgot right now). Pretty darn fast. However, i soon discovered that a number of my DVD drives in my home systems could not read DVD+RW disks. There are ways to work around this but unfortunately these are little hacks you would have to do to your disks (changing a bit flag on the DVD+RW disk headers). Also to top all of this off, almost NONE of the set top DVD players I used could read my DVD+RW video disks. The only one that could fairly reliably read my DVD+RW disk was the XBox.

Now for the DVD-R stuff, once I got the iMac w/ the SuperDrive (basically a DVR-104), I was authoring disks that were played on nearly all of my systems and set top dvd players. The iDVD app is great but I wanted more control of my authoring system and also wanted something for the PC, so I went and purchased an IDE DVR-104 for my XP box.

Of course, you must remember that the DVD-R spec has been out a bit longer and thus more devices will be able to read the media. DVD+RW will undoubtedly gain more support as time passes but for the here and now if you want compatibility, then DVD-R drives are the way to go. If you don't care about compatiblility but you want speed in burning and you want to back up a lot of data fast, then perhaps a DVD+RW drive is better for you. Even with that, I would personally then wait for the 2nd gen drives coming out next month.

My Conclusions
So what is the verdict? It depends on what you want to do. I currently use Nero 5.5 to burn data and to copy DVDs etc. I use DVDIt! PE to do my DVD authoring. The current version of DVDIt! will support both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW spec drives. DVR-104 has buffer underun support as well as the DVD100i drive. Both are capable of creating dvd videos. DVR-104 creating DVD-R based videos offer the better compatiblity in the here and now. They also have a wider audience of users than the DVD+RW folks. But this can all change in the long run so if you're not sure if you need a DVD burner, then wait. If you absolutely must have one, then make your choices based on your needs. Good luck.

Useful sites
For those wondering about compatibility since the current SuperDrive on the iMac 800 (and probably other Apple G4 systems) use the DVR-104, check out the apple compatiblility page for DVD-R:
Apple DVD-R Compatibility list
For the DVD+RW camp, check out:
Set top DVD player compatiblity list
and
DVD+RW DVD ROM compatibility list

Hope this helps anyone out there
 
Newegg now has the retail DVR-A04 package for $380. I got my notification this morning and immediately placed an order.

RE: Media
There have been mixed reports on the quality of generic DVD-R discs. Most of the serious video hobbiests that I know buy name brand media, specifically, they buy Apple branded media from the Apple store. $5/disc with free shipping. It's more than twice the cost of generic discs, but for the small number of discs that I burn I think it is worth it. I buy all my tape from www.taperesources.com, and they would be my second choice for a vendor.

Re: Editing/Composition SW
I use the ADS Pyro capture card (just a generic OHCP card), with Ulead Media Studio Pro 6.5 editing software and the Ulead DVD plug in for DVD authoring. It works OK. I also use the MPEG encoder built into MSP 6.5, but many people prefer TMPGenc, a freeware encoder.

Cheers.

Kit
 
Anybody ever use these in a Firewire case? I'd ideally use Firewire since I have both a laptop (iBook) and a desktop, and both have Firewire.

Anybody ever try burning MP3s to a DVD data disc and play them on a DVD player than understands MP3?
 
Yup.. I use TMPGEnc for my mpg2 encoding work. I actually purchased the latest one - was pretty cheap and it works very well on my dual XEON system. ULead will probably be fine for most people. Pinnacle Express should be good enough for most individuals also.

As for media - yeah I've pretty much stuck with name brand media. I've personally used TDK, Pioneer and Memorex media - all fine.

As for the mp3 dvd - i'll see if i can try that out tonight. Got some DVD-R's to spare for this.
 
Anybody ever try burning MP3s to a DVD data disc and play them on a DVD player than understands MP3?

I was just thinking about that earlier in the car. I don't see why it wouldn't work. That would be awesome! Flungster, please reply back if it works if you do it. I'm sure it would. DVD-R, CD-R, shouldn't matter.
 
Quick question - I've heard people mention copying DVDs with these units - is that possible with existing retail software, or do you need otherwise 'shady' steps in order to make DVD copies.

Before I get branded a pirate - let me just say people with kids will know EXACTLY why I want to make copies of my originals. Unlike adults (well, healthy adults at least) - kids can watch the same DVD repeatedly, and after a week or two, make it look like someone ate a steak dinner off of it. I'd just like to do some 'Fair Use' backup copying, so that I don't have to go ordering a copy of Toy Story every other week.

Can any of the retail software packages just do a wholesale copy from one DVD to another (barring those DVDs that are too large to copy onto one disk)?
 
rj2828-

DVD-Multi will NOT cover any of the DVD+ formats, since they are not formats which are approved by the DVD Forum. DVD-Multi is a designation which wil be applied to a DVD Player or Recorder. It defines the hardware specifications required to ensure playback compatibility of the various logical & physical DVD formats.


DVD-Multi link @ DVD Forum

Straight up copying of the file of a DVD-Video title will not work if it is encrypted (Most, if not all DVD-Video titles are). One would need to apply other methods to do this.
 
fat - well it depends on what you quantify as good i suppose. We're talking about 2 different specs here. The DVR-104 uses the DVD-R/RW spec vs the HP DVD100i which is the DVD+RW spec (does not support the DVD+R spec). Basically IMHO, it comes down to what you want to do with your burner. Both drives make good backup systems with the DVD100i a bit faster at the burn rate but the DVD-R world has better compatibility with existing dvd players when it comes to video. If you really want DVD+R/RW stuff, wait for at least the 2nd generation drives to hit the market in a month or so.
 
I stand corrected -- apparently the a04/104 does have buffer underrun protection. I went into my basement and pulled out my a03's box and saw no mention of burnproof (prompting me to believe that's new in the a04). Lets hope i'm not wrong about it not being in the a03 too (as i've never seen any options to enable it, though that could be entirely due to lack of software updates).
 
Hmm, now to decide if the software is worth the extra price.... I would love to use this with my dv500+

 
I personally loved the quality of the Pioneer [DVD] drives I've had.

I hope these new drives are just as good.

BTW, does anyone know when faster DVD recorders will be coming out? Even at $324, this still seems kinda expensive, although a great deal at this point.
 
Thanks for the info NoWhErE... So the DVD-Multi spec isn't what I thought it was after all 🙁

The one thing that keeps me from jumping on this drive then (and it's not a fault of this drive in particular) is a lack of SCSI DVD writers. I'd prefer a SCSI based device, especially with the hump of data this thing is going to require, which I'm not all too confident of over the IDE bus (I have a dual CPU P-III, and an IDE 24x CD burner pretty much knocks out one of the CPUs).

Anyone know if a SCSI writer is in the works, by Pioneer or anyone else?
 

The Pioneer A03 IDE works fine on my ATA66 IDE dual P3 server. It burns in the background without any problems.

As far as the software goes, MyDVD is a POOR authoring product. I'd skip the software and go for Ulead DVD Movie Factory for $40 bucks.
 
Can any of the retail software packages just do a wholesale copy from one DVD to another

No, if you are referring to commercial DVDs. I did see software called DVDeo which will do the ripping and encoding for you in one package, but there is no straight DVD to DVDR copy package.
 
night201 - to answer your question about the mp3 playing. I tried burning a DVD-R with the 104 last night filled with mp3's. Then tested it on my Panasonic DVD-RP56 home DVD player and it did not recognize the disk. I suspect that my player expects mp3 files only in a CD-R/RW type media and not on a DVD-R media... but i could be wrong. In any case, no go for me. Just to verify my findings, I did try a CD-R filled with mp3's on the DVD-RP56 and it played just fine.

As for it not being a SCSI drive, I've had zero problems with available bandwidth on the IDE channels. The burn rate is really not limited by SCSI or IDE issues - but the inherit burning technology used for DVD-R which is CAV. You'll see faster burn rates from the HP DVD100i because of it's use of CLV. I was able to reach it's speeds easily on my IDE bus. IMHO.
 
also i do agree that MyDVD blows big time. The professional version DVDIt 2.5x is much better but not as good a solution like the mac side of things such as DVD Studio Pro.

As an aside - doesn't ULead havea 4GB limit on the inout media filesizes? Thought I had heard that somewhere..
 


<< also i do agree that MyDVD blows big time. The professional version DVDIt 2.5x is much better but not as good a solution like the mac side of things such as DVD Studio Pro.

As an aside - doesn't ULead havea 4GB limit on the inout media filesizes? Thought I had heard that somewhere.. >>



Not on NTFS volumes...I've captured some pretty big files with ULead.
 


<< also i do agree that MyDVD blows big time. The professional version DVDIt 2.5x is much better but not as good a solution like the mac side of things such as DVD Studio Pro.

As an aside - doesn't ULead havea 4GB limit on the inout media filesizes? Thought I had heard that somewhere.. >>



Yes, Ulead DMF will NOT accept or import MPG2 files larger than 4.0 GB. That leaves about 2+GB of "wasted" space. You can, however, import 4.2GB of files as long as no one of them is larger than 4GB. This is a bug and not a file system issue (I'm on NTFS on XP Pro).

Ulead has a new program called DVD Workshop. I haven't tried it. It is supposedly a mid-range product that is based on DMF. There is a free demo on the ulead website.

The main problem with MyDVD and DVDit! is that it often RE-ENCODES your MPG2 files even if they are DVD-legal. This takes lots of time as you know (3:1, 6:1 or more depending on your PC's horsepower). Ulead DMF does not re-encode, so it is very quick.
 
yeah i thought i had heard about the 4GB limitation even on NTFS file systems too. Maybe I'll take a look at it one of these days. As for Sonic's MyDVD and DVDIt - yeah the transcoding that it does to the audio component is pretty annoying. Normally it prolongs my dvd process by about 30-45 minutes. Ugh
 


<< I've been watching out for a DVD-R burner for a loooooong time 🙂

If the question is 'do I jump on THIS drive' then you still have a less than clear answer. DVD-Multi, the spec that covers both +RW and -RW, is supposed to be coming down the pike soon. If you're not in a rush to start writing DVD's, you might want to wait for that. Additionally, the media has dropped as well, and will only continue to do so. By waiting, you get it even cheaper when you do decide to get into the game.

That statement, made generic, applies to ANYTHING when it comes to computer hardware. Of course - the longer you wait, the longer you don't have stuff to play with 🙂

If we're talking 'what DVD-RW writer do I get' - then this is the one. If the DVR-A03 was cheaper (like $150-199) then it'd be a contest. Considering it's price hasn't dropped at all - if you're getting a DVD-R, should be this one. >>




Yep, you can wait and wait and wait. You can buy a XP1700 one day for $150 and a month later for $110. So? I didn;t wait and bought the A03. I am glad I didn't. Why? Cause I have a wall full of movies that I enjoy, NOW...not later. Why procrastinate so much?

 
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