So are all DVD burners about the same these days?

[ahurtt]

I'm finally going to get a DVD burner for my computer for the purposes of trying to make some DVD's from my collection of family DV tapes to distribute to family members for play on set-top DVD players. I went to google up some reviews of current hardware but everything I seem to be finding is turning out to be 3 or 4 years old or more. Is this because DVD burners have been around long enough now that pretty much all DVD burners are the same these days in terms of quality and reliability? Or some other reason? Am I going to be pretty much fine if I just go over to Newegg and buy whatever $30-$40 range burner they happen to be running on special this week? Or is it worth it to shop around for some certain brand and model to get the most reliable device? Looks like they have a lot of Lite-On and some LG brand ones on special now and the Lite-On ones seem to sell the most. I'm just looking for a standard internal dual-layer DVD burner. Can be SATA or IDE I guess. I prefer high reliability and quality over having the absolute fastest speed. I don't give a crap about lightscribe. I can take it or leave it.

 

[corkyg]

You are on the right track for what you want. But, be advised that DL DVDs are not universally compatible with all home entertainment systems.

For dissemination to family, stick with regular 4.x GB DVD+R or -R.

Samsung makes a good low cost burner that is often on sale. LG is just fine. My personal preference would be an external burner - probably Firewire.

 

[ahurtt]

I was under the impression that the Hollywood production DVD movies we've all been renting from Netflix or buying in stores for a very long time now and playing in our set top dvd players have always been dual layer DVD's. Are they not? I didn't think you could fit an entire feature length movie onto 1 single layer DVD. Plus there is a noticeable pause during some movies at opportune moments that you can see when the player is switching layers if you have a quick eye (usually it is edited to come right during a scene transition). Isn't that because of the player switching to read the second layer? Why can't some players support DL dvd's?

 

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
I was under the impression that the Hollywood production DVD movies we've all been renting from Netflix or buying in stores for a very long time now and playing in our set top dvd players have always been dual layer DVD's. Are they not? I didn't think you could fit an entire feature length movie onto 1 single layer DVD. Plus there is a noticeable pause during some movies at opportune moments that you can see when the player is switching layers if you have a quick eye (usually it is edited to come right during a scene transition). Isn't that because of the player switching to read the second layer? Why can't some players support DL dvd's?

What he meant was dual layer burnable DVDs (standard movie dvds don't really have an issue). 90% of dual layer dvds will play in a home player.

Otherwise, my personal preference is to go for SATA if you have the ports for it, due to a) better cable management and b) future ability to plug them into motherboards, since some of the latest motherboards are dropping IDE entirely and that will only get worse in the future.

 

[ahurtt]

Yeah I am strongly leaning toward an SATA model but for now my current motherboard can support either.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Some NEC/LG drives are just plain loud. When they spin up it sounds like an jet linin' up for take-off.

 

[jpeyton]

Samsung is quiet.

 

[bob4432]

personally i wouldn't buy a sony/nec drive because, well i hate sony because sony hates consumers.

other than that i would say that most are pretty equal