Do I replace my DVDrom or CD Burner?

[Joy B]

Hi,
I'm pretty to new to the world of DVD writing-I've been working with SVCD/VCD s for a while though. Anyway I have a few questions:

1.) When I get a DVD writer I'm going to need to replace either my DVDrom or my CD writer. Which one? If I left the DVD rom in would I be able to copy from DVD to DVD? Or do you still have to rip movies onto the hard drive.

2.) I'm looking to get the Cendyne 4x DVD+RW/R, the system requirements areIntel Pentium III 800 MHz or faster) and I have a Intel Pentium III 700 MHz. Would it be safe to get it with only a 100MHZ difference?

3.) What would you say is the minimum requirement in hard drive space to operate a writer and make movies?

Any help would be great, Thanks!

[MOVIEGEEK]

Get rid of the CD writer if you hardly use it or put it in an external enclosure($50USD) and connect it to Firewire or USB2.0 PCI card($30).If you are going to do any encoding I suggest a faster CPU(ie P4 or Athlon XP) but that depends on your budget.If you will be capturing DV I would get at least a 120GB HDD,if capturing MPEG or ripping a DVD 40GB will do.
You can get a new P4 Dell for around $700 or build one for about half that price.

[vric]

CD Writer... keep your DVD-Rom for ripping since it will be faster

[rvl123]

I got a question on external enclosures...

Would my 40x12x40 work in a firewire enclosure (i.e. be able to burn at that speed)

Which enclosure do you reccomend?

Also, wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to just add another IDE controller to the PC?

Thanks

[Donny661]

I would say don't bother with putting your cd writer in an external enclosure. try to decide which you want more: faster cd burning or faster dvd ripping. Then keep the drive you think you want more and you can always switch your drives back if you decide otherwise. If you have another 5.25" slot in you tower then another ide controller would probably be alright. I've never put in another ide controller so I don't know much about them.

[Joy B]

Well, if copying directly from DVD to DVD is not possible. And the only plus side to keeping my DVDrom is ripping speed, I'll probably keep my cd writer because I recently upgraded from 4x to 48x.

Looks like I'll need to get a new hard drive though-so 40gb would do it, thanks for the info Moviegeek. As for a new computer I can't afford one at the moment.

Now, I just need my second question answered......

[secretagent]

excuse this post topic already answered