Which DVD-Writer to get?

[CBProd]

im interetested in getting a writer. so i can play movies on my pioneer dvd-333 stand alone player. so i read reviews on the hp, pioneer a03, and the panasonic lf-d311. first of all im confused with all the formats, dvd-r, dvd-rw, dvd+r, dvd+rw. whats the difference? what i want to do is, i have vcds and dvix's on my hard drive i want to be able to burn them onto a dvd and play them. without having like 2-4 cds per movie. so what burner should i get, and what software would let me convert those formats to my play in my standalone player.

thanks

[alkieman]

There's a bit of a format war on at the moment, and even with formats of the same standard there are a few differences. I've been working with DVD for sometime now so here's my opinions. No doubt others will have theirs.

DVD-R
Currently the most popular and cheapest. DVD-R is a write once format similar to CD-R. The discs work on almost all current DVD players and almost any player less than a couple of years old should play the discs fine. You can buy blank DVD-R media in the UK for around 1.99 UKP so I would guess bulk DVD-R in the US would be about $1.99 or less. The Pioneer A03 DVD-R/RW drive and the Panasonic DVD-RAM/R drive can both write to DVD-R discs. There's also a couple of other models from Lacie and Apple but they are rebadged Pioneer drives.

DVD-RW
Think of it as the re-writeable version of DVD-R. It's similar to CD-RW in that you can erase the discs and re use them. DVD-RW discs can be written to around 1000 times so blanks should last a few years of reuse. It's slightly less compatible than DVD-R so you should check your player supports this format if you intend to use DVD-RW discs. Blanks can be bought for around 6UKP so again they'll be cheaper in the US. The Pioneer A03, Lacie and the newer Apple drive support this format. Supported by the DVD Forum and by all Japanese, American (except RCA) and European (except Philips and Thomson) AV companies so it's likely to become the standard for disc based home video recorders.


DVD+R
Format does not yet exist and according to most of the AV magazines, is now unlikely to appear during 2002.

DVD+RW
Philips proprietry format for rewriteable DVD. At the moment blanks are more expensive than DVD-RW simply because it's the newer format. Has similar compatibility problems to DVD-RW so check your target player supports this format. At present a number of PC companies are supporting DVD+RW but not many AV companies. So far only Thomson (RCA in the US) and Philips are to fully support it with home video recorders. Sony appear to have jumped ship and have launched DVD-RW recorders instead although they promise dual standard drives in the future. It does have the support of more of the big PC companies however so it could become the standard for PC recordable DVD.

DVD-RAM
Another re-writeable format designed originally as a PC storage format. Discs are housed in a caddy and use a different method of writing. This renders the discs completely incompatible with any current home DVD players. Panasonic and a couple of others are launching DVD players that can handle DVD-RAM. This is the format most likely to fail in the home AV arena even though with it's higher bitrates it's probably the most user friendly (it can timeshift unlike the other two competing formats).



DVD-R/RW hardware is slightly more expensive than DVD+RW hardware but the blanks are cheaper. DVD-R is by far the cheapest and most compatible. DVD+RW is a slightly more user friendly format for home disc based recorders but in the PC world that doesn't make a difference. DVD-RAM is the cheapest to buy in terms of hardware but is the most expensive for media. DVD-RAM is also NOT compatible with home DVD players.

You choice would really be between DVD-R/RW and DVD+RW.
DVD-R/RW is the most compatible and cheapest to produce but DVD+RW drives have higher performance (they write a full disc in less time). If you can cope with the slower write times and need the most compatible and cheapest, then go for the Pioneer A03 DVD-R/RW drive. If you want a fast performer and don't mind the extra expense of the media then go for the HP or Ricoh DVD+RW drive.

Me, I chose the Pioneer.

[alkieman]

Oh, and as for comverting to DVD from VCD or DIVX format thats fairly easy now but very time consuming.

The DVD spec support VCD compatible MPEG video files but not the audio.

From VCD you need to convert to standard MPEG1. You would then need to split the audio and video into two seperate files. The audio would need to be re-encoded from it's current 44.1khz to 48khz as the DVD spec allows only for 48khz audio. If you have a budget DVD authoring package like MyDVD, MGI Videowave 5, Uleads DVD Move Creator or similar then you will have to remux (join) the newer audio track to the video track again before importing it. Higher spec (and therefore more expensive) authoring packages happily accept seperate audio/video files.

As for DIVX encoded AVI files, TMPGenc will happily import these and encode to DVD format if you have DIVX on your PC.

Check out the guides to the left, you will find everything explained there and on www.doom9.org.

[Muma]

Just a note, Sony is manufacturing DVD+RW drives. Sony only put DVD-RW drives in there own computers because nothing else was available at the time. They are also manufacturing both DVD media types. The only reason I know this is because I purchased a Sony DVD+RW last week and it was just released.