Has anyone just noticed over the last two weeks

[thefox149]

that 85% (my own figure here people) that all the forum posts are about DVD authoring burning writers etc.......

Don't get me wrong I am all for it. I am a little left out here as I don't have a DVD burner yet. Damn!!!! I wish the Australian market were more competive when it came to pc related stuff. Recently all my hardware has been brought online due to Australia's crappy competition polices...

You cannot buy a burner in Australia for under $400 (800 U.S) come on thats outragoues I will not by a burner until they are readily and cheaply available....and are sold for $200 Australian ($100 US hopefully not to far away....I pray everyday to the dvd gods 8) that a company like LG decides to start the DVD war with a massive price drop)

For now I can just drool and wait patiently until someone post something about CDR mpeg2 dvd ripping or capping.....The only good thing is when I get one I will be prepared with all the knowledge I have gained from this site....

[mats.hogberg]

I agree, and find myself in exactly the same position as you, even if I can get a DVD writer for 'round 200 euro/$.
But as you say, the day we do get one, we'll come down running. Let the others make all mistakes for us! I've even started collecting DVD related software - you never know when some piece of soft you need gets pulled... Until then, I'll keep refining my (S)VCD skills. Anyway, for DivX and stuff, DVD is mostly overkill.

/Mats

[subclubkid]

I used to think the same thing. I thought I would do so much with my dvd burner when I finally got one. Now I have a pioneer 104 and I never even use it. I burnt like 3 dvds. 2 of them ended up sucking. They had audio sync problems and color pixels all over them. And the other just stopped with 5 minutes left in the movie. I pretty much gave up. I thought burning Dvds would be fun, but it turned out to not be worth it. It took hours and I mean hours to convert a movie to Mpeg2, and then it would take over an hour just to burn it. And when it was all said and done I had a movie that was out of sync and looked like crap. Waste of my money. I should have held out for the technology to improve. So don’t feel to bad, at least you guys still have the idea that its going to be fun. I know otherwise.

BTW this is just my story. I know that almost everyone else here loves there DVD burners and have no problems like I do. So this is just my opinion.

[nerdboy69]

I know that almost everyone else here loves there DVD burners and have no problems like I do. So this is just my opinion.

I hear your tale of woe, but my experience has been the exact opposite. I have only had my burner for about a month, and I have burnt off 3 spindles (of 50). And no, I am not a budding mega-pirate - I just have a new baby daughter (see avatar) and lots of DV tapes full of footage and lots of relo's wanting copies. And of course I need to backup my orig DVD's for safe keeping.

What I did do, however, is spend the 2 months prior to buying the burner experimenting and burning DVD images to HD to work out what software worked for my needs. So by the time I had my burner installed I had about 5 DVD images burning holes in my HD space, all created with the pain of learning and by drawing upon the collective knowledge of sites like this one.

We all know burners will price drop drastically over the next 12 months, but I am an impatient Aussie whose need for toys exceeds his need for food. No regrets.

[jolo]

I have noticed all of the posts about DVD burning. I don't have a DVD writer myself. I do have a DVD reader though, which is enough for me right now.
I think that there are so many posts because of the lack of standards, instability of the writers with the software and with the media. Therefore loads of discussion. I don't want to freak out about media, like one of the newest posters did, I don't want to spend so much on the media as well and I, certainly not going to pay 350 for a DVD writer that also writes CDs slowly.

I also think that possibly the reason that the vendors releasing DVD writers are coming so slow, besides the price and instability, cost of support is that there is another technology right around the corner that tops DVD that they may be working on.

I am waiting for the lite-on DVD writer to come out and/or the next generation of them. The lite-on is supposed to be about $150, which starts to get into sanity.
The idiocy of the vendors infighting for -r and +r and really the lack of new DVD players being released to the market right now is rather frustrating. I wonder if it is the technology that is difficult for them or the MIAA and RIAA breaking their balls.

Just a matter of priorities, but for the cost of a DVD writer, I can get a real nice 15" LCD screen, etc. It is just a matter of priorities and currently I'm doing real well and have things down using SVCD, capturing and encoding with Mainconcept. The media is reliable and dirt cheap, and there is a stability to the CD market that only comes with time.

Most of the posts here scare me away, they certainly don't make me want to dive in yet.

When walking in to a "superstore" how many DVD writers do you see as compared to CD writers and DVD Roms ? I did just purchase for $79 which including shipping a Samsung combination DVD Rom and 48x CD burner for my son's PC. Heck, there are not all that many people in this economy who have the money to burn on a DVD Writer right now.

[w00tski]

hmm, $400 au is about 220ish US, not 800
and you can probably find an LG burner for about 495 or so, the ricoh has been seen for about 430ish...