External DVD writer advice?

[Merfman]

Hi all,

Newbie here... searched through everything I could find, but no definitive answers
were available for my question... so..

I'm looking at buying an external DVD writer. Good thing I found this site as I was under the apparently false assumption that all writers were created equal. Got set straight on that matter!

Anyway, to my question: Any recommendations for an external drive? I don't need dual format and don't want to spend a big wad of cash. I'm currently looking at the 2 Sony models that are available. One got pretty excellent reviews (9.6/10) and the other only had one review but got decent marks.

I'll be using it mostly with ProShow Gold to create slideshows for trips I've taken.

Any/all suggestions, recommendations are welcome...

Thanks in advance,

Merf

[jawgee]

I bought an OEM NEC 2500a 8x dual format DVD burner from Newegg a few months back for about $95. Bought a Plumax external enclosure from Dealsonic for about $25 to use with the NEC burner & I've been totally happy with the results. Mostly using white inkjet printable Beall 4x DVD-Rs in conjuction with my Epson R300 for beautiful DVD prints.

Currently using Herrie's beta 7 FW revision of NEC's 1.06 FW & getting 6x burns with the 4x Bealls. Herrie's supposed to be releasing a new FW shortly that will increase burn speeds to 8x for most 4x DVDs.

Good luck,
jawgee

[xuy_98]

Can you tell me how you updated the firmware for your external drive?

What did you set the drive in the enclosure: master or cable?

[jawgee]

I didn't have to specify master or cable select with the Windows firmware flasher that I used. It recognized my drive automatically.

jawgee

[budz]

I would suggest you hook up the external burner via firewire. There have been too many people having problems using USB 2.0. For some reason firewire is more capatible than USB 2.0.