need advice and recommendations on gettin a dvd writer,help!

[af9148]

just wondering if you guys have any recomendations on any dvd burners since im new to this(ive been a s/vcd for a while) and decided to jump on the dvd wagon since the dual format burners are cheap now.

heres some thats on sale this week,
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?&ref=cj&pfp=cj&product_code=314070

http://www.officemax.com/max/solutions/product/prodBlock.jsp?prodBlockOID=537230274

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=93721&WT.mc_n=85&WT.mc_t=I

any suggestions on what speed to get, brand etc.. im basically looking for a speed that isnt the fastest one out but will last me for a while without kicking myself to have gotten the 12x instead of the 8x. from what i heard about the dvd burner speeds is that for example i can use 4x cds on a 8x burner and burn it at 8x and same as 12x burner. but what im confused about is then whats the point of getting 8x or 12x cds if 4x cds do the same thing. is there something im missing here? thanks in advance

[daamon]

Hi af9148,

With things like this (DVD burners) it's usually a case of you get what you pay for - i.e. fork out a bit extra for a known (trusted / recommended) brand and it'll be worth it in the long run.

I've currently got a Pioneer DVR-106D and have never had any problems with it - because of this, and the drop in prices for faster and / or dual layer burners, I'm looking to upgrade to the Pioneer DVR-108.

Pioneer is the only brand I've any experience of, so I won't comment on others - but, from what I've seen in various similar threads, there are other brands that others are equally happy with, so Pionner isn't the only one.

For the life of me, I can't recall what they are though. Sorry... Have a search around in the rorums and you should find something.

[budz]

instead of purchasing one from a retail store i would suggest you check out www.newegg.com. they have great deals on dvd burners. if you want a closer look at all the different brands check out the forum sites at www.cdfreaks.com. they have a PIONEER, PLEXTOR, LITEON, LG, BENQ, & NEC forums.

newegg.com has the latest PIONEER 108 for only $86.00:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-129-157&depa=1

they ship out stuff fast and shipping cost is cheap if you live within the 48 usa states.

[Pop's]

Buy a good brand, PIONEER, PLEXTOR, LITEON, LG, BENQ, & NEC.. and some good media. Give newegg a shot I order from them way to much but for 3 bucks in shipping costs I cant go wrong and get it in 2 days. I'm holding out on a dual writer for now unless Plextor comes out with one and media prices go down.

[higgins]

I recently purchased my first dvd burner. A pioneer DVR-108. I am very very happy with it. I have backed up around 50 of my dvd's and not one problem. I dont have much experience with dvd's but this drive has been fantastic for me so far.

I looked around for a little while. I hear the NEC3500 is supposed to be a good drive also.

[samijubal]

I recently bought my first too an LG 4120B from NewEgg. In a week and a half I have burned 200 or so DVDs without any problems, excellent burner so far.

[higgins]

I thought i wa doing well. I managed to back up 40. Dont you have a job to go to. Or do you not sleep at night samilubal??

[samijubal]

I don't sleep much for sure. Doing copies of stuff for other people, takes a little less time when making a bunch of copies of the same disc since it only has to read the disc I'm copying once.

[Bodyslide]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=238128

[louthewiz]

I got a liteon to replace my crappy sony 500ax and it is a gret value ,and new egg has them refurbed for around 50 dollars.

[budz]

new egg has them refurbed for around 50 dollars.

why buy refurbished when dvd burners are so cheap nowdays!
newegg does have great bargain prices on new dvd burners!

[af9148]

thanks for all the replies. i was thinking about getting the pioner dual layer burner but i think im just going to stick with the regular single layer burners because most of the stuff im burning to dvd is 4 gig or just backups of dvds i dont think ill have much use with 8.5 gig dvd and the dual layer cds are going to be expensive.

about the single layer dvds, for example if i buy a 16x burner and use 4x dvds, from what i heard i can still burn it at 16x on a 4x cd correct? same goes for 12x and 8x burners. would it damage the dvd at all if i was to burn it at a quicker speed then the cd was made to such as a 4x.

and is it best to stick with the name brand dvd burners (pioneer, memorex,plextor) to have the best compatability with dvd players instead of the generic dvd burners

[overloaded_ide]

Not picking on you but the first thing you really should do is get the disk types correct!! You are wanting DVD but keep reffering to them as CDs.
There is a really big diffence!!

And no, you can't take just any 4x DVD and burn it at 12x speeds. Many disks will burn faster than their rated speed in many burners. But then also you may get disks that will not burn as fast as the rated speed in some burners also.

Maybe some 4X disks will burn at 8X, and Maybe some 8X disks will burn at 12X or even 16X, but I don't think any 4X disk will burn at 12x or above ever, though I could be wrong.

As far as getting a Single Layer drive, no reason too. You do not have to use Daul layer disks, a DL drive still burns SL disks. You will have an option later to burn DL disks when the disk prices come down if you buy a DL drive. The drives are not that much higher, maybe $10 more depending on the brands. When DL disks get to about $1 each you may want to burn a few. The way disk prices are dropping I would geuss less than a year, maybe 6 months or even less till we get those $1 DL disks.
Might as well get the best drive with the most options for the amount of money you want to spend now. Would you really want to be buying a new drive in 6 months or so just to use another type of disk?

Speed wise the old 1X was 1 hour, 2x 30 minutes, 4x 15minutes, 8x about 8-10 minutes. Aproxamate burning times. So even cutting a 10 minute burn in half only saves you 5 minutes with a 16x burner. I am not totally certain (but almost) that no 16x burner is actaully going to write a 5 minute disk anyway.

As far as brands, no, brand names mean almost nothing today! Especally when buying disks! Some burners may be made better than others, but it's a matter of many things how well your disks play. Mostly the quality of the disks, and the brand names are often worse than lesser known names.
Read many of the posts here concerning Memorex, Maxell and many other trusted names! Most of us do not trust those names in DVDs, unless we know the media codes.

Lite-on, Nec seem to be lesser known names but many people speak of those drives working so much better and using many disks that drives like Sony won't even recognize. I have an NEC and a Toshiba, both work fine.
My toshiba is way over a year old and never made a bad disk. The NEC is good also, but I bought it about Feb this year then traveled alot in the summer so it's not been used nearly as much yet.

just backups of dvds i dont think ill have much use with 8.5 gig

That's exactly when you may want DL disks if they get cheap! You do know most DVDs are over 5 gigs when you buy them. So you have to either remove stuff like extra features or shrink them to fit, sometimes both. Not a problem but you do take a chance on losing quality and for sure it does take extra time. So if DL disks get close to the price of SL disks, then they will be worth using. Just for now they are THE NEW THING
and are expensive. I just saw a 4X DL burner, so already we are moving ahead with a second generation of DL drives it looks like!