DVD-Writer-advice needed please.

[Comfy]

Hi,

I thinking of buying a DVD writer and the Pioneer DVD106 which support +r and -r writing seems cool.
I have a few questions which hope fully somebody can answer.

1.Is there much point buying a writer that support +r and -r or should I just stick to the -r format?

2.Do drives that write using both methods work ok?

3.Has anyone got the PioneerDVD106 writer, is it any good?

4.Does the drive have to be region free to rip an NTSC DVD? I have no idea about the regions you see but would appreciate any info as I do plan to rip my NTSC films.


I'd appreciate any help at all.
Thanks all!
Comfy

[tompika]

1.Is there much point buying a writer that support +r and -r or should I just stick to the -r format?

I think most of them write minus coz its a bit cheaper.

2.Do drives that write using both methods work ok?

They are supposed to work OK

3.Has anyone got the PioneerDVD106 writer, is it any good?

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters.php?DVDnameid=113&Search=Search&list=

4.Does the drive have to be region free to rip an NTSC DVD? I have no idea about the regions you see but would appreciate any info as I do plan to rip my NTSC films

DVDDecrypter has a Brute Force feature rips any region code.

[MCLAREN5TH]

The only reason i bought the a06 is because i don't have to worry about + or -. It works great with cheap media(Princo, Datawrite, BeAll). Only bad part is the rip speed is slower then the sony.

When you first install it no region is set. You only have 4 or 5 region changes.

A good place to buy it is from Accupc.com for $236 + $8 FedEx s&h.

[mkelley]

Yeah, I'll second the kudos on the Pioneer. I like mine a lot better than my Sony A500 (hard to quantify, but it just seems to work better).

But buy a DVD-ROM drive for ripping -- less wear and tear on your burner and *much* faster (any ROM will rip at around 7-9x versus 2x max on the burners). I bought a Sony ROM for around $35 and it works great.

[Comfy]

Thanks to everyone for the cool replies!

Just one more last thing though please...

I am thinking of gettng the Pioneer DVR-A06 but itis region locked. Is there any programs that will allow me to get past this region locking?

Thanks again for all the help! Big thanks to tompika.
Any other advice at all on any of the above will help me out tons.

Cheers!
Graham

[mkelley]

Let me reiterate: you do *not* want to use the Pioneer burner as your ripper -- too much wear and tear and too slow.

Get yourself a cheap (under $40) DVD-ROM that isn't region locked and you'll solve both your problems at once.

[Comfy]

Yeah, Thanks mkelly.
I already have a DVD drive and also a CD writer, is it possible to install the DVD writer and continue to use the other 2 ROM drives?

Bacily, can I operate 3 drives and how as I am a little concerned that the Pioneer may not be able to do all the basic functions that my current CD writer can do.

Cheers again!
Graham

[garryheather]

I can't immediately think of any reason why you could not replace your CD-R with a DVD-R... although saying that, I've still got my CD-R in situ !

I suppose I keep mine for it's phenominal audio extraction speed and the enhanced audio recording mode that my DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives simply can not match. However my DVD-R drive only records CD's at a maximum of 8x IIRC, whereas my CD-R will do a magnitude of this without breaking a sweat. OK, the lights dim in my house when I turn the PC on, but all those LED's on the front of my PC seem to compensate quite nicely...

[lchiu7]

I bought the Sony DRU500A since I wanted to be able to burn both types of media. I bought 100 DVD-RW Princo and they work fine so far but they are a bit slow in burning (1x). I have since purchased 50 Ricoh unbranded DVD+RW and they burn at 2.4x which is much better. So I would say from that POW +RW are better but ymmv

Larry

[tompika]

I am thinking of gettng the Pioneer DVR-A06 but itis region locked. Is there any programs that will allow me to get past this region locking?

When you buy a new drive you need to select a region that can be changed four times before it becomes region locked.

When it`s not locked yet a software region free utility can handle different discs such as RegionKiller, DVDRegionFree,......

There are hacked firmwares that makes the drive regionfree without software aid. But flashing drives can be dangerous.
As far as I know the hack for the Pioneer 106 hasn`t come out yet

Learn about it here

www.firmware-flash.com

http://pioneerdvd.rpc1.org

[lchiu7]

No hack for the Sony either. But if all you want is to rip the vob files off, then I understand the dvddecrypter can do that even if the drive is not the region of the DVD you are trying to rip

[garryheather]

The problem with that comes if / when you have to play the disc in order to unlock the drive.

There is also a similar sort of region coding in XP regarding DVD playback, although I've never set mine to anything and everything works as expected despite this...

[mkelley]

Yeah, Thanks mkelly.
I already have a DVD drive and also a CD writer, is it possible to install the DVD writer and continue to use the other 2 ROM drives?

Bacily, can I operate 3 drives and how as I am a little concerned that the Pioneer may not be able to do all the basic functions that my current CD writer can do.

Cheers again!
Graham

Graham,

You can certainly have three drives (assuming your tower can accomodate it and your IDE capacity is great enough -- worst comes to worst you can buy another interface card) but unless you're burning a lot of CDs I wouldn't worry about keeping that CDR in your machine.

The Pioneer does just fine burning them and since it uses a different laser from the DVD burning it should not wear and tear on at least that portion (obviously the mechanicals will still get used).

[lchiu7]

The problem with that comes if / when you have to play the disc in order to unlock the drive.

There is also a similar sort of region coding in XP regarding DVD playback, although I've never set mine to anything and everything works as expected despite this...

I haven't checked recently but unlike smartripper which often requires you use a player to unlock a drive, I think I saw a message when I started DVDDecrypter on a disk which didn't match the region of the drive, that it would have to use a brute force method to read the data. I killed the job and moved the disk to a different drive on my machine

Larry

[garryheather]

Fair enough, I have a cheapo hacked DVD-ROM drive myself for that very eventuality.