Yamaha S520 and Pioneer DVR-105

[btvs2000]

HELP!

Newbie to whole DVD writer thing. If anyon could help with following questions:

1) I own a Yamaha S520 DVD player and want to purchase the Pioneer DVR-105? Can this writer burn DVD's that my Yamaha can play?
2) Most blank DVD's seem to be 120min video, so what about 3 hour movies? Do I have to split or compress, I hope not as what is point of DVD writer
3) What is DVD RAM?
4) I believe my player can play DVD-R (from your website) and sure Phillips can burn DVD-R? So what would be best media?

Thanks in advance. Also appoligies if not in right forum as so many to choose from!

[Haddonfield78]

Hello,

The Yamaha S520 can play + and - DVDr's, so that's no problem at all
The Pioneer A05 is a -R burner and a very reliable one, maybe the best
there is on the market today. Loss of video when compressing is minimized because the bitrate of an original DVD is more then enough to make it smaller in size, you won't notice the difference if you have a normal TV-set (even 100Hz). Techniques for compressing, ripping, converting and authoring are all availabe in the UserGuides on this site.
Philips has the +R standard, so all their writers are +R. Maybe they are intending to produce a +/- burner in ten future, but i don't thinks so. Stick with the A05, it's the best for it's prize, tyou can also choose the A06 which can burn +/- R media.

[btvs2000]

Thanks for replying.

I just foiund the section on your website that explains difference between dvd 5 and 9 (dual layered). And that copying a DVD is not a straight forward as buring CDs.

I have been using a cd writer for quite a few years now and thought that a dvd writer would be just as easy. But the whole thing about ripping, compresing, converting etc just to copy a dvd and also splitting for larger ones and losing quality ect, simply sounds like a pain.

I know your website said that dual dvd writers are not going to be made in the forseeable future.

So how good are copied dvds compared with original (sound and audio, is it still dobly digital etc) and roughly how long would it take to burn a dvd from start to finish say a 2hr movie?

cheers