I'm worried about getting a DVD writer...

[garryheather]

The other thing to remember about hardware becoming "obsolete" is that it usually happens before the damn thing stops working.

My father loves it when I upgrade my PC, because he gets first refusal on my "old" hardware. There's nothing wrong with it, apart from it not being cutting edge any more, and since I wouldn't consider him a power user, it does the job admirably.

My ex had my original, 2x CD recorder, which as far as I know still works, and my father is still using my old Teac 6x recorder to this day.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that as soon as you buy something computer orientated some bugger brings out a new model the moment you've left the shop (or even handed over your credit card in some cases), but if you know of someone who can use your "old" technology and maybe even give you a couple of £ / $ for it, then it helps them and gives you an incentive to upgrade yourself. I can't speak for everyone else here, but I have an objection to throwing away hardware that still works. There aren't any charities around my way that take in old hardware any more, but as I say, my father is always grateful for a little performance push once in a while.

BTW - Gmatov - thatnks for the "gentleman" reference... I think I'll print that one out and get it framed !!

[LanEvo7]

Hmmm.... i had a dvd+ 2x that i bought in a box from verbatim but it was an nec dvd drive and i never had a problem with any media i burned in it.

I was talking about at NEC 1300A. Users say they can't burn cheap media without the hacked firmware.

[musotechy]

I think this is all crazy about 8x or 4x. I convinced my wife I needed a dvd writer. So I promised I would back up twin towers. It took my computer 17 hours to decode this movie with dvd2dvdr. Who the hell cares now if it takes 15 minutes or 30 minutes to write the dvd.

17 Hours, I think you need to sort out your ripping method. In 17 hours you should have been able to rip and then burn about 20 copies!!!

[mojo2185]

Thanks for all the good info guys, I've been following this topic alot (though I haven't replied much), and all of your opinions/advice is really helping.

My computer is several years old, so getting a burner faster than 8X probably won't make much of a difference because I probably can't transfer data that fast to a DVD anyway (someone mentioned this atleast once in this thread).

Please, keep posting all of your comments if you have some, they're really appreciated. This topic will probably help a lot of others too, that may have similar questions.

Thanks again

[tawnyag75]

More speed is not always the best way to go, especially when it comes to DVD burning. DVD burning for the home user is still a new technology, overtime it will be perfected. Speeds will probably not grow greatly as they are already write data faster than CD-R. CD-R is already kind of maxed out at 52x, any faster and the discs melt!!!

For me slower is better with a deeper sustained burn

Thanks

Especially if you're gonna get laid!!!

[jamawass]

One thing you have to know with DVD burning is that the burn process is a smaller fraction of the whole dvd creation process. Authoring the dvd is what takes about an hour if you include menus etc and creation of image/ video ts folders. In fact I don't think I'll upgrade to a faster burner (presently have a pioneer dvr-a06) until the whole authoring process is faster, maybe with Athlon 64 and 64 bit windows .

[overloaded_ide]

Most of everything can be based on computer speed.

Ripping, authoring, encoding, ect... A slower systems take alot longer than a faster system if it has alot of work to do!

Burning is just a matter of the computer transfering the data as fast as the burner can write it! The computer should be able to transfer data FASTER than the burner burns it, if not you can get buffer underrun and trash disks. Although there is saftey built into some programs or devices, to prevent the problem. It slows the burn rate of the drive till the buffer can be filled again.

I capture a VHS file analog as a DVD compliant Mpeg2 file. Not figuring the user time, time it takes me to decide what I want for menus and set them up. It only takes my system maybe 15 minutes to author the DVD files to the hard drive.

So a 2 hr movie takes 2 hrs to capture, 15 minutes to author as DVD files, then 1 hr to burn to 1x disks. Next time I will buy 2x disks and it will take about 30 minutes to burn one

Of course if I want to do alot of extra's then add alot more time! Like 2-4 hrs for encoding if I need to.

Capturing and burning is no problem as my system is much faster than either process. All the rest is based on PC performance though, faster the PC less time it takes. The slower the longer, but in either case, if you have the time the PC will do the job regardless what it is. Provided of course it can run the software

[beyondgoodandevil]

agreed, 17 hours is at least 17x too long for that kind of project, if it takes you so long to decode and shrink, you should just split it to 2 dvds.

but this brings up a good point: you can just as easily spend far more time ripping with a slow dvd drive, encoding mpeg-2 files, or shrinking dvd files than you will burning at 4x versus 8x.

I think this is all crazy about 8x or 4x. I convinced my wife I needed a dvd writer. So I promised I would back up twin towers. It took my computer 17 hours to decode this movie with dvd2dvdr. Who the hell cares now if it takes 15 minutes or 30 minutes to write the dvd.

17 Hours, I think you need to sort out your ripping method. In 17 hours you should have been able to rip and then burn about 20 copies!!!