[b]Its all too much for a Newbie!![/b]

[clint37]

I am the newest Newbie on the block!!

I haven’t even received my writer yet however I have been reading the boards for about two days and I am more confused than ever. The simple problem is that there is too much choice….

Software..methods..media...hardware, where does it all end, or is this the fun that my mates were telling me about. My questions are simple, I don’t want to re invent the wheel I’m just looking for some good advice straight off to get me started so I don’t make a complete twat of myself and end up with a hundred coasters:

I have a Sony DAV SC5 Home entertainment system. Seems good to me. How does this rate with the more experienced users? (region 2 only)

I am awaiting the arrival of my Sony DRU510AK burner. One of my mates said that it was a good piece of kit although I must admit that I feel that I have been a bit too hasty in my purchase. Is this a good burner?

What is the best media to buy in relation to the above? The list is endless. If cheap is good then great but I don’t want to save 20p if I end up with coaster after coaster. What determines the quality of the media you buy? (I apologies if this is a silly question but I don’t know the answer and they all differ so widely in price.

What software do I use, do I burn to the HDD or from disk to disk, my brain is melting under the strain of impending failure!!!

Any help would be appreciated. I’ve not even started and I feel lost already!!

Clint37.

[rcb]

The DVD writer that you are getting should give you good service.

As to media, stick with name brands and get at least a cuppla rewritable discs (pus or minus r/w)... good for learning as they can be ersased and rewritten to when experimenting/learning. The manual that comes with your writer will tell you what type of discs can be used.

Also go back to your profile (where you signed up for this board) and fill out at least the details on your computer setup. As you ask questions later, that info will be of great help to those trying to understand your questions/problems.

Meanwhile, do all the reading you can from the guides on the l/h side of this page... and welcome. We all started off as newbies.

[jbrett14]

I too am very new to DVD burning, but have learned plenty in the last few weeks. My #. 1 advice, unless you have many hours of spare time to kill, would be to use basic software for you work. I'm sure your new drive will come with some DVD creation software. I recently bought a TDK burner and it came with Roxio DVD builder which has been fantastic for what I am doing (transferring old VHS movies to DVD). Much of the software within this website is more advanced and very time consuming, and quite frankly, I cannot justify the time and effort it takes to master these programs for my basic needs. Although I have used a couple for backing up some of my existing DVD's. It really comes down to what exactly do you intend to use your burner for. With my basic, easy-to-use Roxio DVD Builder program, I have now burned about 20 DVD's without failure. All with outstanding image quality. In fact, my DVD video quality exceeds the originals on VHS, with the use of Roxio's de-noiser filter option. Good luck, I know it can be overwhelming.

[Wetmonkey]

I first started by ripping and burning a dvd5, the easiest, then i read the guides on splitting dvd9 onto 2 discs- burned a few and moved on to ripping the movie only and burning to dvdr
tools needed..

ifoedit

dvddecrypter

burning software (i have ended up using recordnow max)

look up the guides on this site
or www.doom9.org

get these basics down and everything else will come easy.

drip drip

[8trackkid]

Hi newbie!
I know that this all seems complicated right now, but it will all make more sense as time goes on. For now, stick to one thing you want to do
(back-up dvd's, capture vhs to dvd, record tv shows to dvd), and learn how to do it well. Then, you will have a quicker learning curve come time to take on more complicated tasks.

At first, I would recommend that you learn how to back-up a dvd. You'll need a program to rip and burn your video to disk (Nero, Roxio, DVDecrypter, etc...), and either an authoring/encoder program (Pinnacle Instant Copy, Nero) or a transcoder (DVDShrink). This depends whether you are just backing up a commercial dvd or creating a dvd from your own video.

I personally would recommend DVDShrink, as it will take care of all your back-up needs. It is a great learning tool for beginners, and there are lots of great guides for it on this site. Best of all, its FREE

Next, find out what type of blank media your burner takes (+ or -, and what speed) and buy a good name brand for now (TDK, Maxell, Fuji, etc.) (I know for the pros here that these brands have some problems with CMC Taiwan, but please don't confuse em.) Also buy a ReWrite disk, to see whether your burn works, as it is re-writeable.

Then follow the guides on this site and you'll be making great back-ups in no time. After that, you can take on more difficult tasks. Tried to make this as simple as possible. Hope it helps.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Media (Verbatim)

Programs
Dvd Decrypter (burns to HD)
Dvd2One (fits files to 4.7dvd)
CopytoDvd (writes files to dvd)