Did I do the right thing? Should I keep my 200i for $284.99?

[jeepman]

I picked up a full retail HP DVD200i for $284.99 at Circuit City using their Price Match policy. Boy what a shock when I checked media pricing, I knew it was more, but at $9.99 for a DVD+RW that is a lot.

I am sure I can find them cheaper on-line.

I was originally going for the Pioneer 104 (OEM), but researching here pointed me to the ZDNET review which rated the 200i higher, but when will the media prices get closer to parity? I have not found anything on-line addressing that specific issue.

[erzug]

I bought some Memorex DVD+RW's from Provantage.com and they were great. In fact, I was able to use with my standalone player without any bitset change. The HP DVD+RW with the same content would not be recognized (Disc Error) until I reformatted it as DVD-rom using the bitset utility.

[Greg12]

it is best to price watch for dvd+r media because the stores rn't cheap.

[BJ_M]

after all the hassle HP put their customeers through in the last year -- i wonder why the pioneer is rated lower .. must be your advertising $$ at work .. IMO , the pioneer A04 / 104 is the best (im not out to start a flame war here -- just my opinion) all around, most compatable burner.

[DBR]

Try online, like dell.com, or thenerds.net. You should be able to get name brand (like HP or TDK) +RW for around $5, +R for around $4. I too can't wait until the same is true at local store.

[jeepman]

Well, so far it looks like I may be taking it back. I am trying to write to a Memorex DVD+RW using HP's MyDVD, but it gives a hardware error. The troubleshooting page says to make sure the disk is not scratched, but it is new. An 80min CD-RW works fine, but I bought this with hopes of burning DVD Video as well.

I will do another post with specific questions in hopes of suggestions.

[tmcmvd]

For all firmwareupdate problems from 1.06 to 1.27,

for all formatting problems...

for all not be able to change compat mode problems..

disable DMA in windows XP and select PIO 4.

Firmware upgrade is fine then.

Tried burning in compat mode 1 on slow (compatible) setting and worked fine...had some trouble getting the HP RW media detected in my Lenco standalone...but after some retries it worked fine.

Try making anything on RW, when you want to keep it, copy it to +R media.

let me know if this help ya..

Greetz,

Mike.