DVD burner shopping checklist

By Staff writers, CNET Asia on 01 June 2005

If you want bigger-than-CD capacity storage, DVDs are the next best choice. A single DVD can hold up to 4.7GB of data and prices of DVD writers are rapidly plummeting, making them more affordable than ever.

Format | Speed | Connectivity | Software

Format
Panasonic and the DVD Forum are primarily responsible for the original DVD-RAM and DVD-R/RW formats, while Philips and a splinter group, the DVD Alliance, have pioneered the DVD+R/RW alternative. The five DVD formats offer roughly 4.7GB of storage, but they differ in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. DVD-R and DVD+R may be written to only once, but offer high compatibility with drives and set-top players. Most of the newer drives now also support the DVD+R DL (dual layer) format for storage capacities of up to 8.5GB. DVD+RW and DVD-RW can be written and erased approximately 1,000 times, but they are a little less compatible. Sturdy DVD-RAM can be written and erased up to 100,000 times but it's a slower media and few drives or set-top players can read it.

DVD formats
DVD formats
 Things to consider
• What type of discs are you burning? (i.e. data or video)
• How much are you willing to spend on media?
• Go with a format that offers you the best compatability.
• Some formats are not supported on certain Operating Systems.
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Speed
Drives that are one step behind the bleeding edge usually offer the best price-to-performance ratio. As of May 2005, the fastest DVD burners were rated 16X/8X/16X; they are capable of recording at 16X on DVD+R and DVD-R, writing at 8X on DVD+RW and DVD-RW, and reading DVDs at 16X. Burning speeds for the DVD+R DL range from 2.4X to 4X. Unless you're burning dozens of DVDs each day, the extra minutes per burn that a slower 8X burner will cost you won't kill you -- but it could save you AU$50 or more.
DVD speeds
DVD speeds
 Things to consider
• Does your PC's specs meet the minimum requirements?
• Is your media capable of being mastered at high speeds?
• Most media in the market is rated 8X (for +/-R) and 4X (for +/-RW).
• Write-once media (like DVD+R/-R) is faster than rewritable media.
Connectivity
SCSI and parallel ports used to be popular connections for external drives, but more modern technologies, like USB 2.0 and FireWire, have rendered them obsolete. USB 2.0 is the more common connection type, although FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 and Sony iLink) offers greater transfer speeds. Just about every internal drive uses an EIDE (enhanced integrated drive electronics) interface.
Six-pin FireWire
Six-pin FireWire
 Things to consider
• What type of connection(s) does your PC have?
• Are the proper software drivers included?
• Does the manufacturer supply the correct cables?
• Is there support for newer connection standards such as SATA?
• Is it easy to install?
Software
A DVD writer should come with DVD-burning software. Nero Burning ROM is currently regarded as one of the best, but Adaptec's Easy CD Creator and NTI CD-Maker work well, too. Bundled software is often a "lite" version of a larger application, meaning that it doesn't have all the features of the full release. Still, even the lite versions include all of the tools that most users will need for burning all kinds of discs; for capturing, importing and exporting video; and even for some basic audio and video editing.
Ahead Nero
Ahead Nero
 Things to consider
• What Operating System(s) (OS) does it support?
• Does it offer protection from fatal buffer-underrun errors such as Burn-Proof or Just-Link?
• What DVD formats does it support?
• Is it upgradeable?

Topics: dvd, storage, capacity, burner, writers, shopping, checklist

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