Sony or Pioneer burners have FAR less user-reported problems. Please at least consider one of those.

I have the Plextor PX-708A Internal. The first week that I used it, it burned
DVD+R media with blinding speed...8X's speed. The second week, it
wouldn't get out of it's own way...read at 1.4X and burned at .7X. It was
recognized by DVD Architect, but nor NERO. I RMA'd it back to California.
Should get it back this coming week, hopefully. It has the capability of doing
a self test which I like.

Good luck with your problem. If mine doesn't come back with a better attitude, I'm switching to some other brand.

Dwuane

No offense, but I remembering seeing lots of people upset with their Sony drives and they were always flipping out about new firmware. Hopefully that problem has been resolved.

I have a Pioneer 4x dual format thats crapping out on me at the moment. I get one or two dvds to burn and then on third I get the dreaded power calibration error. I usually have to wait a couple hours and then burn another 2 dvds. So Im definitley looking to replace this POS asap.

I have a Pioneer A05 (-R) only. had it for over a year with no problems. At the moment Dual (+-R) burners have no appeal to me until they are as stable as my A05.

I have a Sony 500AX and so far over 100 DVDs burnt and the only time it s**t itself was when it was given food poisoning, i.e. junk media to burn. And the only odd thing, media burnt at 4 speed performs better than buring at 1x.

BTW I've just installed a Plextor CD burner, now that's a real piece of gear. Checking error levels on audio CDs is very interesting, so far found one master with BAD C2 errors in just one spot, reburnt with next disk in spindle and all is well. Measuring the number of C1 errors is also interesting, there is quite a difference depending on the type of media. These are correctable errors so there nothing to freak out over but it does show you get what you pay for, the big question is just how much do you need to spend to get acceptable quality.

with all this said, Should I hold out until Sony updates its list or buy a new one anyway and hope for the best that it works with DVDA?

I'm feeling like it's gonna be a gamble as to whether or not a newer model DVD burner will work with DVDA. Like i said in my original post, I can't even find a burner anywhere that's on their list. they're only selling the new products now.

Another thumbs up for the Pioneer A05 here...

Another bulletproof A05 here. I've burned hundreds of Ritek G04 blanks, and many times it's been a marathon session, with the burner doing its thing for 12 hours straight--no problems. Ever.

As for replacement, I'm eyeing the new 8x standard. Plextor is supposed to have an excellent reputation. I've heard some bad stuff about Sony drives, and in fact aren't they getting out of the burner manufacturing business?

The other factor is the advent of dual-layer burning, coming this year. 8GB on a single side--nice.

with all this said, Should I hold out until Sony updates its list or buy a new one anyway and hope for the best that it works with DVDA?

Sony has pretty much indicated that it does not intend to update their drive list and, in this thread, has all but stated that if you don't have a Sony or Pioneer drive, you are on your own. (BTW, I have a Pioneer A05, and highly recommend it).

Should you hold off buying DVDA? Absolutely. Here’s my recommendation: Hold off forever. If you haven't purchased it, get something else instead. Sony is refusing to provide any future direction on DVDA, other than to say they are working on it. It could come out next week; it might not come out until this time next year. It has been nine months since they even issued a bug fix (1.0c)., and over a year since the initial release. Ulead’s DVD Workshop is now at release 2.0, and if you go to the Ulead forum, you won't see everyone complaining about the product, they way they do about DVDA in these forums. And, the complaints in the DVDA forum are an aberration: You don't see massive numbers of people in these forums complaining about Vegas or Sound Forge or Acid. In other words, Sony customers are not just a bunch of whiners: DVDA is a clunker.

Just to anticipate the reaction from a few people that defend Sony against someone like me that continues to hammer away and criticize them, let me ask your question for you: If you dislike this product so much, why don't you just shut up, and go buy something else?

Answer #1: Because I spent a quarter century of my life in the software business, and it truly pains me to see a company make exactly the same mistakes that have been made so many times before. When will they learn??

Answer #2: From a selfish point of view, I have invested countless hours learning Vegas and quite a few hours learning DVDA. I am dreading having to scrap all of that investment and learn a new set of features, and a new workflow. I had to do it, years ago, when Lotus lost its way. It took a long time to learn Excel after knowing 1-2-3 "cold" (I can still remember the entire "/" menu system by heart). It took quite awhile to unlearn Micropro's Wordstar interface and learn the Wordperfect function key system, when Seymour Rubenstein (chairman of Micropro) lost his way. It took even longer — when WordPerfect stumbled, fell, was acquired by Corel, and lost its way — to learn Microsoft Word.

I can go on, but the point is: I have been through this many times before, and I know exactly the fate that Sony's video software group is going to meet if they don't change. And it’s going to force me to needlessly learn a lot of products when I eventually have to abandon their product line.

Sony, if you'd like to contact me, just shoot me an email. I'd be happy to discuss this further, along with things like your third-party (plug-ins) program, something else that is required in order to compete in this marketplace.

JM: DVDA 1.0 doesn't have all the features you want. You post to this effect constantly, over and over and over. Thanks for your opinion.

For anybody on the fence: Vegas+DVDA+AC3 (sold as Vegas + DVD) is a solid, stable and versatile combination. We think you'll be happy with it both in terms of performance and value. Check out the feature list, check out the DVDA demo (which allows test burning of a prepared sample project), hunt around for special pricing.

Does DVDA 1.0 support all the specific features it claims to in the marketing materials? Yes. Please read those carefully and don't assume something is there just because some other app has it. If a feature is listed in our web/printed materials it is present and works.

Have we released fixes to address major bugs? Yes, several times. We do that with all our apps- longtime Sofo customers know that we care about our customers and that we have been, and will continue to be, a very solid long term bet.

Do we pile on new features in bug-fix updates? No.

Will there be a significant, feature packed upgrade? Yes.

Will it be a free upgrade? No.

When? Cannot disclose at this time, sorry. Can't.

here's the thing. I bought DVDA bundled with the vegas upgrade back when Sony (Sonic Foundry at the time?) offered it at their limited time upgrade price. Because I've never owned a DVD burner I've never used it but I'd like to try to use it since I paid for it. So now I'm left with the decision of what burner to purchase. I'm hearing a lot of good things about the Pioneer A05 however I really need an external drive. Do they even sell any of the drives that are on the list anymore now that newer versions keep coming out? If so where? If not, anyone else have luck using DVDA with a newer burner not on the list?

many thanks

An internal drive becomes an external drive with the addition of about $100 worth of parts (an enclosure such as the ADS Pyro, a firewire cable, and a firewire adapter if your PC or laptop doesn't already have a firewire port).

I don't personally use DVD-A so I don't know the official list of supported drives. If you want to buy a Pioneer A05 (or a Cendyne A05, which is the same thing), you might try eBay. I've had lots of success getting new or slightly-used items there for about 1/2 of the store price.

As of the time of writing this message, eBay shows a Pioneer A05 with 4 hours left on the auction. Currrent bid is $67.