Hi all, I am going to purchase a dual layer drive this week. Is there anything that anyone would recommend ? or NOT recomend? I guess compatibilty is the biggest issue. I know that the Liteon dual layer drive does not support automatic booktype change; is this important?
I trust Pioneer, have an A-05 and now looking at the 108 DL burner that's out now. I plan to pick one up soon but probably won't be burning any dual layer disks for a while yet.
Since the booktype used for DL DVD+R is a new assignment (and many players seem to be showing the same issue with this booktype that first showed up when +R first came out), getting a drive that lets you change the booktype to DVD-ROM would be pretty high on my list - alternatively, getting a burner that automatically sets the booktype to DVD-ROM (which the pioneer burner does). Here's a link to a web site with lots of in-depth reviews:
Any particular reason for this? Everything I've read says that once you get past the booktype issue that +R media is much more compatible with players than -R.
Now, that's interesting, from everything I've read, DVD-R is more compatible with set-top DVD players.
For what it's worth, I use Pioneer 108's with Ritek G05 8x DVD-R media and I've been extremely satisfied. I have burned hundreds of DVD's since I got the 108's and not a single return or complaint about compatibility. I've always used Pioneer burners and I've never had an issue with any of them.
I was going to wait, but when I realized that they haven't even released the specs for the -R dl, I took the plunge and bought the NEC burner. It was only $79 and is working great! One purchase I haven't regreted. :)
I got the Sony DRU-710. I went from a HP 300i (which worked great, but i killed in the span of little over a year... Thank God for hte extended warrenty!).
However, it's very hard & expensive to find DVD+R DL's. I still use it as a 4x burner because I still have 150 blank RiData's. :)
Another problem with dual-layer currently is that, no matter how much data you have to burn, you will have to burn both layers completely, from edge to edge, in order to have compatibility. So a project that might take just a few minutes with a fast single-layer burner will take much, much longer on dual-layer, partly because you will need to burn two complete layers, and partly because 4x is the fastest current speed for dual-layer burning. Still, if you absolutely need more than 4.37GB, you have no choice.
Does anyone know if there is a rewritable dual layer format in the works? I guess it would be -RW DL or +RW DL. So far, all I see is reference to write once DL media.
I doubt you'll ever see either ReadWrite or -R Dual Layer disks. I maybe proved wrong but it seems -R technology has pretty much reached the end of its life. 16x and DL I'm told will be the things that kill -R.
Like I say I could be wrong, I was also told -R wouldn't make it to 8x!