Recommended DVD-RW Drive that will paly on MOST Dvd Players???

goldenimage wrote on 4/8/2002, 10:16 PM
I have run a search and not come up with much. My budget is about $400.

I did read that "-R" burners are better. However, when pricing burners I get "DVD+RW/CD-R/RW burner" and later in the description "Cannot use DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW media".
So now I am not sure what I need...

Any help would be appreciated,
thanks

Comments

bcbarnes wrote on 4/9/2002, 8:10 AM
If you are looking for DVD-R/DVD-RW capabilities, I think most (including myself) would recommend the pioneer A03/103 (actually, I think they've updated it to the A04). This drive burns -R, -RW, as well as CD-R and CD-RW media. I have been very happy with mine. The -R plays on almost all settop units.

Note that the DVD+R and DVD+RW formats are totally different from DVD-R and DVD-RW. There's a big debate over which is better. You can find more on this topic by doing a search here or going to www.vcdhelp.com, as well as other places.
kkolbo wrote on 4/9/2002, 9:20 AM
The +R format discs are available, but as of yet there are no drives that write to them. I personally feel that the +R's have a great possibility (by the specs and my testing) to be the most compatible and the most cost effective. Alas the drives have had trouble hitting the market. We still wait for the final answer. In the mean time. Many DVD Player manufactureres are specifically adding -R compatibility to thier new products. Even if +R turns out to be better, it may lose to -R in the marketplace because of the delays in getting it to market. The better product does not always win.

Summersond wrote on 4/9/2002, 10:13 AM
kkolbo, in what sense do you mean more cost effective? I know of a website that has DVD-R's for around $2.50 -3.00 US each. Would DVD+R's be cheaper? Thanks for bringing that point up.

dave
kkolbo wrote on 4/9/2002, 12:55 PM
Well, Based on the comparision or -RW to +RW we can assume that +R's will also be significantly cheaper than -R's. The other basis for my comment is the comments of the product engineer for the +RW for Philips when I met with him. His anticipations was a release of +RW at $18.00 falling to CD-R prices in about than 24 months. Well, it has been falling pretty fast as he predicted. They released it at less than he predicted.

Lastly I would like to point out a cost point that is seldom factored into on forums like this. The +RW and +R formats handle the writing process diferently and create TOC and similar data issues for DVD-Video on the fly rather than writing the vobs and having to go back and create the addition data afterwards. This shortens the writing process. This time is money in my business. I was authoring a +RW considerable faster than a -R. The new A04 may have closed the gap, but I have not played with one.

BTW, I need two more burners for the office pretty soon. Even though I personally am a +RW and +R format supporter, I may have to buy -R drives because the +R are still not here.

K


asafb wrote on 4/9/2002, 9:33 PM
The compatibility of DVD+RW is terrible, don't touch it. Go the -R route, it's better and has been approved by the dvd-forum. Speed is 2nd priority, compatibility is FIRST.

ab
pdmath wrote on 4/9/2002, 10:26 PM
I have a DVD+RW drive. I have been using a bitset utility (a little program that is run from the command line). It is almost instanteous that it changed a little bit of code on the DVD+RW. This code changes (r "tricks" might be a better explanation) some info on the DVD+RW disc to make DVD players think it is a standard DVD-rom disc. It works quite well. My Toshiba 3109 isn't supposed to play DVD+RW discs, but after using the bitset utility, it plays on it just fine.

I took the DVD+RW disk to Best Buy and Circuit City and it played on every player there with the exception of JVC DVD players with Progressive Scan. I can't speak for older DVD players though as my Toshiba (about 3 years old) is the only older model I've tried, but it did play it and so did all the other Toshibas in the stores.

So I guess I'm trying to say don't totally rule out the DVD+ format. With use of the bitset utility, it might play on nearly as many players as the DVD-r format.
craftech wrote on 4/10/2002, 7:15 AM
Is that the utility from DVDplusRW.org
John
pdmath wrote on 4/10/2002, 7:52 AM
John...yes it is the utility from dvdplusrw.org. Since I am on W2k and have a Philips DVD+RW drive, I had to use the version that has to be run from the command line. I had to upgrade the Philips firmware 1st before I could run the program, but it seems to work great.

Phil