i just went through this same thing -- kind of stressful only because i was clueless and wanted badly to do the right thing -- what ever that is/was
supposedly the dvd-r plays in 85% of the dvd players
i bought the pioneer dv-104-bare drive...$246
then i bought a pioneer dvd player--656a...$170
then i just bought ulead movie factory to author the dvd's--$45
the good thing about poineer a04 or dv104--is that you can burn dvd-r and dvd-rw
make sure you get a player that can read both?
also, i will use pioneer dvd's to start with because i want to make sure my settings etc are correct. later when and if i get more daring i will try generic brands
the only difference between the pioneer dv-a04 and dv104 (which i have coming) is that it comes with authoring software--but...i've heard people don't like it because it is slow etc.
as a result, i figured i would try ulead- for $45 what the heck
others have said they like dazzle's--$100
there are others that are $300 -$500 even $1,000 just for authoring
if you are professional and looking to make $$$ maybe those are for you
i will be getting my dvd drive in the mail tomorrow so i'll let you know
wish us both luck
:)
sb

Check this out - Sony Electronics today introduced its Dual RW drives, the first combination drives for the PC to support the DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD-R formats

see http://www.dvdcreation.com/cgi-bin/getframeletter.cgi?/2002/09_sep/news/sonydualdvd.htm

Both Dual RW models also support 24X CD-R and 10X CD-RW recording

The DRU-500A DVD/CD rewritable drive (internal) will be available in October for an estimated retail price of under $350, and the Sony DRX-500UL (external) will be available in November for less than $430

and so it goes...

Yep, and so it goes...

I went with the Pioneer A04 just last weekend (retail version). I recommend getting the OEM and save money, because the Sonic MyDVD that comes with retail doesn't allow you to create any scenes/chapters unless they are encoded during the recording of the MPEG (I don't even know how to do this). Since going straight to scenes is one of the best things about DVDS in my opinion, I went out and bougth Ulead's Moviefactory for $50 at CompUSA. Made one DVD-R thus far, it was pretty easy and it worked the first time (played OK in my Sony DVD player and Aopen DVD Rom).

See nearby posts for more info on the whole DVD thing. Good luck. It certainly is a great time to be a geek.

G

Well you can always wait but it's all evolutionary and you will always be waiting for tomorrow's technology if that is the case. My advice is if you need today then buy.
DVD-R is the format of the present but is now competing with +R which is establishing itself. +R is supposedly the superior format but of course -R is longer established with cheaper drives & discs.
-RW/+RW are better not used for distribution as they are not as compatible,but are good ofr you to test your authored projects on before committing to write once media.

Sony do a drive it's a +R/+RW drive.
The + drives are quicker & all the +R/+RW & -R/-RW drives write to CD-R/-RW as well again with the + drives a little quicker.

DVD-RAM is the original rewriteable format & is very well suited to archiving. It is good for 100,000 rewrites compared to about 1,000 for the other rewriteable brands it can also phase change (read & write from the disc at the same time)& automatically checks writes for errors. All this makes it very reliable for storage & back ups. Against with this of course is that the disc are in cartridges (although they can be removed) and the are not compatible with as many players. RAM drives don't write to CD but do write to -R so you do get the best of both worlds.

Panasonic are supposed to be releasing a drive sometime soon that does DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/& CD-R/-RW the of course the next big phase in the evolution is the announcement by 9 leading companies including Pioneer of Blu-Ray. This employs a shorter wavelength blue-violet laser delivering a smaller beam spot so that 27Gb could be stored on a single sided disc & transfer rate of 36Mbits/sec delivering HDTV levels of quality superior to DVD. Don't expect it any time soon though & it's no reason not to buy now.

Oh & it very much depends on what software is on offer but invariably you are better off going bare drive & ucing your authoring burning programs of choice.

Thanks for the responses! I would like to say I'm closer to a decision but I think since I don't need this functionality right away, I think I'll wait a few months. That new Sony drive looks interesting though..

Yes, thanks for the tips and updates on what's up and coming!!!
I too am intrigued by this NEW Sony(internal) model. Maybe....Samsung....Toshiba...etc. will follow suit.

I went through the confusion of the +R -R choice. I stuck it out with the +RW until the +R's were a reality. I am very glad that I did. Philips replaced my +RW with the one that write +R's as well at no cost. The +R's are very fast to write by comparision and the compatibility has been wonderful. I have not run into a player that refuses it. I have not tested it in all players but I have tested it in a bunch.

$.02

K

Billyboy mentioned in a post that he has the HP100i which writes the plus type DVD's, but when I checked some vendors and user reviews, they said that it would only write DVD+RW and not DVD+R. Can anyone verify this?

John

I have a HP 200i, it writes DVD+R fine. The 100i, can't like many earlier models it was limited to DVD +RW, even though it says it can wrtie +R on the box.

If I remeber correctly if people bought a 100i HP offered a upgrade for $100, while Philips gave a free upgrade for their version one models. Be careful which model you get. As others have said the second generation drives are much faster. In typical tecnobable the language is confusing. The second generation drives are only rated at 2.4-2.5 speed, but compared to the CD scale it runs about 12X. So to burn a 4.7 GB disc it takes around 20-30 minutes. I never timed it exactly. My guess which may be off somewhat. :-)

That new Sony drive is available on their web site for 350.00. It's the DRU500A. http://www.sonystyle.com/home/cat.jsp?hierc=9683x9714&catid=9714.

This is an arena where the score seems to be changing often! I bought an -04 back in April, and am very pleased with it; I also realize that it will be worth about $50 by this time next year.

If you don't have a need to burn DVDs or back up large amounts of data, sit this one out a bit longer. I hear Pioneer is about to introduce a much faster DVD-R/RW. The extensive article on DVD-R compatibility over at www.dv.com said the -R format was slightly more compatible than the +R at the moment, if I recall correctly.

Competition is great for driving innovation. I am writing this on a PC equipped with an AMD T'bird CPU. If AMD wasn't around, can anyone doubt that Intel would be charging twice as much for their chips, and they'd be maybe half as fast as they currently are?