Pioneer DVR-108. Very nice burner and excellent price. No problems so far. Had it since Christmas.

So which DVD should I buy? DVD-R, +R, +RW or -RW?

it seems like -R work the best for movies.... or do I have that wrong

I've always heard that DVD+R are the most compatible.

What Drive?
----------------------------------
I've pretty much stuck with Pioneer and NEC. I've owned Pioneer DVR-104, 108 and 109. I've also owned some older NECs and currently have 3520A and 6500A in my laptop.


Between these two brands, there is much debate on the web ... I think that's why I've ended up owning both. Don't know if I can truely say one is better than the other. You can read all the benchmarks (which I've seen NEC score slightly better) and quality tests (which I've seen Pioneer score slightly better) and not be sure what to do. There used to be a price difference, where Pioneer was regularly more expensive ... but I've seen that gap close too.

My preference is Pioneer. My reasoning is very simple: for all the media I've purchased, Pioneer writes to all of them at their rated speed. NEC on the other hand seems to support only some of my media at the rated speed ... some of the media it only writes at reduced speeds.

I find this funny because I've never had any problems burning DVDs on my Pioneer drives at their rated, or higher, speeds ... so I don't know why NEC has reduced the write speed for the same brand.

In all the benchmark's you'll find online, you'll see the NEC showing the edge because it might burn an entire DVD seconds or even a minute faster. I don't really think this is a big deal ... I've never seen myself waiting so intently that a few seconds or half a minute has really mattered. So, my final advice is to look at the 3520A and DVR-109 and decide which you can get cheaper and just go with it.

What type of Media to buy?
-------------------------------------------------------------
1) What does your DVD burner support?
You may want to hold off your decision of what type, or brand, until you know what you're drive will support. You can get this information by reading the supported media list for the drive published by the manufacturer ... should be able to find on the web sites.
For example, I have one brand of DVD-R discs that are rated at 8X by the manufacturer, Pioneer actually supports writing to them at 12X ... and I've never had a problem. NEC on the other hand, only supports writing to the same at 4X. This isn't a limitation of my system, that's their setting in their firmware for that disc ... go figure.

2) What is the most compatible?
This is a tough subject, I'll try to share what I understand. Several years ago now, I got into this with a videographer that made some videos for us but we could never read on our DVD player. He was recording on DVD+R media. He kept saying that DVD+R was the up and coming format that was more compatible. That wasn't the case for us. I was using DVD-R at the time and had no difficulties.
I had talked to a local shop I found in the yellow pages that had been doing video conversion and editing for years ... they suggested DVD-R at the time because since it was released before DVD+R, more of the older DVD players supported it, and just about every player since continues to.

I think DVD+R media is referred to as being more compatible because it has more options ... this I've come to learn has to do with the concept of 'Bitsetting'. It all comes down to how the DVD player see's the disc ... what 'format' is has the data arranged in. A manufactured disc format that the DVD player should easily understand is said to have a booktype of DVD-ROM. With DVD+R, there is an option called 'Bitsetting' that allows you to tell the DVD+R disc the format it should appear as after being burnt. This is increasingly important for dual layer discs as few DVD players understand the DL format ... and thus bit setting the DL disc to look like a DVD-ROM after burning increases the chances that a DVD player will recognize it.

Because bitsetting is only a part of the compatibility, I've continued to stick with a brand for my final DVD output ... Verbatim. Which shows up as CMC in the media lists.

An interesting article, with more resources can be found here:
http://www.signvideo.com/btst-d.htm

Well I purchased the NEC3520A. I picked up for $61.00.
where would I find the list of media that it supports?

I guess now I will have to experiment with the media. I thought that would be behind me with going to a DVD burner.


I will be using the Movie Studio DVD authoring tool for burning unless people don't recommend it.

I also plan on trying the DVD+R first then goto the DVD-R if I have problems. How the the RW perform?


Should I install Movie Studio before I have my DVD drive installed? Does it matter?

Okay, the first place to start is the NEC European support web site ... it seems to be the NEC support site for DVD recorders that is kept best up to date. Go to:
http://www.de.nec.de/softwareoverview2.php/id/557

If you look long enough, you'll see link for the Medialist for 3520A, direct link is:
http://www.de.nec.de/software/1819_Medialist_ND-3520A.pdf

The only downside to this list is that it is not very complete ... exactly which media. To find out exactly which media your drive will support, I suggest getting used to some of the NEC tools out there. There are two specific tools I suggest looking at:
NecDump ver 1.2.3 (latest), and
necflash_wingui ver 1.1.6 (latest).

You can download both of these from the 'Utilities' section of this site:
http://www.micheldeboer.nl/firmware/

The necflash_wingui is a good utility for copying the firmware that is in your drive to a file on your computer. And, it main purpose, is to burn updated firmware into your drive. You can find updated firmware at the above site under the section for 3520A.

The NecDump tool then can read the contents of the firmware file. It has the ability to read all the DVD media codes the firmware supports, and the supported write speeds. The DVD media codes can be somewhat cryptic, so you may find the next website helpful in determining the 'brand' or common name you might purchase that code under.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/155431

There you have it. It may seem like a lot to start, but once you learn how to copy the firmware from your drive and read it with NecDump, it will all start to make more sense.

Enjoy!

>I guess now I will have to experiment with the media. I thought that would be behind me with going to a DVD burner.

I just buy whatever my local shop has in stock, + or -! I've got an old NEC1300, and it and my DVD player have never had any problems. I have a few rewriteables for experimenting with, but my main criteria for the rest are full face printable, price and availability.

Just in case you do have problems with some media, DVDIdentifier is a freeware app that tells you what a DVD realy is, rather than what's on the label.

>Should I install Movie Studio before I have my DVD drive installed? Does it matter?

I don't think it makes any difference.

Ian G.

Have you found that DVD writers just last 2 - 2 1/2 years? I am having problems with my current Sony DVD writer and I am about to give up and get a new one. A techy said that 2 years is about typical for the life.