How to Select a DVD Burner
Introduction
DVD burners have come a long way. Speeds have increased dramatically from where they were just a year ago and prices have dropped to a point where a DVD burner costs about the same as a CD-RW drive. Dual-Layer/Double Layer support has also made it into many of the models, doubling the capacity of traditional DVD media to ~8.5gb. With all this in mind, are you ready to get your own DVD burner right now? Here is some information you need to know before selecting a DVD burner.
Compatibility, Formats, and Speeds, -- What to know which is important? Let us introduce you to the basics of DVD drives.
The fastest or the most economical DVD drive? These are the specifications you'll use to compare the various DVD burners.
Are you ready to buy right now? Here is a list of details to look for at the store to help you get the best drive for your money.
Orientation
DVD writers are becoming more and more common for households-and no wonder: The average price of a drive keeps dropping. Two competing, incompatible formats—DVD+R and DVD-R (and their corresponding rewritable formats DVD+RW and DVD-RW)--are trying to become the default DVD format. Both formats burn data and video DVDs that can be read by many (but not all) DVD-ROM drives and television set-top DVD players. A third format, DVD-RAM, lags behind these two, hindered by its incompatibility with majority DVD-ROM drives and all set-top DVD players.
Easing the quandary of which format drive to buy is the current influx of drives that cross format boundaries. Most vendors offer a drive that supports both DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW. The fastest write-once speed available is 16X.
Key Features
Write-once DVD: Your recorder choices will support one of two competing media types: DVD-R (supported by DVD-RAM and DVD-R drives as well as all DVD-RW drives) and DVD+R (supported by the latest generations of DVD+RW drives, but not first-generation drives). Because write-once DVD+R and DVD-R media have a highly reflective backing, they offer the best compatibility with set-top DVD players (but some players are more sensitive to a disc's reflectivity than others).
Accordingly, write-once media is usually the best choice for burning video DVDs you want to view on your living room player. Both DVD-R and DVD+R Media are similar in pricing now; it is up to you to choose either format:
Rewritable DVD: DVD-RAM drives, which store 2.6GB to 9.4GB in bare discs or cartridges, are considered data backup devices, as they generally can't make DVD-Video discs. Some manufacturers now make drives that can read and write all three recordable DVD formats—DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM.
Rewritable DVDs are rated on a scale nine times faster than CD drives, so 1X DVD equals 1.35MBps (1,350KBps). However, they retain the speed rating convention of write DVD±R/rewrite DVD±RW/read, as in 16X/4X/16X. A drive that can also write dual-layer DVDs or DVD-RAM will have speed ratings for burning those as well, such as 2.4X and 3X, respectively
- view our selection of DVD-RW blank media
- view our selection of DVD+RW blank media
- view our selection of DVD-RAM blank media
Internal vs. external. Most internal DVD drives connect to the same EIDE (Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics) interface as your PC's hard drive, although they technically use an interface variation called ATAPI (Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface). SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) optical drives are rare at this writing, but are expected to become commonplace. Try to connect an EIDE optical drive to a different data cable than the one attached to your hard drive(s).
If you want to buy an external CD/DVD drive, first check to see if your PC has FireWire 400, FireWire 800, Hi-Speed USB 2.0, or external SATA ports. Most external optical drives require one of these interfaces to reach maximum speed, although a USB 2.0 CD drive will work on a USB 1.1 port, it will transfer as a much slower speed. We don't recommend trying to burn DVDs through a USB 1.1 port.
You can add a FireWire, USB 2.0, or SATA card to most PCs to support an external CD/DVD for $45 or less. Some drives even come with adapter cards.
CD-RW recording: Most rewritable DVD drives can burn CD-R and CD-RW discs (but older DVD-RAM and DVD-R drives cannot). But DVD drives burn CD-Rs relatively slowly. Compared with the typical CD-RW drive's 52X write speed for CD-Rs, DVD writers are positively lethargic.
Software bundle: All drives include video DVD-authoring software, such as Sonic's My DVD, to create menus and encode analog video to MPEG2 so you can play the resulting video DVD on a standard DVD set-top player. In addition, all drives can create data DVDs with their mastering and packet-writing software (such as RecordNow Max, which enables dragging and dropping data to a rewritable disc). Some vendors, such as HP and Sony, include backup or video-editing software in their hardware bundles.
The Specs Explained
Formats, formats, and more formats: What does all these formats mean and how you distinguish between them are the primary questions facing prospective buyers of a DVD burner. Just as CD-RW drives use write-once and rewritable media, DVD burners can be broken down the same way. DVD-R and DVD+R are the two write-once variants; DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM are three rewritable variants you might encounter. Making things more complicated we now have Dual Layer / Double Layer DL Media.
Rewritable DVD drives have speed ratings, just as their read-only DVD-ROM cousins do. The differences are no longer as minor as they once were: DVD-RW speeds range from 1X to 4X; DVD+RW from 2.4X to 4X; DVD-R speeds are 1X to 16X; and DVD+R is 4X and 16X.
| Feature | Low End | Recommended |
| Write-once DVD speeds | 4X or 8X DVD-R | 8X DVD+R or 16X DVD-R, 16X DVD+R |
An important consideration. Write-once DVD--which encompasses both DVD-R and DVD+R--tends to be the most compatible DVD format, especially when sharing discs with living room DVD players. Speed is becoming a bigger issue now that there are both DVD-R and DVD+R drives available that support writing at 16X. |
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| Rewritable DVD speeds | 2X DVD-RAM, 4X DVD-RW, 4X DVD+RW | 2X DVD-RAM, 12X DVD-RW, 12X DVD+RW |
| An important consideration. The higher capacity of DVD-RAM--which supports up to 9.4GB dual-side cartridge discs--makes this format good for data, but DVD-RAM is incompatible with most DVD drives. DVD-RW and DVD+RW are about equally compatible with most DVD drives and DVD players. | ||
| Interface | IDE | IDE, Serial ATA, FireWire (IEEE 1394), or USB 2.0 |
| Somewhat important. Internal drives--as with other storage devices--tend to be cheaper than external ones. If you're buying an external drive, pick an external drive interface that matches what's installed on your system, or the bus type you plan to install--or pick a drive that supports both FireWire and USB 2.0. | ||
| Software | Includes basic disc-mastering and packet-writing software | Includes basic software bundle plus additional software for such tasks as backup or video editing |
| Somewhat important. If you know how you plan to use your drive, you may get a better deal if the drive includes the software you'll need. | ||
DVD±RW DRIVE Shopping Tips
Are you ready to buy a DVD ROM drive? Here are some recommendations for buying a drive that will suit the needs of most average users.
Speed . Most DVD-R drives write at 8X, although some older models, or portable models, may only support 4X. Drives that write to write-once DVD-R and/or DVD+R media at 16X have a distinct advantage over the DVD burners released last year. Of the rewritable formats, DVD+RW's maximum write speed is the same as that of DVD-RW: 8X.
Compatibility . Between the write-once formats, DVD-R and DVD+R are both highly compatible with existing DVD players and DVD-ROM drives. Some older players might have better luck with DVD-R than DVD+R, simply because DVD-R has been around longer. Rewritable media tends to be less compatible, so it may be more difficult to use rewritable media with some DVD players and DVD-ROM drives. One advantage DVD+R format has, is the ability to be able to change its Booktype or Bitsetting to DVD-Rom; increasing compatibility. Just search “Booktype” or “Bitsetting” in Google for more information.
Formatting time when choosing recording standard . All rewritable optical discs must be formatted prior to use--a potentially lengthy process. But DVD+RW drives format on the fly (thanks to the formatting feature being built into their internal firmware), so formatting adds little time to the writing process. In contrast, a DVD-RW drive requires packet-writing software to format the disc prior to burning; depending upon the software and the version being used, the formatting process can take as long as an hour (since some software packages only support formatting the entire disc). Newer software packages support formatting DVD-RW media on the fly.
For desktop PCs, get an internal drive with an IDE interface . Since a rewritable DVD drive can read DVD-ROMs and CDs, you can replace your existing CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive without sacrificing functionality. If your motherboard supports it, Serial ATA will help you maximize the drive's burning speed, but only newer machines are likely to have this high-speed internal connection.
For portable drives, or desktop PCs with few internal connections, consider the interface . For external drives, you'll see about the same speed from a FireWire drive as you would from a USB 2.0 drive. There's little cost difference between the two, and for a few more dollars, you can often buy a drive that has the flexibility of both interfaces. To use a FireWire or USB 2.0 drive, you may need to buy a $40 USB 2.0 or FireWire card for your PC, but on some desktops, that can make it easier for a rewritable DVD drive to coexist with multiple hard drives and/or other optical drives.
Make sure that the bundled recording software fits your needs . All manufacturers provide software with drives sold at retail; the software typically covers DVD and CD mastering (including audio CDs), DVD video authoring, and the ability to drag and drop data. However, some vendors add software for backup tasks and video editing.
