DVD Recorder. What should i look for?

JackKelly

Thinking of getting a DVD burner and looking at komplett there seems to be a big price range. Was wondering what is the difference and what i should look for. Any insight?

jessy

you should be looking for speed + Dual Layer, I have the "Plextor DVD recorder PX-716A" and can verify that it is very fast and well built its also regarded as one of the best but if your on a budget or just don't want to spend that much money on it then the LG got some very good reviews in "Computer Shopper" July 05 edition.

How much you willing to spend?

stevejazzx

avoid aopen like the plauge

someones selling an lg one in com/hardware there pretty good
pioneer ones are believed to be one of the better makes
so are sony lite on make sony ones so lite on are pretty coher also
you can buy a pioneer at a pretty decent price in a computer shop on swift street(not maplins) just down from the side of jervis shopping centre

i have an external iomega super dvd burner(also made by lite-on i believe) and it has never burnt a coaster in 7 months
its also very fast burns a 4halfgig dvd in 12 mins

JackKelly

wow, quick responce. So i should be looking to spend about €60-€70? I would prefare to be able to pick one up so i might try that shop you mentioned.

stevejazzx

yeah after i bought the iomega i stumble into that shop and there was the pioneer one everyone was telling me so much about for 70 quid

if you choose
internal you should have a pretty decent pc

JackKelly

why's that? I should be ok. XP 3200+, 512mb Ram.

Kevin_rc_ie

When I was getting one i was trying to get the most speed and the largest memory cache.

But, i then said to myself, i won't be buying discs that work at these high speeds. or, burning at 16x is more likely to produce errors then burning at 4x. so all i can say is, if you'll only be doing the odd burning, don't bend yourself over backwards to get a faster burner.

stevejazzx

xp 3200 should handle it easily

i have ath 2000 xp and it struggled with an internal dvd player
its a lot different to a cd burner
external usb is much less of a burden on the pc task wise

JackKelly

Yea, im not to worried about how fast it does it. Just want quality. Mainly use it for backing up stuff.
So what exactly can i burn? Im still stuck back in the CD burning days. You can get what,4.7GB onto a DVD right? Can you do front and back? Dual layer?

I might just step down a bit and look at a LG one.

stevejazzx

dual layer discs are are mental exspensive and burn slowly
adn are more prone to errors

yeah the the basic dvd bland discs are 4.7 gig but dvd shrink only ever puts 4.4 gig on there for some reason

Fabritzo

I'm pretty sure the nec 3540 is king of the hill at the moment, it's only out a couple of weeks and has loads of support on forums.

SouperComputer

ive been using a plextor 716A on an 800mhz athlon (192mb RAM windows 2000) for a good while now with no probs.

Burns very reliably and quietly too

sceptre

stevejazzx wrote:

pioneer ones are believed to be one of the better makes

They've long been highly regarded as quality readers but not so much for writers. The newer Pioneer drives have done something to address that situation though.

Chalk

marxcomputers.ie have the nec3520 for 73eu,
you can walk in and buy one as they have a shop in clontarf

have that drive since christmas and 0 problems

JackKelly

Chalk wrote:

marxcomputers.ie have the nec3520 for 73eu,
you can walk in and buy one as they have a shop in clontarf

have that drive since christmas and 0 problems

hmmm.thats a plan.thanks everyone.

Tony H

Yeah go for the nec 3520 , good solid burner , and if you want good media get some fuji 8x r+ off mediawrite they will burn no problem at 16x and are a great quality disc

stevenmu

Pioneer and NEC tend to get the best reviews with not much to pick between them. Komplett do the NEC 3520 nice and cheap so I'd say go for that, I did and I'm well happy with it

Mutant_Fruit

I'd go with NEC, pretty much all the reviews i've read on their burners have been very complimentary. While they didn't always have the fastest speeds on CD-R(W)'s, they always had spot on burn quality for DVD's, which is all that matters when you're burning DVD's.

JackKelly

sorry to drag this back up, but loking at komplett the 3520 has disappeared since yesterday, probably out of stock, so how decent is the 3540? Any difference.

Mutant_Fruit

Its 20 better :P There shouldn't be any difference between the 3520 and 3540. I think its just CDR burning speed that changed (i'm to lazy to check).

dave oc

get the nec. got the previous nec from komplett at crimbo, and zero problems since. great burner and has all the lastest features.

peterk19

Deffo recomend NEC drives ive had two both great if i ever got a coaster it was my own fault trying to use the pc while i was burning at a high speed and that will happen with any writer
Pete

Tony H

TimAy wrote:

sorry to drag this back up, but loking at komplett the 3520 has disappeared since yesterday, probably out of stock, so how decent is the 3540? Any difference.

if anything the 3540 is supposed to be a better burner than the 3520 , if you want more info check out the nec forum at http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86

JackKelly

Im on the verge of ordering it. One more thing. My board has two IDE slots. I have two HD's at the moment, and 2 Disk drives. How exactly would i hook up this new burner. Will i have to sacrifice a drive?

peterk19

Yea remove a drive might as well throw out the cdrw as the dvd burner can do that anyway
Pete

JackKelly

Fair enough. If i must! It's served me well.

Chalk

you dont need to remove a drive,

get an ide cable with 3 slots on it, most have 3 anyway...

Mutant_Fruit

He already has 2 HD's and two optical drives. He won't be able to stick in another drive unless he buys a controller card OR removes an old optical drive.

Chalk

ahh didnt read that bit...

Makaveli

Old post, but didn't think a new thread was needed.
Going to buy a dvd recorder, my dvd drive has almost packed in at this stage and my cd writer refuses to burn faster than 8x anymore.

Couple of questions.
Looking on Komplett the NECs look the best.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=305762&cks=PRL
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309415&cks=PRL

The 3520A and the 3540A. The 40 is cheaper than the 20 for some reason. Anybody have any idea why? From what I can see it's the better drive.

Product Description NEC ND 3540A - DVD±RW (±R DL) drive - IDE
Read Speed 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD)
Write Speed 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 6x (DVD-R DL) / 8x (DVD+R DL)
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 32x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW)
Buffer Size 2 MB

Product Description NEC ND 3520A - DVD±RW (±R DL) drive - IDE
Read Speed 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD)
Write Speed 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL)
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW)
Buffer Size 2 MB

Is the 3520A a more reliable drive or something?

One more question, do dvd recorders have region encoding on them or are they region free?

jor el

Get the 3540, it's the same as the 20 excpet a little faster on certain discs. I'd say the price difference could be because they only have a few 3520s left and the 3540 has plenty of stock available.

They'll both be region 2 drives, but you can get an region free firmware mod on rpc1.org