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[OM] Re: Buying an external DVD burner (mostly OT)

Subject: [OM] Re: Buying an external DVD burner (mostly OT)
From: Klaus Elmquist Nielsen <klaus.elmquist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:23:57 +0100
Hi Marc,

I have recently purchased an external DVD writer for my tugable. I 
selected a Plextor drive (PX-716UF) because of its 8MB buffer and 
advanced features. Be sure to use the most recent firmware version if 
you select that drive. Newer drives had been announced from Plextor (see 
http://plextor.com) and I believe the current external model is 
PX-716UFL (in case you can live without a cup holder).

Last time I looked the price of DVD-R DL media was much higher than the 
price of two DVD-R media (similar for the DVD+R and DVD+R DL media). 
Hence, for me at least, the double layer media is not there yet. It is a 
nice feature to have in the drive when the price becomes competitive, 
but I stick with the mainstream solution (DVD-R) for now. I use well 
known media brands recommented for my drive: TDK and Verbatim.

My approach for DVD writing has been to select quality media and a 
quality writer. After all there is only that many copies of one's 
offline digital images. As some IT professionals says: One copy is no copy!

Many external DVD writers supports both USB 2.0 and FireWire. I use 
FireWire as my tugable has an idle FireWire slot. And the Linux version 
that I use has better support for FireWire than USB 2.0.

One thing often overlooked by newcomers (like myself) to DVD writing is 
the required disk bandwidth for DVD writing. I generally write at 4x 
which is 5.540 KB/sec. That can be quite a challenge for an older system 
like mine (1 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB disk), especially when there is many 
small files on the disk. Fortunately scanned images are quite large and 
RAW images from my 10D are quite large as well. Due to disk space 
constraints I have to master the DVD media while it is written instead 
of creating the DVD image first. Mastering while writing is also faster 
than making an image first, specialy for single disk systems.

There is an ongoing competition between the DVD-R and DVD+R media types. 
I have chosen DVD-R media bacause it is the classical format. Others may 
choose DVD+R. The DVD-RW and DVD+RW media types are nice to have for 
experiments and for moving files between systems, but for backup and 
archiving DVD-R and DVD+R is the format of choice. Most modern DVD 
writers supports all these media types.

Don't forget CD-R media. They are cheap, can be read almost everywhere 
and is a little cheaper than DVD media.

Hope this helps!

Cheeers,
Klaus

> Subject: [OM] Buying an external DVD burner (mostly OT)
> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 16:48:47 +1100
> From: "Marc Lawrence" <mlawrence@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> As the subject says, I'm planning on buying an
> external DVD burner. The prompting for this is
> actually the apparent, sudden failure of the
> Lite-on CD-burner that came with my HP PC to be
> able to download audio CD's to my PC (for subsequent
> loading to my iPod). The tracks play hop, skip
> and jump, no matter which software I use to do
> so (and you can hear the CD player seemingly
> struggling - stopping/starting - as it tries to
> read them). I'm not sure if this is the CD-burner,
> the drivers, the OS, or what, though I've spent a
> while Googling for solutions.
>
> Anyway, as I say, it's "prompting", as I was
> thinking of getting a DL DVD-burner for the
> purposes of data (read "photos") backup anyway.
>
> Thus, are there any specific recommendations people
> have. From what I have seen a LaCie D2 DL 16x
> gets reasonable raps, and I've priced it around the
> traps, but I'd appreciate second opinions and
> alternatives.
>
> Cheers, and thanks in advance,
> Marc
> Sydney, Oz


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