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Should I get a DVD Drive AND an DVD Burner?
racketboy - Dec 13, 2003
  racketboy Dec 13, 2003
Well my CD Burner seems to have died.

To replace it I'm planning on getting a DVD burner since they are getting to be reasonably priced.

However I'm wondering if I should still get a separate DVD drive to use for CD and DVD ripping to save on wear and tear on the DVD burner.

Does that sound like a good idea? If I go that route, shoud I just get a cheapo one or spring for a nicer one?

 MasterAkumaMatata Dec 13, 2003
Sounds like a good idea. Go for it. Get a nice one that supports multi formats. IMO, both DVD drives and burners are already reasonably priced.

 lethal_illuminati Dec 13, 2003
it's always good to have dual cd roms with one of them being a dvd r/cdr burner..it's the way to go and dont be cheap on yourself, treat yourself. I mean, u the one that's gonna use it, why not treat urself to somethin nice.

 it290 Dec 14, 2003
Definitely worth it for direct copy. It'll save you lots of time in the long run, and DVD-ROMs aren't too expensive.

EDIT: Although for ripping purposes I would still use the burner as it seems they tend to be slightly better at that (for audio CD's anyway, I dunno about DVD's).

 racketboy Dec 14, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by it290@Dec 14, 2003 @ 08:16 AM



 Definitely worth it for direct copy. It'll save you lots of time in the long run, and DVD-ROMs aren't too expensive.



EDIT: Although for ripping purposes I would still use the burner as it seems they tend to be slightly better at that (for audio CD's anyway, I dunno about DVD's).


Well I think ripping audio CDs is partially what killed my burner.

It struggled with scratched CDs and made lots of sounds when trying to correct stratches.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Dec 14, 2003
ripping a saturn game is what my dvd-rom was doing at the end of it's life... alas... my original of powerslave is now screwed up because of that.

 ExCyber Dec 14, 2003
I'd say go for it. Readers tend to have better performance (apart from CDDA ripping, where burners are almost always better), and burners have more complex and sensitive mechanisms so it's better to minimize wear on them.

 racketboy Dec 15, 2003
what makes burners better at audio ripping?

I never understood that?

 ExCyber Dec 15, 2003
From what I understand (and I'm not 100% on this), there's not enough channel information in a CDDA track to be 100% sure you've started/stopped on an exact sector address, so extra precision/validation is needed to reliably rip an audio track with frame accuracy, particularly when read errors occur.

edit: also IIRC a lot of drives don't have very good error detection/correction when just doing raw reading of audio sectors, i.e. they might just return bad data without informing the host

 racketboy Dec 15, 2003
Here's the one I'm looking at...

I noticed it doesn't list supporting DVD+R/DVD+RW

Is this much of an issue?

What do you think? I've read good reviews.

 mal Dec 15, 2003
I think that the only real issue would be that you can't just grab any DVD media and have it work. *shrug*

As long as you make sure you get the right type it should do just fine.

 racketboy Dec 15, 2003
most places I shopped don't advertise the formats supported.

It's hard to find a black drive that is a decent brand.

The only other black ones Newegg had were a no-names, LiteOn and a Sony (which is aparently a rebranded LiteOn). Samsung was the only one whose reviews sounded all good.

 mal Dec 15, 2003
Nah, they've got the Pioneer 106 in black... on Newegg.

When I finally get a DVD writer that's what I'm getting. :thumbs-up:

 Scared0o0Rabbit Dec 15, 2003
I can testify that the 106 is nice, I have one. My only complaint is that nero doesn't want to burn to it at a speed greater than 1x. It also does all 4 formats, so the +/- thing isn't an issue. I think - is more commonly used, but + has more features or something. I've only ever burned -r's.

 racketboy Dec 15, 2003
what about readers?

that's what I'm getting right now

 racketboy Dec 16, 2003
I just went ahead and ordered the Samsung.

I'll probably get either a Pioneer or NEC burner in January or February depending on how things go.