Official DVDR thread

[videoworx]

yes. 2x-4x dvd-r's/+r's will BURN at that speed on DVD-R drives in computers. Realtime recorders, like the above DMR-E30, and the newer E50, E60, etc will only burn at 1x, so it is pointless buying the faster discs. Also, be aware, 4x dvd-r's can physically damage an older 1x/2x burner - most notably Pioneer-branded burners.

On a PC, the difference is very obvious. 1x dvd's (full 4.5 gigs) takes about 49 minutes, 2x takes about 25 minutes, and 4x takes about 13 minutes.

[Miggy]

Thanks, that makes sense.

The reason I was asking was because I thought I could find the DVD-Rs cheaper on-line, but the only ones I was seeing at my usual place only had the 4Xs, and they were the same price as the regular ones I get at Best Buy.

So, where is the best place to get regular DVDrs from?

Miggy, the Thief

[urbanlegend]

I recently purchased the Panasonic DMR-E50 here in Canada and was wondering if anyone knows of any Canadian based websites that sell DVD-R or DVD-RAM's at a good price. Maybe if anyone knows of a good retailer in the Toronto/Woodbridge area?

Sorry one more question, has anyone tried to use DVD-RW at all to see if it will work regardless of Panasonic saying it wont?

[Kimmo]

Originally posted by urbanlegend
I recently purchased the Panasonic DMR-E50 here in Canada and was wondering if anyone knows of any Canadian based websites that sell DVD-R or DVD-RAM's at a good price.

There's a website in Montreal (can't remember the name but it's the only one) that sells blanks but I don't know why you'd want to do that since there are plenty of places in the GTA to get cheap blanks. Buying off the web in Canada is not cheaper. Get them soon because a $2+ levy will be applied to each disc starting in November!

Grey Tech sells Princo 1x discs, $70 for 50, in Markham. The Pacific Mall at Kennedy&Steeles has about two dozen vendors who sell cheap blanks. There's another good place on Spadina, north of College, can't remember the name, Sonoma or something, they sells lots of different blanks. There's alsoComputerUltra and Razor Computers that sell at good prices.

[urbanlegend]

Thanks for the info Kimmo! I was beginning to think no was going to reply...

The two websites (Razor and ComputerUltra) are pretty expensive. I found a dealer near me, Summit Direct, which sells them at $2 each. I believe they are ART Media. So far they look better than Memorex Those (Memorex) pixelate on other DVD players but work fine the recorder and my new RP82, wierd

Once again, thanks for the info!

UL

[3DMan]

Anybody know anything about this Memorex DVD-RW?
http://www.memorex.com/products/prod...id=496&oid=573
Best Buy has it for $170 after rebate. The main thing I am concerned about is getting driver support. I had a Philips CD-RW and they basically acted like they didn't make it, thus I have a paperweight. Memorex, good or bad?

[videoworx]

you don't need drivers for the burner (assuming you are using Win2k or XP), but if you want to use a specific piece of software, I would check with them (the makers of the sofware) to see if the drive is compatible. BTW, for the same price, you can get a Pioneer 105/a05 4x dvd-r without any rebates involved. That is the most popular (internal) burner in the world. works with all software.

for more info on the memorex, check dvdrhelp.com, and see if anyone else has reviewed it.

[Kimmo]

Is the A05 ± R/RW (for writing) or is it the version that's coming out next?

[videoworx]

the a05 (retail) and 105 (oem) is - R/W only, not +R/W. The 106/a06 comes out in 3 days, and does + and -, but at a price of $295. Considering you can get a pioneer 4x -r burner for $125 less, it's a steal. you don't NEED +R compatibility unless you absolutely need to buy overpriced blank media at Best Buy (which is always out of the - R media).

[3DMan]

I see that shit! Fuck the rebates, fuck them up their stupid asses! This seems to be the cheapest I can find, with shipping $11:
http://www.pcavailable.com/pioneerdvra05u.html

[videoworx]

a far more reliable etailer, esbuy.com, has it for less than $170 with free shipping. Check dealnews.com, there is a price war going on with DVD burners. I bet by x-mas they will $99.

[Hall]

I just found out about this DVD recorder from Philips, the DVDR75 and was thinking of buying it, but I cant find that many reviews of it. I am buying the DVD recorder to tape some of my favorite TV shows, since it seems like you are able to cut out commercials after you tape them, and this looks like the best one for what I need, but I was just wondering if anyone had heard anything bad about it that would discourage you from buying it. Also, I was wondering if you were able to set it to record while you are away from home like you do a VCR. I know that might be a stupid question, but Im new to the Recordable DVD area. THanks so much.

[jdurg]

Just yesterday I picked up the Sony DRU-510A DVD+/-R(W) drive as a birthday present. It is definitely a nice drive to have in order to back up all my personal files such as emulators/games/mp3s onto one or two DVDs instead of nine or ten CDs. The greatest thing, however, has got to be how having a DVD burner allows me to mess around with all of my DVDs and compile discs for special purposes. (Like being able to correct the absurdly low volume levels of the Trey Parker and Matt Stone intros to the South Park episodes). However, the neatest thing I've done has to be with my Bond movies.

I was watching Goldeneye the other day and thought about how the intros/opening titles are some of the coolest parts about Bond movies and how sweet it would be to have a Demo disc of all 20 intros. When I installed my burner yesterday, that was one of the first things I did. I went and spliced together all 20 intros to the Bond movies onto one DVD. It's a pretty sweet little disc to pop-in when I just want to watch the intro/title sequences of certain movies.

[videoworx]

i did something similar when I first got a burner. I created a compilation DVD of every movie studio opening from every era, plus every dolby digital/dts/THX/etc animation sequence I could find...that was a lot of fun, and although I don't play with it often, my friends all love it...

[Alan Smithee]

I'm compiling a DVD of TV commercials for old home-entertainment products, like the SelectaVision Videodisc player (We're watching a GREAT movie! And you're watching- us!), the 1978 Magnavox System 3 (The Best Zenith Ever!) and a 1977 ad for the Sears Tele-Games rebranded Atari 2600 games system (Now you can play all the video games you'd ever want to play!)

[rolisme]

Well I decided to splurge and buy a DVD burner. I was confused about the various different formats and such so I bought a burner which can burn all the formats - DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and of course the most useless DVD-RAM. I bought a LG burner, I know it is not the best or anything, but it was a good price and it was the only one I saw which used all the formats. There were a few which did both the +/- formats, but lacked the DVD-RAM one. I like it though. I haven't tried any video yet, so I don't really know what formats my DVD player is compatiable with. What I like is MAME roms fit on 3 DVDs instead of 16 CD-R's. Major space saver. Anyways, that is all I have to say. Take it easy.

[videoworx]

I haven't tried any video yet, so I don't really know what formats my DVD player is compatiable with.

well, as long as you stick with +R or -R, you'll be fine. Players only have issues with RW discs. Also, Try and stay away from generic media that has silver on the label side...they tend to suffer from an issue where data vanishes after being read by the laser too many times (as well as exposure to sunlight).

[Miggy]

So, I've had the Pani DVD recorder for a while and it is a real neat toy. I've recorded lots of stuff off the satellite, so I can clear out its HD occasionally. The problem I've run into is when I try to play these discs on other DVD players. And these are just plain DVD-R discs I'm talking about (I guess I would since that player doesn't do anything else, unless you count DVD-RAM!).

I first took a disc I recorded at 4 1/2 hour length, that contained 3 Italian Horror movies (Zombie, Gates of Hell, The Beyond). I was going to watch Gates of Hell over at my cousin's house on his $99 Oritron player. Well, about 20 minutes into the movie, it began to skip. A little bit here and there, but then before we knew it, it had skipped through the rest of the movie and we were at the end. I chalked this up to the POS factor in the Oritron player and then watched the rest at home. Turns out the player was doing us a favor.... I skipped the last half of the movie on purpose and saved myself an hour of my life.

Then, I finish making the first compilation DVD of some of my parents' home movies and take it over there. It does the same thing. The player they have is my previous Pani (RP62S), so I know it's a good one. It looks just like the newer recorder model, except thinner.

So, what is going on here? Would I have better luck playing discs in their machine that is only recorded on normal (2 hour) mode? I guess I can still use it to make stuff for myself, but if I can't take something I recorded to someone else then it's almost pointless and I might should have gotten a DVD-Audio or SCD player.

The discs I used were Memorex.

Miggy, the Thief

[videoworx]

i would switch brands...it DOES make a difference. If you read the manual, Panasonic certainly suggest using Panasonic branded DVD-R's, and although you might think it's just a way to make more money, it really is worth it. I Have a Panasonic E60 and use Pioneer (PioData) brand discs, and have never had a problem playing them back on Sony and Panasonic brand dvd players. Some generic players have had issues with discs I've burned on a PC, but that was an authoring issue...

[Miggy]

Thanks, Video!

I'll go get some Panasonic DVD-Rs and try that.

Miggy, the Thief

[jdurg]

I've got a frustrating problem here that I'm hoping somebody will be able to help me out with. Just the other day, I picked up the Family Guy: Season 3 boxed set. That now gives me all three seasons on DVD. Fox, sadly, decided to remove the majority of the commentaries from the episodes and only 2 episodes exist with commentaries on each disc. I would like to go and compile all of the episodes with commentary onto one or two DVDs and have a rudimentary menu. Thus far, I have figured out how to take the two episodes from each disc and separate them into just their video, subtitle, and two audio tracks. (One normal audio track and one commentary track). I then have some software which can take these raw file formats and combine them into their own .vob files and .ifo/.bup files as well. This is where my problem occurs.

Does anybody know of a program which can take the four or five separate .vob files and compile them into one movie? If I could get the proper file format, I could just burn them using Nero. Sadly, every DVD Authoring software I have come across has choked when it sees the .ac3 audio tracks, or will only allow me to use ONE of the audio tracks. So basically, I have to either pick the normal audio track or the commentary track only. I'm not able to choose both of them with any software which I have tried. I have one program which is able to make the proper .ifo and .bup files for ONE video track, but it can't combine multiple .vob files into one DVD. Help!

[1138]

Programs that mux audio and video files are hard to come by. I managed to get a copy of the now defunct Spruce DVD that does it. I'm not sure what the full list of options are.

[videoworx]

Programs that mux audio and video files are hard to come by

well, not really, just expensive. The newcomer is Adobe Encore, and it does a great job, and is much less buggy than Sonic's ReelDVD.

However, SpruceUp, which you mentioned, was one of the easiest DVD authoring apps ever made. Which is why Apple bought them and killed the PC development. It does, however, not encode Dolby Digital audio, which both ReelDVD and Encore DVD do very well. Both are available for around $500 each.

[iron_giant]

Just setup my Samsung HD Over The Air Receiver.

After taking a night to figure out all the ways to set it up (I missed recording Smallville because of not knowing how to set it up correctly the 1st time) I recorded CSI (Broadcast in HD, but the signal going to the Computer from the Samsung was just using the Composite signal - I do not have the ability to record the true HD signal.) onto my Computer.

Then I burned it on a DVD and wow it looked great on my TV. It really did look as good as some other TV shows I have bought.

I used to record TV shows onto my computer off of Comcast Cable, and a show like Monk would take about 1.8 gig with all commercials not record record (about 45 minutes of total show time).

But, when I record CSI (with commercials, 60 minutes of recording) HD Over the Air, the file size was only about 1.6 gig. So, if I was sitting there pausing the recording while commercials came on, the file size would have been around 1.2 or 1.3 gig.

The reason for HD having a smaller file size is that the picture had not garbage/static on the screen. When you are recording onto a computer, garbage/static has to be recorded also, which makes the file larger.

Since the HD is so clean, there is no noise to record, so the file size much smaller. This will help me to record 2 hour shows (without Ads, about 90 minutes) or 4 (maybe 5) 30 shows onto one DVD with no problems.

I am going to return the Samsung 151 to Best Buy for the Samsung 160 (this can receiver both HD and analog signals).

[tomdkat]

Is this DVD burner any good:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...etailComponent

Peace...

[videoworx]

yes, and no. It's portable, which is great if you're on the go, but it does create some limitations, most notably that it only burns dvd's at 2x (burning 4.5 gigs of data will take about 30 minutes at this speed). Some people have told me that it's a little noisy, and can get rather hot (not unlike a laptop, i guess), but these were the only nitpicks. Nero works just fine with the drive using both CD-R and DVD-R formats.
It also is very flakey if you use USB 1.1 (which is the fault of USB, not the device). I would highly recommend using the firewire bus or USB 2.0 connection to burn. Also, be aware is requires an AC adapter - this isn't something you can use on an airplane. BECAUSE of that, I would simply go with a faster Pioneer burner in a generic firewire/USB 2 enclosure. Yes, it's bulkier, but it's cheaper and faster.

anyway, hope that helps...

[tomdkat]

Thanks for the feedback videoworx. I was looking at that unit mainly because of its slim line. I won't be traveling with it or anything. It would be for my home machine. I'm already looking at adding USB 2.0/Firewire ports to my machine at home so my options are basically open.

Any pros/cons with going with an external USB/Firewire device than an internal IDE one?

Peace...

[videoworx]

Any pros/cons with going with an external USB/Firewire device than an internal IDE one?

The cons are always transfer speed and cost. However, the advantage is that you can move the bastard to any machine you want (can you burn dvd's in linux?)