What's the BEST DVD writer available ??

[FredBear]

Without regard to cost, what's the best dvd writer on the market today
?? ?? ?? Looking for the best compatibilty/features/overall quality.
Also, is there anything significantly better just over the horizon ?? ??
?? Wanting to buy a good unit and hopefully one that won't be obsolete
almost immediately.

thanx for any input .. .. ..

--
If you can read this .. thank a teacher ..
If you are reading it in English .. thank a soldier too !!

<<<__ Bob __>>>

[James Perrett]

"<<<___ Bob ___>>>" wrote: Without regard to cost, what's the best dvd writer on the market today ?? ?? ?? Looking for the best compatibilty/features/overall quality. Also, is there anything significantly better just over the horizon ?? ?? ?? Wanting to buy a good unit and hopefully one that won't be obsolete almost immediately.

12 and 16X drives aren't too far away - they're waiting for the media
manufacturers to catch up. Beyond that there will be dual layer drives
giving you almost twice the capacity on one disc which will be readable
on any DVD drive or player - I believe these are expected to appear
before the end of the year. Beyond that you are looking at Blu-ray discs
which won't be compatible with existing drives.

It is really up to you to decide when you want to jump on to the
bandwagon - whatever you choose will be outdated in a few years.

I'd be happy with a decent dual format drive - I've been using a Plextor
PX708 for a while which seems fine.

Cheers.

James.

[David Chien]

>>Without regard to cost, what's the best dvd writer on the market today?? ?? ?? Looking for the best compatibilty/features/overall quality.

Here, I'd say the Pioneer A05/A06 series -- generally lowest PI/PO
error rates vs. other, faster drives on DVD burns, which equals lower
problems overall.

Also, the Pioneer A05 tested by dv.com and emedia magazine showed the
greatest player compatiblity vs. all other drives they tested.

Basically, you can pretty much burn anything on a Pioneer A05/A06 and
get something that'll play; other drives, well, who knows?

See www.cdrinfo.com and http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/subindex.htm
for lots of drive reviews showing the PI/PO error rate scans from burned
discs. High PI/PO error rates = worse burns = higher chance of problems
during playback and possible data corruption.

The latest 8x series of burners have all been 'rushed' to market, and
as such, the PI/PO error rates peak pretty high (well above 100
sometimes), which only means the burns are not as good as the 4x burners
(Pioneers do <50 easily). See charts to see what I mean. Also, some
burners can burn across a wide range of media successfully; whereas some
can only burn a limited subset -- you'd want a burner that'll burn
across a wider range of media, otherwise, you're stuck hunting for just
that brand all the time.

Pioneer A05/A06 + RPC1.org special firmware is the best! See their
DVD burner forums.

Also, is there anything significantly better just over the horizon ?? ???? Wanting to buy a good unit and hopefully one that won't be obsoletealmost immediately.

16x this year, faster later. 8x is only ~5 minutes faster at ~10
minutes vs. 4x drives at 15x, and 16x will only be a few minutes faster
(not by 2x since the burns are usually ramped in speed, increasing to
16x, but not at 16x all the time).

BIGGEST problem?!?

No cheap media or 16x media at all! Same problem with 8x burners --
hard to find cheap, reliable media all because they've pushed 8x burners
out on the market way too fast and well before they've stabilized and
optimized the entire burner-to-disc system.

Also, upcoming are dual-layer DVDs with 9GB, and possibly more.

All of this means?? Buy a 4x Pioneer A05/A06 today or a 8x anything
and lookup the proper media to use the PI/PO charts dirt-cheap for <$80
anywhere, then wait until year-end to see if they've got the 16x
dual-layer burners yet (and media, too) before upgrading.

Given how even a dirt-cheap 4x is going for <$40 today, no point
waiting for the 16x dual-layers later this year....

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