dvd writer

[sxysweetnsassy1]

Hi! I am thinking about getting a dvd writer, mainly b.c. I'd like to download movies off the net and burn 'em, but I am wondering if such a purchase will be worthwhile with free file-sharing only being free for so long. (An unfounded concern maybe since it seems someone out there always finds a way around things.) I do not anticipate being in the market to buy a new computer for awhile though the the one I have is three years old all ready. Right now, I am looking at the HP 300x writer. Is that a good one? Thanks for thoughts/advice in advance.

-P.

[mrlipring]

i would ONLY consider buying a pioneer, or a cendyne, for they are rebadged pioneers.

as for prices, you're looking at £110 for a 2x drive (writes a dvd in 30 minutes) or £150 for a 4x.

there's loads of reasons, but take a look as the discussion they had over at slashdot.

edit: as for filesharing only being free for so long, i wouldn't worry about that. there's always gonna be new ways of getting files, and there's always been piracy. nobody can stop it, it is literally impossible.

[Theinfamousone]

I got a Sony DRU-500a right when they came out about 6 months ago. I don't know how rare they are now, but at the time it was hard to get your hands on one. If I didn't have unlimited funds though, I'd get a Pioneer A05, or for half the price but half the speed, the A04. As for it being worth it, I've only burned one movie to DVD in my life. It's frankly more headache than it's worth to sit there for hours on end using up all of your CPU messing around with encoding to MPEG2, authoring, burning, IFOs, huge disk space usage, yada yada. I am just using it when my hard drives fill up with TV shows mostly. I am starting to put my home videos onto DVD now since a lot of them are losing magnetic integrity. To do that is a whole nother can of worms because you have to mess around with video capture cards and stuff.

Check this out

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2732401748&category=27178&rd=1

These days, DVD burners are a dime a dozen, you'd have to be stupid not to get one.

[notbob]

brand is unimportant

they all use the same standards

what matters is FORMAT

DVD-RAM is useless--media is expensive, and it is going the way of the betamax

DVD+-R/RW is the best (most versatile)

DVD-R/RW has the cheapest media

DVD+R/RW has slightly more expensive media

[sxysweetnsassy1]

<<It's frankly more headache than it's worth to sit there for hours on end using up all of your CPU messing around with encoding to MPEG2, authoring, burning, IFOs, huge disk space usage, yada yada. >>

So, even with a faster download connection like DSL or cable, it would still be too much trouble, i.e. time suck?

-P.

[Theinfamousone]

Originally posted by sxysweetnsassy1
<<It's frankly more headache than it's worth to sit there for hours on end using up all of your CPU messing around with encoding to MPEG2, authoring, burning, IFOs, huge disk space usage, yada yada. >>

So, even with a faster download connection like DSL or cable, it would still be too much trouble, i.e. time suck?

-P.

Let's put it this way. Even if you have the uncompressed DVD in hand, with the time you'll spend trying to rip DVDs which are DVD-9 (almost all are nowadays), which means you have to completely reencode them to fit on a DVD-5, which means you have to go to IFOedit, you have to rip the subtitles, you have to insert all that jazz, you have to reauthor, you have get all the audio tracks, it takes many many hours of babysitting your computer to get a DVD that isn't the same quality, probably only plays on half the DVD players out there, because, like Toshiba for example, some manufacturers don't like DVD-R, or DVD+R, they don't make them work very well. I've got Princo discs, which are cheap, but I've only gotten about half of them to actually work on my DVD player. Urrrrrggg. With the time you'll spend doing that, you could find a second job and buy all the DVDs you want. Not to mention the money you'll save from not buying the DVD burner and the media. Downloading the movie itself (talking REALLY low quality now) is absolutely the least of your worries.

[DigitalJunkie]

For file sharing, it is still too early to buy a DVD writer. Stick with your CD writer instead!!!

[sxysweetnsassy1]

WOW! Thanks for all the info. Goes to show just how clueless I am!

-P.

[Cleric]

what if I want to make a copy of a DVD so I can watch it on the road so the little lady can keep the original at home.

Would it still be better to just use cd-r?

[PiRaNeTuS]

Originally posted by notbob
brand is unimportant

they all use the same standards

what matters is FORMAT

DVD-RAM is useless--media is expensive, and it is going the way of the betamax

DVD+-R/RW is the best (most versatile)

DVD-R/RW has the cheapest media

DVD+R/RW has slightly more expensive media


True, true.....but, there are readers out now that support all the dvd media...here (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDname=&Submit=Search&cdr=1&cdrw=1&dvdr=1&dvdrw=1&dvdplusr=1&dvdplusrw=1&vcd=1&svcd=1&Search=Search)

and there are burners as well (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104702,00.asp)

[seraphielx]

dvd x copy is the way to go :) it will most of the time go on one dvd...... look it up on google before they outlaw it

[isus]

if you just wanna burn downloaded movies onto a dvd, its not worth it.

so many people just rip the movie from dvd into svcd quality... those are all the 700mb movies.

if you have a camcorder, with much pain and frustration, you could brun your own home movies to dvd, with good quality.

or you could buy a mac and use imovie ;)

anywho, i doubt it's worth buying a dvd-recorder for $200 when all the movies on p2p are usually very shitty quality... buy a fast as hell cd-burner for $50.

[PowerMan57two]

i'm sure someone already said this, but i didn't want to read through all the posts.

don't get a dvd burner, just get a dvd rom a 16x or something, and then get a program like dvdxcopy to rip the movie to your hard drive, and then burn the movie onto two cd-rs' thiswill save you money from buying a burner, and the dvd-rws which are spendy. i would never buy a dvd burner now that i know i can just rip the movies

[DainBramaged]

I like to think I'm pretty up-to-date, but one thing confuses me.

I know about all the standards, all the media, all the formats. So just tell me this: is it possible to, say, borrow a DVD from a friend and directly copy (not rip) and burn it, using some sort of program? Or would you absolutely have to rip it, mess with it, and then burn it?

[PowerMan57two]

Originally posted by DainBramaged
I like to think I'm pretty up-to-date, but one thing confuses me.

I know about all the standards, all the media, all the formats. So just tell me this: is it possible to, say, borrow a DVD from a friend and directly copy (not rip) and burn it, using some sort of program? Or would you absolutely have to rip it, mess with it, and then burn it?

no you can make an exact copy of the movie, but you need to have a dvd burner, and the dvd-rw disks. the ripping doesn't do all the menus and stuff, it does specifically just the movie in general

[CCSDUDE]

Just use the DVDRW drive to back up all that you download...4.7gb is loads better then 700mb...lol

And you can fit stuff on DVD's in neat logical way...rather then working around that shitty 700mb limit like most do.

Skip out on making DVD's...it's a hassle an not really worth it..just burn content you download in it's original format and leave it at that.

Besides...KiSS players will probably support DVDRW discs down the line..so any content you burn in plain old UDF will play the divx 4.x content without problems in a KiSS brand player...

TIO's DVDRW drive is actually pretty friggin' nice...lol I installed one awhile back for someone and it worked great. Really quiet too...

[Cleric]

Good suggestions.

Thanks everyone

[DigitalJunkie]

Most DVDs come with over 5 Giga, but most DVD Blanks Disks are still just 4.7 Giga. But, there are programs that will help you get rid of extras like audio streams for different languages that you don't need.

You should check out programs like DVD Shrink, DVD Maestro, etc.!

[crackerjacker]

hmm i like dvds :)
dvds are superb all you got to do is take the dvd
out of the box *case* insert it in your puter or dvd player and
begin to enjoy the movie.
----
side note heres something i came across of interest with regard to
dvds and technology.
nice and intersting :)
http://www.national.com/appinfo/dvd/dvdonachip.html

[Theinfamousone]

Back in the day, I downloaded all the episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation. Ok, I burned them all on CD in the order I got them, I didn't rename them, I wasted a lot of space because they were random sizes, so I could only hold like 2-4 episodes on each CD. I had to use a whole 50 pack of CDs practically. Then I picked up my DVD burner, I loaded them all back on to my HD, renamed them all to say "Star Trke TNG - XxXX - (name of episode) with the first X being season, and the XX being episode number, I then burned them all in order onto 4 (60 cent) DVDs, slapped some nice labels on them and put them in cases. It is worlds better than what I had before. I was so proud of myself that I have done that for thousands of TV shows now, I have my own little archive that I can have for the rest of my life. They are all in the original divx or mpeg format so I can watch them on my comp which has a bigger and more high def monitor and better speakers than my TV. They make divx DVD players now, so if I really wanted, I could get one and play them on my TV. That's the way to do it.

[IsHaRe2000FilezSueMe]

Im getting 1 soon, but i suggest you stay with SVCDS. The discs are cheaper, and you can burn with any regular cdr burner.

[matt merch]

Originally posted by IsHaRe2000FilezSueMe
Im getting 1 soon, but i suggest you stay with SVCDS. The discs are cheaper, and you can burn with any regular cdr burner.

i think for movies svcds seem pretty good and dvd writes seem to still be evolving as there is a lot of stuff to d/l in the svcd format and a hell of a lot of standalone players support the format i guess i dont want to end up with a betamax

[IsHaRe2000FilezSueMe]

True true. Im going to wait and see what happens with the technology of the dvd burner, and that of P@P File sharing. Also if the movies a DVD Rip then your all set with svcds.

[jonnymnemonic]

Someone said: "Let's put it this way. Even if you have the uncompressed DVD in hand, with the time you'll spend trying to rip DVDs which are DVD-9 (almost all are nowadays), which means you have to completely reencode them to fit on a DVD-5, which means you have to go to IFOedit, you have to rip the subtitles, you have to insert all that jazz, you have to reauthor", etc, etc.

Actually, that's not true. DVD X Copy Xpress 3.0+ will copy an entire DVD9 onto a DVDR and, using the absolute slowest 1x drive in the world, doing this takes me less than 90 minutes start to finish. And the quality of the resulting DVD is superb, it has ALL the subtitles, extras, audio options, and so on as the original DVD. In all respects it works exactly like the original, except that if your DVD player doesn't play DVDRs then I guess it'd suck. But I have two DVD players, both El Cheapo models, and my DVDRs work fine in both, so I'd be surprised if that is a big issue anymore.

This has made my NetFlix subscription oh so very VERY wonderful. ;)

[jonnymnemonic]

Yes, you can do it, get DVD X Copy Xpress 3.0+. Then you can borrow a DVD from a friend (or rent one), insert original, it copies files to HD, then prompts you to insert a blank DVD. Do that and start it again, and a while later out pops a DVD that works EXACTLY like the original. It's not just the movie, or one audio stream, it has ALL the audio streams, languages, menu options, extra features, etc, etc as the original.

There are inferior copying programs out there, that just copy the movie, or only up to 4.7 gigs of the original, or some other limitations like that. But so far as I have found, only DVD X Copy Xpress 3.0+ will let you copy ANY DVD, in its entirety and with all the original options, onto one blank DVD. It's spectacularly awesome, really. Two clicks of the mouse to copy a DVD perfectly, hard to beat that.

[CCSDUDE]

IF, and that's a BIG if....this program actually does anything of value it would need to re-encode all the VOB streams along with playing with each AC3 stream....and if I recall right many DVD players even in the cheap ass range only support 192kbs AC3/384kbs AC3...that's it. Some of the better flash rom driven ones will play some really oddball stuff...but it's a long shot most of the time.

There is NO possible way to fit a full dual layer DVD onto a standard 4.7gig disc in it's original format. That's a fact....

And you sound like a broken record for this software...bet it's shareware/trialware/demoware or even worse...no try before you buy! I'll stick to my free DVD tools...thank ya very much.

[jonnymnemonic]

I got it off KaZaA, so it was, well, free. I think it may be trialware though, if you don't get a cracked copy, but I wouldn't really know.

As for compressing the VOBs, that appears to be exactly what it does, as I viewed the VOBs on the original DVD and those it had created on the HD and compared., It appears to compress data as little as it must to be able to fit the entire DVD9 onto a DVDR. So, a packed 9-gig DVD9 would be compressed 'harder' than one where no compression was needed at all (< 4.7 gigs for the whole DVD), or where only minor compression is needed.

Me and the woman have tried thse copies with different audio settings, all the subtitle options, all the extra features, different audio languages, everything, and we can't tell any difference between the copies and the originals. If there is a difference, it's probably something like the audio difference between a 256k MP3 and an uncompressed .wav. Yes, there is a difference, yes something is lost, but can your average human detect the difference? No.

But whatever, use what you wish. All I can say is, I am super happy with how this is working out for me! NetFlix drops off three DVDs, wham bam, thank you mam, 5 hours later I have all three copied completely, drop the NetFlix ones back into the mail the same day, then watch the copies, get three more from NetFlix two days later (they have a shipping warehouse in my city, so it's very fast turnaround).

If you doubt any of this, by all means check it out yourself. Or not, I really don't care. All that matters to me is that *I* get kickass copies this easily. ;)

[Etnies]

There is NO possible way to fit a full dual layer DVD onto a standard 4.7gig disc in it's original format. That's a fact....

It does put the whole DVD on to one disc, but reencodes, at a lesser quality. There is also the option to copy the film 1:1 but span it across 2 DVD's.

Its a good program but it inserts a screen at the beginning of the copied DVD saying that it was created on DVDXcopy.

Personally i use DVD decrypter to copy the film onto my harddrive, then DVD2one to make the film fit on 1 disc, then nero to burn it.

[jonnymnemonic]

What is the turnaround time for your copying method? (And what speed DVD burner?) I'm not unwilling to try something else, since I don't like that intro screen myself. However, time is important to me, because at 90 mins per movie (on a 1x burner), I can just make the evening mail pickup, which means I get 50 percent more movies per month for my NetFlix subscription fee. So if your way is faster, that would be helpful. If it's slower, I won't even consider it, or I'd miss the evening mail pickup.

What's kind of ironic is that copying the DVDs is so much faster than watching them, which is what allows me to get em on the way back on the same day I receive them. If I had to WATCH the originals, I'd never be able to do that, which would mean less movies per month for the subscription fee. So the more I copy, the more I *can* copy. Lol

[Etnies]

jonnymnemonic

To decrypt the whole movie onto harddrive takes approximately 30 minutes, although some people can do this in about 15 minutes. To do this get DVD decryptor from http://www.dvddecrypter.com/ go to mode and choose file, copy the film onto your hard drive. Once this is done you no longer need the DVD.

Then open up DVD2one, and browse to the DVD directory, you have the option which sound you want to keep, eg AC3 5.1, DTS 5.1 2 channel etc, and you choose which subtitles you want. I just choose AC3 5.1 and 1 set of english subs, DTS uses alot more disc space and I prefer a better picture to better sound. DVD2one also allows the compression of the whole disc including extras, but I just have the movie on its own to keep the quality as high as possible.

this takes about 10 to 15 minutes.

Then using nero it can take from an hour at 1 speed to 15 mins at 4 speed.

so all in all, its going to take about an hour.

[milne]

IF, and that's a BIG if....this program actually does anything of value it would need to re-encode all the VOB streams along with playing with each AC3 stream....and if I recall right many DVD players even in the cheap ass range only support 192kbs AC3/384kbs AC3...that's it. Some of the better flash rom driven ones will play some really oddball stuff...but it's a long shot most of the time.
There is NO possible way to fit a full dual layer DVD onto a standard 4.7gig disc in it's original format. That's a fact....
And you sound like a broken record for this software...bet it's shareware/trialware/demoware or even worse...no try before you buy! I'll stick to my free DVD tools...thank ya very much.

Bad advice. there are now two non shareware programs out there that do an incredible job of copying protected dvds. There are a couple of versions of xcopy, which work very well. now there is the "dvd copyware" which also works very well.
in the case of redxpress "dvd copyware", making a perfect copy of any 4.7 dvd (and there are actually a lot out there) is literally one click...that is rip decode and burn in one click.
if it is a dvd9 and the movie itself is less than 4.7 you can very simply drop out all the traliers, etc. two or three clicks to copy. if the movie is over 4.7 or you want the extras dvd copyware will create the files on two disks making two copies of the menus so they are both fully functional.

In all the above cases you have perfectly identical film in its original format.

just in case you think i am a shill for dvd copyware, i will point out that you can accompish this with freeware that also makes perfect copies, one famous such freeware is dvd shrink. dvd shrink gives more intervention, and takes a bit longer to learn. e.g. it took me 20 minutes to learn. with dvd shrink you have any number of choices. if sources is less then 4.7 your are set, if it is more than 4.7 it gives you a chocie of compressing or dropping certain files, or spanning across two disks. it presents a perfect analysis of sound tracks you may or may not want, (like french, or 6 channel) it lets you see every single vido and pciture file right in the interface, etc. you can even slice off the credits if you like. in each case you can elect not to copy or compress (at any percentage) any file on the entire dvd.

shrink hasn't been sued becase a) it isn't sold it is given away and b) it doesnt include a burner, so you just bunr with nero or any proprietry program given away with your drive.

i certainly do not suggest using this for copyright material, but these programs all do defeat copy protections. perfectly.