Phade wrote:Hey All,
In the words of Popeye the Sailor, “I’ve stands all I can stands and I can’t stands no more.”
I need a DVD writer! I want to use the drive for long-term data storage of full project files and also authoring DVDs to play in regular stand-alone DVD players. I’ve been eyeing the Sony DRU-500AX since it seems to have the most compatibility. Good idea? Suck idea? Something else better out there now? coming out next month? What is good media to get/avoid? What are some of the current good DVD authoring software?
Help and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!! ^_^
Phade.
Ooops, I should've answered the entire post.
Well for long-term data storage, you'll be fine. I have my entire AMV/music/video/PPJs and source backed up on....6 DVDs as opposed to the literally 50+ CDs. It's very convenient.
As for authoring DVDs, I believe the + seems to have more compatibility (on more recent players), but it doesn't matter since you can write to either format. The product also comes with a program that helps you author the DVD. It has stuff like menu creation (yeah you can make some cool stuff) and a "wizard."
As for "normal" data discs, I'd suggest Nero. I use the most recent Nero for all my CD and DVD needs. It is fairly easy to use and well..it supports both DVD-/+R and CD-R writing. As I said above, for DVD authoring, the package itself comes with that software.
Media? Hmm...I guess I'm sort of a 'tard on this since I'm fairly exclusive with my media. I have had
no problems with Verbatim and Sony products. They have updated the speeds (via a firmware upgrade), so I'm unsure if there are Sony 4x compatible media yet, but my 2.4 (is that number right?) burnt stuff works fine (all 4.6 gigs of it

). I don't think media is that big of an issue though since well...DVDs/CDs are fairly easy to produce. Also, as things become more standardized, all media will become fairly similar (like with CD-Rs).
Hope this helps.