RE: [Dvdrtools-users] Re: Newbie question

[Scott Prive]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryan J. Smith [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 1:55 PM
> To: Pratul Agarwal
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Dvdrtools-users] Re: Newbie question
> 
> 
> 
> Quoting Pratul Agarwal <address@hidden>:
> > Thanks for the very informative e-mail! 
> > I guess what I am looking from a DVD writer includes:
> > 1. Linux support is a must 
> >   (I got rid of windoze from my work/home PCs)
> 
> Right now, for recording (write-once), this is pretty much 
> limited to the
> Pioneer DVR series of drives with DVDRTools.
> 
> > 2. Media should be cheap
> 
> 1x DVD-R(G) media is under $1/each nowdays.  Hopefully the 2x 
> and 4x media will
> come down in price in the near future.
> 
> > - reusable media is desired
> 
> That's where it gets tricky.
> 
> You see, rewritable magneto optical (MO) technology isn't 
> very reliable.  It's
> error rate is far worse than write once dyed optical media.  
> You can even get
> errors when writing the very first time!  Outside of DVD-RAM 
> (and its CD-PD
> predecessor, or earlier, proprietary implementations), I 
> don't trust rewritables
> myself.

I'd second all this. If you want to temporarily archive non-critical data, I 
use DVD-RW to conserve a disc. But when I have enough data, I burn a straight 
DVD-R.

> 
> Now Gen3 DVD-RAM drives have 1x DVD-R(G) record capability, 
> but it just isn't
> supported by DVDRTools.  I'm getting one in tomorrow, so I'll 
> see if ProDVD works.

Pratul: If you were wondering, ProDVD is a commercial set of DVD recording 
tools that writes to DVD. You can Google for it using "prodvd linux" keywords.


I get my DVD-R media dirt cheap, from newegg.com or supermediastore.com. I've 
heard some people online complain about "coasters" from the cheap DVDPro brand, 
but I've burned a lot without problems. I suspect the complaints were from 
using these discs on older DVD Video players (which don't support DVD-R 
anyways). 

If you have video applications, DVD-R is the best, and it is important not to 
try the "cheapest" brand first: no recordable will exactly match a manufactured 
DVD in terms of reflectivity, etc... it's up to the player to support a range 
of tolerances, and the media/brand plays a big part here. I have a 3 year old 
Philips Video player that only likes the $1.20 Optidisk brand. The brand new 
Samsung DVD I have plays *everything*.