Hard Drives

Hard Drives

How to buy a DVD drive.

The two new optical drive formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD, are being backed by Enterprise titans, Sony and Microsoft respectively. One may confidently expect that neither will wholly prevail, and that therefore one day soon drive makers will come up with drives that are compatible with both. There will always be some people who want to be early adopters. They tend to be technologically savvy, and probably do not need to read our simple how-to buy tips.

What are the rest of us to do?

Regular DVD drives remain an inexpensive option. They are being continually improved, and some new ones can write DVD disks as quickly as 20X – which is faster than the mass marketed media (disks) can receive. There are two kinds of disks, write once (R) and rewritable (RW). Use the write once for videos or albums you are collecting, and the rewritable for incremental data backups.

There are also two kinds of disks, single (SL) and dual layer (DL). Each single-layer disk can store up to 4.7GB, and each double-layer or dual-layer disk can store up to 8.5GB. These disks are inexpensive, though the latter costs more because they are more difficult to produce. Eight point five gigs is enough to store a two hour-long video. Think about just how much storage you really need.

· Dual-layer disks burn at up to the maximum that most disks can receive the incoming data, which is 8X. Some drives can now write dual-layer disks at 10X speed, but with them you must use only compatible disks.

· Single layer R (write once) DVD-R and DVD+R disks write at up to 20X, DVD-R DL at up to 8X, and DVD+R DL at up to 10X.

· Single-layer rewritable DVD-RAM disks burn at up to 12X, DVD+RW disks at 8X, and DVD-RW disks at 6X.

· Most DVD drives can write to CD-R disks at speeds of 48X to 52X, that is, their top speeds are roughly comparable.

While speed is an asset, remember this rule (a variant on the rule that you cannot eat your cake and have it too): the more slowly you burn your disks, the more perfect your recording is likely to be.

The compatibility factor.

Most DVD drives support reading from and writing to the major incompatible formats, DVD-RW and DVD+RW, and many also support DVD-RAM as well. These last may be called super multi drives. The drive you buy simply must support both of the first two formats for inter-machine compatible reasons. It probably should support DVD-RAM as well, because this format has the most robust error correction available, and it will give you random access to a rewritable disk, much like a hard drive does. While DVD-RAM is the least compatible with the drives that are out there in consumerland, it has yet another advantage. Using RW disks, it can rewrite up to 100,000 times, which in practice, and barring some accident, means that your disks will last for a lifetime or two or three. DVD-RW and DVD+RW formats can only rewrite up to about 1,000 times.

A popular frill.

Hewlett Packard’s LightScribe Direct Disk Labeling technology eliminates sloppy ink labeling by using the burner’s laser to etch a monochromatic label directly onto the disk’s top surface. It requires specially coated LightScribe media. An elaborate label can take up to 20 minutes to etch.

Software considerations

All legitimate retail drives include video DVD authoring software that permits you to create menus and to encode analog video to MPEG-2, so that you can play the video DVD on a standard TV-top DVD player. All such drives also can create data DVDs with the mastering and packet-writing software that comes in the bundle. Some common bundles include scaled down OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] versions of Nero, such as Nero Ultra 7 Enhanced, or Roxio’s Easy Media Creator 9, so look for a bundle that offers the most full-featured version of such software. Also see if the package includes backup software and additional video or image editing software. Because, at a given speed, all burners are created essentially equal, you may wish to pick the one that offers the most software or the most attractive software.

Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware)

Do not be tempted by a drive that is drastically underpriced. If the bargain seems too good to be true, you can bet your sweet bippy that it is. This drive probably will come without any software, no warranty, and none of the necessary firmware updates. Such a drive is probably one that was initially intended to be sold as a bare OEM drive. Sold separately, it is likely to give you considerable grief. Please just say no. Summon up massive amounts of willpower, and resolutely just don’t go there.

To help yourself do this, please remember a most fundamental law that in Uncle Remus’ story Br’er Rabbit discovered when he assaulted the Tar Baby: Anything is much easier to take apart than it is to put together.