DVD Burner Experiences?

[Riptide]

Has anyone here had experience with the Sony DRU500 series drive? It seems to support the most formats around (DVDR,+R,RW,+RW).

Is this truly the king of DVD burners available right now?

I have heard that this summer prices will drop and new drives that are much better will hit the market. Is this rumor or truth?

[de><ta]

I have a no name dvd burner and it burns in DVDR format. I got it from a government auction at NY for $400. As for the format do not get to concerned about them. If your purpose is to solely make backup of data i see no problems.

I have also heard that you get appz for reading different formats.
As for the rumor, wait it out and see. I am not aware of this, so i cant really help.

[saturnotaku]

I probably would have bought the Sony for its ability to write to both +R/RW and -R/RW, but no place had them in stock and they were horribly expensive. I bought a Pioneer A05 DVD-RW, full retail box for $255. I haven't had too much time to play with it yet, but I think backing up data (which would be my primary use for the drive) will be horribly fast and easy. :D

[Riptide]

Well, I bit the bullet and got the Sony DRU500AX along w/a copy of DVDXCOPY. I haven't had a chance to back up any of my movies yet but I have burned a few other discs. I can see that the drive will come in very handy for burning system backups (took 6 CDRs to do it before, now 1 DVD). The included software is functional but nothing spectacular. I will try DVDXCOPY this weekend and see how it performs for backing up movie discs. I hope I am not disappointed... So far the only anomalies/issues I have are the fact that the media is slow (2.4x) and expensive and my Toshiba DVD-ROM refuses to read any disc I burn with this thing. My dell laptop will read them fine. Not sure what's going on there... Another note regarding the media, 4X is available but it is outrageously expensive. Better to get the 2.4x stuff and just suffer the 30 minute burn times..

[saturnotaku]

You can find some good deals on 4x (and any other speed) DVD-R media on ebay. I have a 25-pack of Ritek (same brand that comes bundled with the Pioneer A05) on the way to me that cost me $50 shipped.

DVDxCopy is a pretty easy piece of software to use. It's successfully burned several copies of movies that will play perfectly on my PC DVD drives, but will not work on my roommate's Samsung set-top player. This was with DVD-RW media, I have yet to try DVD-R discs.

Thing about DVDxCopy is that many movies are pressed on double-sided DVD movies so you'll need 2 pieces of media to burn them. At $3-5 per media disc, plus the time and cost of DVDxCopy, you're better off simply paying $16-20 for another copy of the movie. Of course, if you take good care of your movies, you'll never have any trouble. ;)

[Riptide]

Thanks for the tip regarding ebay.

So far I haven't even had time to put dvdxcopy through it's paces. I was aware that some movies would require two discs. You make good points regarding the costs of the media and time spent vs. just going out and buying the movie again. I would certainly agree that in some cases that would make more sense. However, if the movie you are backing up cost $20 or more then it is in my opinion worth it to back it up vs. buying a new copy. If it's a $10 wal-mart movie then I agree that it would be borderline worth just getting another copy vs. using two DVD+R's to back it up with.

I hope the backups I create of some of my movies work in the set-top players. If they don't I will probably be upset. After all dvdxcopy makes some pretty grandiose claims about making exact, perfect duplicates. If it falls short of that claim I might just ask for a refund.

Any ideas on when/if double sided media will be available? Will we need to get a new drive in order to burn double discs?

[saturnotaku]

I think the term double sided is a misnomer - it's more like "double density" DVD media onto which most movies are pressed. All the data is only printed onto one side of the DVD, but it still contains up to 9.4 GB of data.

One option for you to try is literally double-sided DVD-R media. These discs work much like the 5.25" floppy disks of yore, where you could write data on one side, then flip the disk over and have a clean slate of space to work with. You also can find this media on ebay, but it's even more expensive than standalone DVD-R and RW media. This way you could burn an entire movie onto one disc but you'd have to flip it whenver you run out of data on the first disc.

Speaking of DVD-RW media. There is a worldwide shortage of 2x-comptible DVD-RW media so don't expect to find a whole lot of it available for sale (if you can find it at all). Best bet is to stick with DVD-R and buy as much as you can afford at the speed with which you want to write. :)

I received word that my 25-pack of DVD-R discs got to my house today. I got rid of DVDxCopy because it wasn't worth my time or effort so I can't really tell you about this type of media's compatibility with set-top players. But one thing I think these discs will be very good for is backing up images of games I own which use SecuROM New copy protection. This type of protection is so far unable to be duplicated by a standard CD-RW drive, but what you can do is rip a CD image and load that using a virtual CD-ROM drive such as Daemon Tools. Unreal II, UT2003 and N.O.L.F. 2 use this type of protection and I plan on using my DVD burner to backup the 700+ megabyte CD images I've taken of these games. :D

[Riptide]

You clever guy!! :p

If that gets around securerom, I'm sold. I'm tired of paying big bucks for games and then not being able to back them up or use the backup copy.

I know this is off-topic, but please let me know if that method (virtual cd-rom drive + ripped image of the game disc) works out. Where do I go to download the virtual cd-rom drive tool (daemon?)? What utility are you using to rip the game/play disc image?

I am going to copy biodome this weekend using dvdxcopy. It's going to be my first trial run. I hope it works OK, otherwise I will be calling up and asking for a refund. You definitely don't want to make frisbees when they cost you $3 or more per disc.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Riptide
I know this is off-topic, but please let me know if that method (virtual cd-rom drive + ripped image of the game disc) works out. Where do I go to download the virtual cd-rom drive tool (daemon?)? What utility are you using to rip the game/play disc image?

Oh it works - I've already taken images of Unreal 2 and UT2003. The SecuROM protection for UT2003 is on the first disc so I just load up that image into Daemon Tools and fire up the game. :D

The best software to create images is Alcohol 120% (http://www.alcohol-software.com/). You can download a fully functional trial version from their web site. The program also serves as a Virtual CD, but I find Daemon Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.com/) easier to use and less resource hungry.

Creating an image in Alcohol is super easy. All you do is start the program and use the image creation wizard. Under CD type, make sure you select "SecuROM New (v.4.x)" and create a .mds file. Let the program take it from there.

Then all you have to do is mount the ripped image in Daemon Tools and it should work fine. :cool:

One disadvantage to this method is that you need to take up 700 mb of hard drive space to keep an image. That's why I'm going to take a group of these images and burn them to DVD-R. So instead of using up 5 discs, I only need 1. :D

If you have any other questions about ripping CD images of SecuROM, PM me or check out the forum at CD Freaks (http://club.cdfreaks.com).

[Riptide]

How long does the trial edition work before it quits if you don't register it?

Thanks for the info. That securerom is pretty pesky stuff...

Any ideas, anyone, on why my Toshiba 1612 DVD-ROM drive would not read burned DVD's from my DRU500AX? I am making sure that the session is closed when I burn the discs. It won't read DVD+R or DVD+RW discs that I have burned. My dell laptop, which has a DVD-ROM/CDRW combo drive reads them fine including the DVD+RW discs. I had another person at work test with their older Dell Laptop and it also had no problems reading the discs. My Toshiba appears to have a compatibility issue...

[Shinri Hikari]

/ gets interested
How does daemon tools stack up to IMSI cd copier? I would like to know where I can get daemon tools.:cool:

[saturnotaku]

I have a link to the Daemon's home page in my post prior to this one. DT has no burning or ripping functions at all. It's simply a virtual CD/DVD-ROM drive that can read CD images created with just about any program, be it an Alcohol .mds file, a Nero .iso or a BlindWrite .bwi and pretty much everything in between.

[Riptide]

Finally found a website that has firmware for my Toshiba 1612. A gentlemen in the forums over at cdfreaks mentioned that my drive has problems reading DVD+R/+RW media with certain firmware. I downloaded a firmware image and the discinfo program to check my current revision. I hope this will fix the problems my drive has reading these burned discs.

Unfortunately, I already ordered a replacement liteon. Hopefully googlegear will let me cancel it as it hasn't shipped yet. Impulsive buying can really come back to bite you. :mad: