Any DVD burner experts lurking here?

[Swish]

I don't recall seeing much about them on this board, so I checked some of the others but came up with very little. Anyway, I'm looking to buy one of those double layer jobs as recommended by a friend and was checking out the Pioneer DVR 109. I also want to capture some of my old camcorder VHS-C material on DVD, and maybe a few video cassettes that I still have and was looking at the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Deluxe Version 9 (USB) to do the job. Anyway, does anyone have much experience with this stuff and can offer any advice? It looks like 16X is the best speed available right now, so that's where I'm focusing, but other than that, I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks in advance,
Swish

[N. Abstentia]

Don't read too much into the speed, I still burn everything at 4x as it makes a better burn that's more compatable with standalone players. You can literally see the difference. When burning faster you can look at the burned surface and see that the intensity varies and there are dark/light spots. Burning at 4x give a nice solid color all the way to the core.

The Pioneer DVD burner is the way to go.

As far as video capture, I've never seen an external device worth recommending. I like to do the conversion real time with a video card such as this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-125-152&depa=0

And I paired it with a Santa Cruz sound card for the best possible sound quality.

But the most important thing is the computer! The faster the better, and it's best to have at least a 100 gig partition dedicated for video capture.

Also, don't be too concerned about dual layer burning..the blanks are still around $12 each and they will not play in many standalone players.

[newtrix1]

I know I recently saw an article on dual layer DVD writers in PC Weekly magazine. They did a comparison and I think I remember seeing a Plexor model being at the top of the list.

[Swish]

Don't read too much into the speed, I still burn everything at 4x as it makes a better burn that's more compatable with standalone players. You can literally see the difference. When burning faster you can look at the burned surface and see that the intensity varies and there are dark/light spots. Burning at 4x give a nice solid color all the way to the core.

The Pioneer DVD burner is the way to go.

As far as video capture, I've never seen an external device worth recommending. I like to do the conversion real time with a video card such as this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-125-152&depa=0

And I paired it with a Santa Cruz sound card for the best possible sound quality.

But the most important thing is the computer! The faster the better, and it's best to have at least a 100 gig partition dedicated for video capture.

Also, don't be too concerned about dual layer burning..the blanks are still around $12 each and they will not play in many standalone players.


Really? Hey, I won't argue with you, and they're not all that expensive these days, so I'll get started on that. My PC is decent, although I'm not sure how you feel about a 1.4 GHz Athalon processor with 512 MB of RAM. It looks like this is going to take more time and effort than I bargained for, but I'm ready for the challenge.

Regards,
Swish

[N. Abstentia]

A 1.4 Athlon is not bad, certainly better than a similar Pentium for sure! I would want at least an Athlon 2500 for video editing though. However I would probably have to say that hard drive space is more important for you, as your processor will work. Just might take a little longer to transcode. Just let it run overnight :)

[jack70]

I'm about to build a new PC myself... one of the things I want to do is edit video, something I'd have a hard time with on my 5 yr old antique.

The Pinnacle stuff is highly rated by http://www.videoguys.com/ who have some nice online faqs, ratings & reviews, boards, and info on video (links are there if you look). Worth spending some time reading their opinions. They also sell stuff, but they're real good about explaining many issues that pertain to video, whether for newbies or high-techies. I'm trying to find the most accurate info myself so I can optimize as much as possible beforehand. I'm pretty good with audio editing, but with all the video codecs, DVD formats, and hardware interfaces, it can be confusing at first look.

As far as DVD formats, it's becoming a real mess with new ones coming out helter skelter. It's hard to predict what standards will survive down the road. (playable on commercial players). There are some new formats in the lab that have 5x+ the storage data possible over the best formats commercially available today. I just hope the industry keeps a sane format policy so we don't end up with dozens of incompatibilty issues. And as many have heard, the broadcast industry is already encoding certain broadcasts with "watermarks" (anti-piracy) that will make them very hard to record/ edit/ rip to DVD when future (commercial) machines become mainstreamed. And although there will certainly be hacks to get around such things, there comes a point for many where it gets ridiculous.Seems the more technology lets us do (record movies of our kids, etc), the more hoops we have to jump through just to watch TV (register, pay, and connect to what-all manner of mother-ships in cyberspace).

Most DVD burners are pretty equal these days... you might look at what the bundled software is that comes with it when making that choice. I also wouldn't get an external burner, even if it's USB2 or firewire... just seems like pushing things for no good reason. However, an external hard-drive for storing video (or other) files is a GREAT thing.

[Swish]

Most DVD burners are pretty equal these days... you might look at what the bundled software is that comes with it when making that choice. I also wouldn't get an external burner, even if it's USB2 or firewire... just seems like pushing things for no good reason. However, an external hard-drive for storing video (or other) files is a GREAT thing.

who e-mailed me after reading my post, I think I'm going to get the external recorder and just do straight out copies of all my tapes for now, then see what happens down the road with the video editing. He did much the same thing and it sounds like the way to go fro now with my time being at a premium these days. They're pretty cheap and have all the connectors for my camcorder and VCR. My PC is grossly underpowered based on the comments from N Abstentia, and my son isn't around to do my upgrades (he's a whiz at this stuff), so I think preserving the stuff first and editing later may be the ticket. I know the software will only get cheaper and better as the months roll by, so that's what I'm going to do.

Thanks for your advice,
Swish