[srirao]

I'm planning to purchase a DVD Writer, can someone tell me what do I need to consider when I want to buy one. I want to know how much a dvd burner can burn on a DVD-rw. I was told that a 4.7G CD can only be burned to 4.4G capacity. Is it true?

[psi42]

Yes, that is correct...

A 4.7GB dvd is really 4.4GB. This is because the companies compute 4.7GB by pretending that there are 1 billion bytes in a gigabyte. However, a gigabyte is really 2^30 bytes. This is an intentional miscalculation to make everyone think they are getting more than they really are. Isn't marketing fun! :)



Another thing to consider is that DVD-R/RW is different than DVD+R/RW, which is different from DVD-RAM. I would recommend not buying DVD-RAM because it seems not to be as popular as the other two. You can not use DVD-R/RW discs in a DVD+R/RW drive, or vice versa.
I have seen some drives that can take both kinds of discs, but they are usually more expensive.

Also be careful of what software you buy. They all seem alike, personally, I have had very little success with any of the commercial software suites, at least none of them under $100. (I have heard good things about Adobe Permiere, but it is pretty expensive:)) All the programs I have bought all seem to have been rushed to production. Try searching for some of the free video software on the internet... it is a bit harder to learn, but seems much more reliable. :)

hope this helps
~psi42


P.S. Don't listen to any of the "you can put dvd quality movies on CDs and play them in your set-top dvd player." You can't. It has to be encoded in Super Video CD or Video CD format, both of which are far inferior to DVD quality and require several discs to hold one movie.

[ScottGem]

I just got an ad from Tiger direct for an IOMEGA burner for $140. Great deal.

Otherwise, I would recommend either the Sony DR500 or the new TDK that supports both + and - formats. I've seen the TDK for $299.