DVD burner and monitor

[stephen64]

Im getting a new computer and I was wondering is it worth paying the extra for a DVD Burner what are the cons?Can you play the discs on a normal dvd player and can you make backups of dvd films?
Also which is the best an LCD monitor or CRT,I will be mostly playing FPS games on it. Cheers

[Budfred]

Sony and a few others have put out DVD burners that use both of the dominant formats. This is the only type of DVD burner I would buy at this point. If you can afford it, they are great for backups and they will play CD formats as well. I believe they will backup DVD movies, but only if they are not copy protected and there is still a lot of debate about legality.

For monitors: there are lots of opinions about the best, so there is no one answer. NEC is generally good, but you can get just as good in other brands as well. I use an Envision 17" LCD and I love it. It is one of the cheapest available. I also have a 15" Envision and that is great too.

Check back for lots more opinions, you will probably get more answers than you can sort out....

Budfred

[saphalline]

Wow! You must have some serious cash saved up to be thinking about a DVD burner! So are they worth it? Well... that's for you to decide. They're great pieces of modern optical technology, that's for sure. Being able to burn a minimum of 4.7GB per optical disc is a dream come true. The one big downside is that, while CD-RW drives all use one basic formatting technique, the DVD burning arena has two competitors: DVD-RW (pronounced "DVD dash RW") & DVD+RW (pronounced "DVD plus RW"). Both have strong and weak points, and both are backed by major tech companies and manufacturers. The battle for DVD writing supremacy is likely to last at least another year.

Right now, DVD-RW has the lead, with cheaper media and better compatibility with set-top players. DVD+RW is promising even better results in the long run, but isn't performing right now and will always have more expensive media.

Pioneer's DVR-A04 is a DVD-RW drive that has received many favorable reviews and promises near perfect compatibility with set-top players for home DVD-movie makers everywhere. As for copying DVD movies, that's still in the realm of science-fiction. :p Store-bought DVD's have intense copyright blocking & encryption, and the fact of the matter is that no legal DVD burning protocol is allowed to even touch those sectors, much less copy them.

I fear I have already ranted enough on your other thread about LCD's vs CRT's! ;)

[stephen64]

Thanks for all your input mate, after some thought I think I ll wait until the prices drop. Cheers

[Budfred]

The Sony drive that handles both formats is about $350 US and the only thing that is likely to bring that down much anytime soon is the advent of Blue laser drives. These are supposed to hold about 10 times the capacity of a DVD, but there are already 2 warring formats there too, so it will continue to be a problem to know what to get. I am thinking I will get the Sony when I am ready to upgrade, but who knows???

Budfred

[goober2003]

I got a dvd-r/ram burner for $260 and it's definitely worth it. It's great for data backup and for movies half of the time you will need to split them onto 2 blank dvd's and it's always easiest if you take out dvd menus but it has the exact same video and audio quality as the original also they work perfectly for ps2 games. The dvd-r's i'm using right now only cost $1 a disc and they are compatible with every player that I tried them in.