I will be doing some major upgrading to my PC next year.
More RAM...
New Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card...
New Motorola Surfboard 5100 cable modem to replace my aging Toshiba...

Currently I now have one optical drive in the PC, the Sony DRU510a.
It reads and write DVD R+/- at 4x, and reads CDs at 40x I think.
Paid $280 for it with a $30 rebate back in Sept. of 2003.

Prices sure have come down, and now Sony has the DRU710a out.

Double layer DVD, and writes and reads at 16x, a lot faster burner than my current one, and reads CDs and writes at 48x.

I will keep both drives in, so working with burning or backing up DVDs, CDs, ect. will be faster than swapping out discs.

Does anyone have this new Sony, and if so, do you like it?
Many review of it on Newegg's site.

 

I just bought a DVD burner yesterday! (HP)

If I had seen that one, I would have bought it though.

 

From what I have read in my numerous PC mags, the brands to stick with are:
Sony
Plextor
MadDog

I know Sony makes it very easy to update the firmware on these from their support page.
I have upgraded mine now about 4 times.

Anyway you can return the HP?
Sony has even a cheaper one on NewEgg's site, it looks to be an OEM one, but has the same speed as the DRU710a one I am thinking of getting.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...131-241&DEPA=1

Two reviews on the above URL.

 

I'd recommend the TDK from experience, I bought it over a year ago and have burned probably around 400-500 dvd's...with no problems, alot were for friends, and alot were rented and now in my collection....

Although its a year old its dvd write at 8x, at the time I bought it was much better then anything else CompUSA offered.

It also came with software to burn commercial dvd's, some of my friends said their burners wouldnt let them burn rented dvd's or video games or even dvd's they have in there own collection.....which I thought was kinda weird, why would they sell a dvd burner w/ software that can only copy dvd's you made......the tdk (back then) came with good software, I can copy anything on a cd/dvd

 

I recently bought the maddog DVD Burner (16x dual layer) and love it!!! However - 1 program anyone with a DVD burner might want is DVD Shrink (it's free). It allows you to backup the store bought movies you own and "compresses" them to fit onto 1 single layer DVD. I'm told you lose a little video quality but on my HDTV I can't really notice a difference.

http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html


John

 

I use DVD Shrink for backing up all of my movies I buy.
I often loan out movies, and sometimes they come back scratched.
Some I have had to pitch, so with the Shrink I have a perfect copy.

I have not noticed any degradation at all using it, and I use it on the stock settings with Nero 6 as the plug-in.

Once advantage I will have when I do get a second DVD burner is not having to swap out the original disc when the PC is done reading it.
Shrink will just fire up the second burner with a blank in it and burn the files, then shut down the PC after it is done.

 

Jim, I have the Record Now from Veritas that came with my DRU510a.
Very good software, and I use the DLA program from it instead of the In CD one from Nero.
Yes, I have the whole version of Nero 6.6 presently, and it is very good powerful software.

But for making a CD with files and other stuff, I use Record now.
The name has since changed to Sonic.
http://support.sonic.com/desktop/dow...&product=mydvd

I may never end up using the dual layer discs at all.
I will be happy getting some 8x discs here in the future.

I will not be using the drive at all for backup, I plan on using a Seagate 200 GB external hard drive for that.
So many files on my PCs that it would take to many DVDs for a good backup plan.

That Sony product looks pretty cool.