 You've
probably seen the new DVD-R or DVD+R drives on the shelves of your
local computer store. While testing our new DVD stocks and media,
I discovered some of the pros and cons of using these new drives.
The decision to buy one of these burners will boil down to what
uses you have for the new media. DVD burners are a bit more expensive
than standard CDR burners. Currently most DVD burners are somewhere
around $250-$400. CDR burners can range anywhere from $50 to $250.
If you get the same quality DVDR and CDR drive, you are looking
at about a $160-$200 difference.
The price may come down as more manufacturers enter the game, so
right now the question becomes, "is it time for me to buy?".
I've broken down some of the uses of these drives below:
Extended Storage and Backup
The best use for the new writable DVD media is for extended storage
and backup. The average CDR holds about 700 MB of information. The
average DVD-R, or DVD+R, holds 4.7 gigabytes. That's 6.7 times the
information. If you are tired of using tape backups or using multiple
CDRs to backup your data, the writable DVD is a great option. People
with digital cameras will find this especially useful. High resolution
images can fill your hard drive very quickly. The large capacity
of this new media makes archiving your photos very easy. If you
use a software based jukebox program such as MusicMatch, you may
already have your entire CD collection on your hard drive. I was
able to fit my entire collection on 5 DVDs. This is pretty incredible
considering how much space all those CDs are currently taking up
in my living room! You can fit about 50-60 CDs on just one DVD (MP3
format). If one of your CDs ever becomes too scratched to play,
you'll be able to burn a new one straight from your DVD archive!
In the near future we may see consumer DVD players which run in
Jukebox mode. Just put one DVD in your player, and you've got fresh
tunes for months. Hopefully they'll put an "auto-DJ" feature
in, just like in the MusicMatch software.
Cutting Edge Home Video
If you shoot a lot of digital video, DVD is really the only option.
This format will retain the full resolution of your initial footage.
SVCD on a CDR is the next best option, but this will limit you in
various ways. For instance, you can only fit 35-60 minutes of video
at about half the resolution of a DVD. Compatibility with home players
is also a problem. There are issues with both forms of media, but
you'll have a better chance with a writable DVD than with a CDR.
Don't expect your burned SVCD or DVD to work on everyone's home
DVD player. Universal compatibility is not a reality quite yet.
The best use is for your own enjoyment. Burn a DVD of your home
videos and give it a try on your home player. If it doesn't work,
bring the DVD with you to the local electronics store and test it
out on the latest players. You'll find that most new models do support
writable DVDs, and SVCDs. However, computers are generally much
better at reading writable media, and Windows Media Player version
9 includes VCD, SVCD, XSVCD (this is a DVD format burned on a CDR)
and DVD support.
Making Backup Copies of Your DVD Collection
Making backup copies of your home DVD collection would be a good
use of these drives, but there are some legal issues. Most DVDs
are encrypted. This is a method used to help prevent the illegal
distribution, or playback of the digital content. A home user should
have the "fair use" (a.k.a. "copy-right") of
creating their own backup copies, however there is a law called
the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that makes it illegal to circumvent
any copy protection scheme. This law makes it impossible to create
legal backup copies of your commercially purchased DVDs, since you
would have to un-encrypt the content to make a copy.
A New Computer
If you're buying or putting together a new computer you should definitely
consider the DVD writer as a component. These drives include the
option to read CDs, CDRs, DVDs, DVDRs, as well the option to write
to CDRs, CDRWs, DVDRs and DVDRWs. The multiple functionality of
these drives is a great space saver, and you won't have to add a
DVD writer later on. Sure, they're somewhere around $300, but consider
what you would spend for a DVD-Rom drive plus a CDRW drive... and
then consider that you'll probably be throwing one of those away
when you finally do upgrade to the DVDR media.
Final Words
Writable DVD drives and media are still very new, but in the years
to come we will see increased home player compatibility, and cheaper
and higher capacity media. With the inclusion of interactive features,
video, surround sound, and improved audio quality, DVD has become
the preferred format for cutting edge multimedia projects. CDRs
are still the value of the century, at somewhere around 26 cents
a piece, you can burn large collections of media and data without
making a huge dent in your wallet. This works out to about 0.0004
cents per meg of data. DVDs are about $2.00 apiece, but since they
hold 6.7 times the information it's still about 0.0004 cents per
meg of stored data. If it weren't for the CDR's superior consumer
player compatibility, DVD media would already have dethroned the
CDR as the king of digital storage. In the not-so-distant future,
those old CDRs will be likened to today's floppy disk or vinyl record.
(By the way, I still have a huge collection of vinyl. Some formats
are just too good to die!)
Related Article: Do you have
questions about the different types of DVD media formats? Click
here to read an article discussing the differences between
DVD-R, +R, -RW, +RW and RAM.
If you have any questions or comments about this article, please
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