DVD-RW questions
 

I'm thinking of finally getting a DVD-RW drive and I see that 12X drives are just starting to come out. I know that CD-RW drives have pretty much maxed out at 52X. How fast do you guys think that DVD-RW drives will get.

Also I noticed that most drives can write to DVD+R DVDs faster. Why is this? What is the benefit of writing of writing to a DVD-R if most drives write to this type of disc somewhat slower?

12x speed is nice, but you need the discs to go with it. When 8x drives came out, it took some 2 months for the discs to follow. Only now are they arriving. Same thing with 12x speeds: the drives are here, but there are no discs.

I've read that 16x dvd-rewriters are coming soon, and higher speeds are to be expected.

BUT... at the moment, there's a new type of writer, which is able to write dual-layer discs (IF they're ever available). This allows you to write 8.5 gigs of data to an appropriate disc (at 2.4x speed). This speed will of course increase soon. I think these dics are dvd-r types, so we'll probably see a dual-layer dvd+r too... just to annoy us, of course.

In the near future, we'll see the emergence of Blue-ray, which uses a blue laser to achieve much higher data density, and will be able to fit 10, 20 or more gigs on one disc.

Now, at the moment, dvd+r is simply a better standard than the older dvd-r, and there can be only two reasons to write dvd-r. 1) They might be cheaper where you live, and 2) you may own a dvd-player that only reads dvd-r. Apart from that, dvd-r is pretty much a slower alternative.

Short version: get either a cheap 8x dvd+/-rw from a good brand, or get a cheap 12x dvd+/-rw from a good brand, or get a slightly more expensive (and sometimes experimental) dual-layer burner. Don't bother waiting for that next speed increase, because it won't matter that much. At 4x speeds, a dvd takes 16 minutes to burn, at 8x speeds, some 8 minutes. At 12x speeds, it takes 6 or 7 minutes... Is that speed increase *really* important to you?

In the computer world speed is king.

hmm, seems to me like your recomendations lead me to the drive everyone is talking about, the NEC 2500A. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...152-011&depa=0
It's cheap, it's 8x, and it can be upgraded to dual layer burning. I guess this is probably the best all around drive available.

I was also looking into getting an optorite drive which claims it can burn 1.4 GB of data onto a standard CD-R. Anyone have any opinions on this? The only tradeoff to this drive is that it can't be upgraded to dual layer burning.

Actually - I believe most of the Dual Layer stuff out there is +R

Another resource -> http://www.videohelp.com/

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters....list=#comments

The NEC 2500a would be my choice if I didn't have a Pioneer 106