Best DVD Burner for less than $200.

[ddrueding]

It sounds like you need Windows XP

Take any files you wish and drag them to the cd-rom drive, then choose "burn" from the file menu. That's it.

Yeah.

Complete with it trying to buggerise about enforcing DRM and copyrights that it doesn't understand and can't possibly get right. I will never run Windows XP. Nor, indeed, any version of Media Player later than the one that ships with Windows 2000.

Must say I've never experienced these issues. But then again, I don't deal with DRM capable formats, anyway...

 

[Fushigi]

No followup from Ahead technical non-support so far. A friend purchased Nero 5.x some time ago and has offered his s/n as a solution. If Ahead doesn't fix the problem soon I will go that route. I see it as remaining legal as the software will still only be used with drives that came with Nero bundled.

 

[Fushigi]

Got a response this morning:

Dear customer,

thanks for your email and for your interest in our products.

Use this serial number to resolve your issue :

<snip>

NB : With OEM versions you can only use one burner at the same time.

Make sure you have the latest release of Nero 5.5 installed, if not follow the link bellow :

ftp://ftp4.nero.com/nero551054.exe

Should you wish more information, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

best regards and happy new year.

So it looks like they just unlocked it for me. Hey, that works. I'm now burning my first data DVD to verify things.

 

[Mercutio]

Nope. If you start with the OEM version the installer upgrades the OEM version only. If you start from that upgrade without ANY nero install you get a limit-limited 30-day copy.

I wouldn't normally recommend piracy but in this case you've paid for two OEM copies...

 

[Fushigi]

I encountered the OEM upgrade thing originally (see earlier posting from 12/22). But this message from Ahead included a serial number in the <snip> portion of the message. I can now select either drive when burning. Burning my 2nd DVD+R right now.

 

[blakerwry]

what upgrade? that's the full version. Just use your retail key or an OEM key and it'll work fine.

 

[Fushigi]

what upgrade? that's the full version. Just use your retail key or an OEM key and it'll work fine.

I had 5.5.something, OEM from my LiteOn CD-RW. I added the Pioneer DVD burner and installed 5.5.somethingnewer and instead of adding Pioneer support it upgraded (perhaps updated is a better term) my LiteOn support to the somethingnewer release.

Ahead, it appears, not only linked to the most current 5.5 version but also gave me what appears to be a retail key to allow me to burn to either drive (although not simultaneously).

 

[Tannin]

You don't suppose Iif I wrote to them and explained exactly how I feel aboput their exit prompts that they would send me a key to switch them off too, do you?

No. I didn't think so.

I'm glad they resolved your problem, big F.

 

[Tannin]

They did it! They did it! Whoopee!

Nero Express 6 now has a tick box in that horrendously stupid, pox-ridden "do you want to save project?" dialogue box labelled "Never ask this question again".

On the whole, I'd prefer something more like "Never, ever, ever even think about asking this question (or any other question remotely like it) again anytime in the entire history of the universe", but I guess the current form is close enough for my purposes.

But you still have to click "next" at the "CD is finished" stage to get to the screen that does not have a greyed-out exit cross in the upper corner.

One insane germanic stupidity down, one to go.

PS: If Mr Gates was a nice guy with a genuine desire to please his users instead of simply extract dollars from them, he would write the Windows API in such a way that it is not possible for a programmer to grey-out the exit cross.

 

[Mercutio]

I've discovered that my crappy I/O magic DVDRW burns every 1x disc "-r" I've put in it at 2x and every 2x "-r" disc I've put in as 4x.

Tested with an ~950MB MPEG2 video as a video DVD.

3 brands of 1x: Ritek, Verbatim and Khypermedia
Burn times are around 9 minutes.
4 brands of 2x: Ritek, Khypermedia, Princo and Meritline (generic).
Burn times are around 6.5 minutes.


That's a pretty neat trick for a $75 DVD burner.

 

[blakerwry]

would you recomend it?

 

[Mercutio]

The main reason I bought it was to have a burner that wasn't a Sony (Nero 6.3.0.2 calls it "Generic 4x DVDRW", in fact). It has a cheap tray mechanism that releases discs at variable speeds (sometimes the disc is still spinning, sometimes it seems to take a day and a half to eject at all). The fact that it was under $100 and its ability to write discs faster than I thought it could are the only really good things about it.

That's kind of a big deal for me. I have about 130 Ritek 1x discs I wasn't sure I was ever going to use, but if the I/O magic drive will write them at 2x, I'll probably finish out those spindles before buying new ones.

It's probably worth $75, even if all it does is hold you over for the dual-layer drives.

 

[blakerwry]

I assume you fond some rebates give the ebst price I can come up with is about $110 for that drive

 

[Handruin]

For around $120 you can get the Pioneer A06 these days. Not sure it'll write those 1x DVD's at 2x, but it might be worth a look.

 

[Mercutio]

My drive was $130 with $25 in instant rebate (isn't that a funny term? Why not just change the pricetag?) and $30 in MIR.

 

[blakerwry]

I think the Pioneer would be a better choice considering the "stellar" reputation of the I/O magic for producing quality components