MyRoxio

If you've been salivating over the 50GB capacity of Blu-Ray Discs, or at least the 8.5GB of dual-layer DVDs, it may be time to upgrade your hardware. Prices have come down significantly in the past year.

The added capacity can go a long way. Blu-Ray Discs can make short work of backing up your hard disk, and dual-layer recorders let you back up your valuable movie discs without compromising video quality. Roxio's Easy Media Creator 9 and Toast 8 support both types of discs, and provide all the software you need to take full advantage of the latest burning hardware.

So what should you look for when choosing a DVD drive? Recording technology has been advancing rapidly, and the myriad formats and speeds can be bewildering. Media types alone comprise an alphabet soup: DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-RAM, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, plus double-layer and dual-layer variations. There's also a long list of recorded formats, including DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DVD-VR, DVD-ROM, Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD. Then to top it all off, most DVD burners can also play and record CDs, both CD-R and CD-RW, in various CD formats, such as Audio CD and Video CD.

Deciphering the Alphabet Soup

The first thing to decide is what type of drive will record the formats you need. Here's a quick guide to the various CD & DVD recording types:

* for top multiformat DVD recorders as of mid-2007. CD recording speeds are given for combo CD/DVD recorders.

Most current recorders can burn multiple types of discs. You can get a top-rated internal that handles most everything but Blu-ray for around $100. Make sure you get dual-layer capability, since some older drives may still be on the shelves. A few do DVD-RAM. Virtually all of these multiformat DVD drives can also write CD-R/RW discs. Blu-ray capability will run you about $500 more as of this writing, but prices are coming down fast.

DVD-R/RW generally offers the best compatibility with various set-top DVD players, with DVD+R/RW a close second. These are the formats that most users will choose for creating DVD movies and archiving data. While DVD-RAM was the first entry in the format wars, it has largely been relegated to office data environments, thanks to its superior reliability and ability to rewrite up to 100,000 times.

By the Numbers

How much speed do you need in a DVD recorder? Today's fastest DVD drives can reach transfer speeds as high as 18X, which means you can write a single-layer 4.7GB DVD-R or DVD+R in 5 minutes or so. (1X for DVDs is 1.38MB/sec.). However, you'll usually see multiple numbers in drive marketing material separating various types of CD and DVD read and write speeds. Make sure you know which number is which. For example, 16X/4X/12X usually means the drive can write DVDs at 16X, rewrite at 4X and read at 12X. A second set of higher numbers, such as 32x/24x/48x gives corresponding CD write/rewrite/read speeds. As you can see, write speeds are typically lower than read speeds, but that's okay, since most people spend relatively little time writing as opposed to reading.

Note that while specs can be helpful guideposts when comparing one drive to another, they can't be taken strictly at face value. Real-world recording rates will likely be one or two notches below the spec, and can also depend on the speed rating of your media. Recording performance can also be limited by your system. For example, the speed of your USB or IDE connection.

Internal or External?

If you have an open drive bay in your computer, you'll save a little money and desk space with an internal device. However, this means opening your PC and understanding internal cabling. External drives are more expensive, but offer the flexibility to move around to different PCs and Macs. You may also want to consider a "portable" drive, which is powered by the USB or FireWire bus in your computer, rather than plugged into a wall. These are good for laptop users, but will have lower specs than full-sized drives.

Interface Options

If you choose an internal drive, the interface will likely be some flavor of ATAPI/ATA/IDE. In newer machines, these interfaces handily exceed maximum transfer speeds for both CD and DVD drives, so whichever you happen to have in your computer is fine. However, older versions of ATAPI (especially if DMA is not supported) are potentially too slow to support maximum data transfer rates. If you have an old machine, consider an external drive that you can transfer to a newer machine when you upgrade.

For external drives, the choices are more complex. We recommend USB 2.0 or FireWire (also known as IEEE1394 or i.Link). USB 1.0 will greatly limit your recording speed, so make sure your computer has a USB 2.0 interface if you get a USB 2.0 recorder. USB and FireWire drives both have the major advantage of being hot-pluggable, so you don't have to turn your computer off before attaching them.

More Features to Look For

DVD drives with the same speed ratings are not all created equal. There is a whole host of other features that separate the best drives from the lower end. One important spec to look for is the amount of cache (memory buffer) the drive has. A larger cache will help prevent the dreaded "buffer-underruns" that result in failed recordings. Top multiformat DVD burners typically have about 2MB of cache, in addition to special underrun-prevention technology. Also look for S/PDIF optical audio outputs (for connecting to a stereo system for audio playback), and a long warranty. Finally, if you like the idea of laser-etched disc labeling (for a sort of holographic look), check for LightScribe support. An increasing number of burners have it, and both Easy Media Creator and Toast include labeling programs that work with LightScribe drives.

Blu-ray & HD-DVD

If your budget allows, also consider Blu-ray recording technology, a standard developed for the needs high-definition video. Blu-ray Discs hold 25GB (single-layer) or 50GB (dual-layer), making them excellent choices for backing up large hard drives. Media is available in both write-once (BD-R) and rewritable (BD-RE) formats. Note that computer Blu-ray recorders are not capable by themselves of playing commercial Blu-ray movie discs. You'll also need special graphics and display hardware that is not widely available. Until it is, desktop Blu-ray will be mostly limited to archiving and backup purposes. Blu-ray drives can also record regular DVD-R/RW discs, but generally at lower speeds than non-Blu-ray drives, so there is a trade-off if you expect to continue to burn a lot of regular DVDs.

There is also HD-DVD, a competing high-definition video format, but thus far, HD-DVD recorders are not available for computers, only players. Recorders should be available soon, but they will be less capacious than Blu-ray, at 15 and 30GB for single and dual layers.

The Bottom Line

That's everything you need to know to make an informed DVD recorder buying decision! Start with the type of drive and speed you need, then narrow things down by interface and internal or external, and finally, look at the bells and whistles, like cache, connections for headphones and sound output, fan noise (if any), warranty, casing, and manufacturer reputation.