DVD Burner: Are off-brand drives okay?
 

Well I don't have alot of money to blow on a Dvd burner.I found one at tigerdirect.ca(I live in Canada).The price is only $212.99(Canadian).Check it out:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...5%20P&CatId=89

Irealize it is not a "Brand Name" like Sony's but if I was to buy a dual format Sony Dvd Burner it would be about $450 Canadian and it's roughly the same price no matter where I go.:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...%20CA&CatId=89

So I'm wondering.Should I go for the cheaper Dual format Dvd Burner?Or just wait till they drop in price?

You ever think of trying http://www.zipzoomfly.com/ aka googlegear, they ship to Canada, and there shipping is really fast and cheap. Here is the two I would buy http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=170608
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=173806

I was thinking of just buying a one format DVD burner but would rather have one that is Dual format.That's why I was thinking about the Optirite cause it was so cheap and did Dual format.

You might want to look at the NEC 1300A DVD drive - it's both + and -, and sells for about $118 for the bare drive. This one only has a 2mb cache (Sony has 8mb) and there are a few other differences - check out some of the reviews on the web. I think if you search at Dealtime or one of those they'll point you to the stores that are selling the NEC for less than $120 US. I'm tempted to get this one!

Cheers, --Tony K.

The LG 4040 is dual format.

Here's the link for the NEC drive I mentioned above:

http://avlogic.com/product.cgi?code=18030059

NEC ND-1300A 4X DVD±R/±RW DRIVE INT EIDE DRIVE ONLY (Bare Drive)

SKU#: 18030059
Reg. Price: US$189.00
Our Price: US$116.49
You save: US$72.51
Free Ground Shipping too.

Cheers, --Tony K.

@Kwag
 

Which one would you take if you could choose one right now, currently available, and be stuck with it for the next say, 5 years? :twisted:

I think I'm going to dish out the extra little bit of money and buy the LG Dual Format.It's only $300 Canadian up here.My cd burner and Dvd rom are both LG and I find them to be really good.

Well, for what it's worth:

I'm putting off buying a dvd-burner as long as humanly possible (which, believe me, is getting pretty hard after seeing that $117 price tag that tonyk pointed out!). I don't follow the DVD-/+R scene too closely, so forgive me if I'm mistaken here, but it's my understanding that there's an 8x burner (by Plextor) that just recently hit the market, and that more 8x's are expected in November. I would think that this should help push prices on 4x models even lower. So personally, I'd try to wait at least a couple more months and see where the pricing is. I used to be an early-adopter in some respects, but my pocketbook (and some long forgotten common sense :wink: ) convinced me to be a bit more patient when shopping for the techno goodies these days. "If it's not broke, don't fix it." If only I heeded that motto more often. :roll: :lol:

I also recall reading that 16x is expected to be the maximum attainable burning speed for the DVD-/+R formats. Judging by how quickly we've seen 4x and now 8x emerge, surely 16x burners can't be too far off in the distance. I'm of the mindset that I'd rather wait 'til the 16x drives come out a year from now. By then, any remaining "kinks" in these burners should be worked out fairly well, and I'd also be getting what should theorhetically be the top of the line for the foreseeable future (at least until blue-ray dvd comes out...or whatever other stepping stone supplants dvdr). I've also heard too many horror stories from early-adopters of dvdr/rw about dvd-player compatibility woes, shoddy dvd media, and burning software issues...it seems like somewhat of a crapshoot to figure out what combination of those puzzle pieces will work on any given dvd player, especially older models...this isn't so much the case with cdr/rw. Plus dvd media isn't dirt-cheap or even free yet like cdr media...for that matter, top of the line 52x cdrw burners can be had for as little as $20 or even FREE sometimes after rebates! 8O

If there's one thing that our KVCDs should prove to all of us, it's that CD-R/RW is far from being a dead/obsolete format. If it weren't for KVCD, I too probably would have blown a wad of cash on the first 1x dvd-r burner that came out...and a few months from now it'd probably be sitting on a shelf collecting dust next to the old 2x CDRW burner that I paid nearly $400 for back in the good ol' days (more like "the bad old days"! :lol: ).

But by all means, to each his own :wink: . New toys certainly are fun to play with :!: :lol: In the meantime.... :D

-d&c