Media, Drive and Intended Use Matching Question

[Kedoch]

Looking ahead a little bit here now that I have a working input to start transferring. I'm looking to pick up some blank media:

Currently I have a Macbook Pro from 2011 that I currently plan to do the editing and authoring on. My plans regarding burned media are as follows: Initially I want to produce media that is playable in a wide range of players as I will be handing out copies at family reunions and such. Additionally I'd like to have a good archival backup for my own use and storage.

From what I've gathered so far, the mac burners are crap. I'm not super opposed to picking up a new burner for my WinXP tower (capture computer) to do the authoring on, however my initial copies will be done on the mac. (If I pick up a new burner it will likely be the Pioneer recommended in the other threads).

Technical data on the Matshita burner in this apple:

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-8A8:

Firmware Revision: HA13
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 1024 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

The concise question:
Best media for playback (A DVD-R of some variety) with decent compatibility with the above burner.
Best media for archives (Taiyo Yuden DVD-R?) with decent compatibility with the above drive and/or a better quality pioneer.
Definitely buy a new DVD burner for my capture system or stick with the mac burner?

Thanks as always!

[admin]

Is there any reason you've eliminated the possibility of using an external USB2 DVD burner on the Mac?

Pioneer, Sony and Samsung burners are excellent, Mac or Windows (or even Linux). A good burner is a good burner, and is platform agnostic. It just happens that Mac, like most PC OEMs (Dell, HP, etc) use cheap LG or Panasonic/Matsushita drives. Apple cuts corners, too -- it's not all premium gear like the company and rabid fans make it out to be. (The hard drives can be lousy, too, so always keep yourself backed up! And I don't mean to a Time Capsule! Stray from the Mac cult, when buying peripherals such as hard drives.)

Actually, I think it's a good idea to have a good burner in both of your systems.

Slightly off-topic:
Macs are great for editing and authoring, if using Final Cut Studio (Final Cut Pro + DVD Studio Pro). Is that your setup?
Note: If you've mentioned this elsewhere, I don't remember. Just tell it again.

[Kedoch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin

Is there any reason you've eliminated the possibility of using an external USB2 DVD burner on the Mac?

You raise a most excellent point. I hadn't thought about an external drive yet. Chances are a few disk will still be burned with the Mac drive. I'll look into enclosures and external drives in the mean time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin

Stray from the Mac cult, when buying peripherals such as hard drives.

Thankfully I'm a Windows user at heart, or at least not a full blown follower of the Apple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin

Actually, I think it's a good idea to have a good burner in both of your systems.

External drive would accomplish this! I assume I can find a decent enclosure, perhaps even firewire as opposed to USB 2.0.

Quote:

Originally Posted by admin

Slightly off-topic:
Macs are great for editing and authoring, if using Final Cut Studio (Final Cut Pro + DVD Studio Pro). Is that your setup?
Note: If you've mentioned this elsewhere, I don't remember. Just tell it again.

Main reasons for wanting to use my Mac:
-Beefier hardware compared to my windows machine.
-Honestly initially I'm likely to be using iMovie (or Windows Movie Maker), just given the cost of the software, and the money I'm already putting into hardware. My initial goal will be more or less getting video off VHS and onto DVD and hard drives. If I can use entirely free software to accomplish my initial goals all the better! TMPGenc+ excluded, as I have that laying around somewhere from when I did some VCD/SVCD work in the past.
-Student discounted CS5 software (ex. Premier)(system independent but will run much more smoothly on the mac, see above)

[admin]

Quote:

External drive would accomplish this! I assume I can find a decent enclosure, perhaps even firewire as opposed to USB 2.0.

I would simply get an already-external DVD burner. Trying to build an external burner just never works as well. Most enclosures are made for hard drives, and not optical drives, and the chipsets will reflect that. I've built several external burners through the years, and they were always lousy -- sometimes even costing more than the already-enclosed external.

Do NOT buy a "slim" drive.

You can get a LiteOn (Memorex rebadge) for $45 currently: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B000QY31K6
I'd opt for that.

Never use Windows Movie Maker. I can name any number of programs (freeware and cheapware) that does better. iMovie isn't quite as awful, but it's not much better, either. Your student discount copies of Adobe CS5 software (Premiere, et al) would be the best software choices mentioned thus far. You can capture Huffyuv, and then edit on either Mac or Windows, and then encode out with the Adobe Media Encoder (based on the Mainconcept SDK) for MPEG-2 for DVD-Video or H.264 for streaming/Youtube.

I finally reinstalled Premiere CS3 on the Mac, need to test it out sometime. Moving some HD work to that system because like you, it's beefier hardware than the Windows system dedicated to editing video.