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01-08-2010, 04:33 PM
Scott Scott is offline
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I was last here in late 2007, it didn't seem like it had been that long, happy New Year everyone

In 2007 I was looking for a DVD-RW optical drive for my Dell Dimension 8300 midtower PC. I was looking for a quality unit for both playing and recording music and video, but recording quality was/is most important.

I was recommended the following unit at the time, and it has served me well:
PIONEER PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D-112D


I am in the process of building a new PC (my first build!), and I have already purchased the following:
Silverstone Case
Noctua NH-D14 cpu cooler
Seasonic x-750 Gold 80+ power supply
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit operating system

I will be ordering the following soon (this evening, I hope, unless someone sees something wrong here):
Intel i7-920 processor
ASUS P6X58D premium motherboard
Mushskin 'Redline' RAM 6GB (3 x 2GB)
Intel X25-M 160GB SSD (to be used as the "boot" drive)


I still need to decide on the following:
1. Hard Drive: looking for quiet operation & reliability more than speed, leaning toward Western Digital "Green" (low power, low heat, low noise).

2. Video Card: looking at the ATI Radeon HD 5870, the version made by Sapphire with the "Vapor-X" cooling technology. The Reviews say it is the quietest of the new HD 5870 cards, and does a very good job of cooling for a "stock" cooling solution.

3. DVD-RW DVR drive: Help!

The ASUS motherboard does not have a "legacy" IDE connector, it uses newer technology (a SATA connection, I think?) so I will not be able to use my old Pioneer optical drive in the new PC.



Question:
What are/is the current best brand/model optical drive (CD/DVD drive) for a home PC when it comes to recording quality?


Thank you very much, any/all advice greatly appreciated,

Scott
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  #2  
01-08-2010, 07:57 PM
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Welcome back.

Glad to hear the Pioneer 112 advice served you well for so many years. I'm still running several Pioneer 111 and 112 drives myself, excellent for burning on 1st Class media (and many 2nd Class discs). That list is at http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm of course.


Anyway, on to the specs...

Cases / Cooling - I'm not real big on case/cooling setups, those fall more to preference than anything else. I generally get what's low in cost, but still somewhat silent -- something with good airflow, single-fan solutions in the larger mm sizes (quieter fans). For video cards, I try for fan-less cards. I'm sure whatever you've picked out will be fine.

Windows 7 - As far as Windows 7 goes .... good luck. Most video-centric work is best done in Windows XP. Same for photo and pretty much anything else. Vista and Win7 both slurp up ungodly amounts of resources, pretty much negating the benefits of today's high-power hardware. The only real benefits of Vista and Win7 comes by using the 64-bit versions with 6GB+ RAM on a quad-core of faster. You seem to have that in the plans, so you'll probably be okay. Be prepared for a lot of software to not work well, especially freeware. Some of the best video/photo tools have quirks in the newer OS.

IDE / SATA - There are crossover adapters! While it does not work the best with optical drives in all setups, it does work quite well for hard drives. Not all of the adapters are made equal either. I've had good luck using the ones from Geeks -- use this link http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3235990...xt-1_8-18-2006 and search for "bi-directional sata ide adapter" in the site SEARCH box at the top of the page. These work great for both IDE to SATA and SATA to IDE, if you want to access old hard drives (or use a SATA drive in an older IDE system). Several times, they've been fine with DVD burners, too.


And now for the questions...

1. Hard drive.

I suggest sticking to Western Digital or Seagate for the most reliable drives. That said, however, I've had some luck with Hitachi drives in the past few years here, no complaints, and the drives tend to be 10% or lower cost than the others.

The best deals tend to be at Amazon, Geeks .. sometimes Newegg, but not as much as people seem to believe. Use the links at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-com-1528.html if you would (it helps this site). If you live near a Fry's Electronics or Microcenter, compare prices there to the ones online. Sometimes it's lower, sometimes not.

I've preferred Seagate a lot more in recent years. Although some Seagate drives in 2008 had issues that required a firmware update (and thus explains the large amount of "refurb" drives available from Seagate), I've not been disappointed.

The Western Digital drives I bought in 2001-2006 have not aged gracefully. Several of them get louder as they got older, often with loud whine and high-pitched noise. I had to replace a few of them simply because the noise drove me nuts. An external 400GB WD that I bought in late 2005 crashed last summer, and I had to pay about $1,300 to OnTrack for data recovery. It crashed in the middle of being backed up, how's that for irony? Maybe the WD drives are built different now, but I wait for Seagate sales, or opt for the lower cost Hitachi drives that have given me better luck. I've found the Seagate and Hitachi drives to be quiet, making less noise than even the slow-moving 120mm and 140mm fans.

2. Video card.

Because of the confusion that often ensues, I generally refer to these as "graphics cards" because it outputs computer graphics, not input/output of actual video content like TV, DVD, etc. (I overlook extra HDMI/s-video output, makes the conversation too complex.)

When it comes to computer graphics, it's really hard to beat ATI cards. As much as some people love nVidia (especially gaming fans), I've had my fair share of overheating/craptastic nVidia cards through the years. ATI had some overheating issues on various cards, here and there, but it was never as bad as nVidia from what I had experienced. Just look for user feedback on that exact card, be sure you don't see excessive negative comments about heat performance.

3. DVD burner.

Your best bet is for a Samsung drive, for SATA in 2010. I've had some luck with Sony OptiArc drives, too, but prefer the Samsungs. My last few drives came from Microcenter for $25-35 each. I did a few quick searches, and Geeks has them for $30-32 each, decent price -- visit http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3235990...xt-1_8-18-2006 and click on the "DVD Drives / DVD Burners" category on the left side of the site. (They also have a great deal on a Pioneer external drive for $40 right now, if you want an external cheap.)

Pioneer no longer makes their own drives, not for about a year now, they rebadged LiteOn drives mostly, which aren't as good as the Samsungs.

Whatever you get, don't buy an LG. Those drives as so super-crappy. The best LG I've ever used was the Blu-ray/HD-DVD ROM that burned DVD/CD. That one was okay, although I still worry about it's burn quality, and worry about the day it stops reading HD-DVD.

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01-08-2010, 11:04 PM
Scott Scott is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
Welcome back.
Hi admin, thanks!


Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
Windows 7 - As far as Windows 7 goes .... good luck. Most video-centric work is best done in Windows XP. Same for photo and pretty much anything else. Vista and Win7 both slurp up ungodly amounts of resources, pretty much negating the benefits of today's high-power hardware. The only real benefits of Vista and Win7 comes by using the 64-bit versions with 6GB+ RAM on a quad-core of faster. You seem to have that in the plans, so you'll probably be okay. Be prepared for a lot of software to not work well, especially freeware. Some of the best video/photo tools have quirks in the newer OS.
That's good to know, sounds like I'll need to keep my old WinXP computer on standby for video-related work. The new Win7 Pro is supposed to have an "XP emulation" mode or something similar, but I don't know how well it works. When it comes to video editing/production, I'm just a rookie with lots to learn, but I hope to transfer old home movies (both VHS and reel-type film from before VHS tapes) to digital at some point, both for restoration and to preserve, when I can find the time for my next project.


Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
IDE / SATA - There are crossover adapters! While it does not work the best with optical drives in all setups, it does work quite well for hard drives. Not all of the adapters are made equal either. I've had good luck using the ones from Geeks -- use this link http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3235990...xt-1_8-18-2006 and search for "bi-directional sata ide adapter" in the site SEARCH box at the top of the page. These work great for both IDE to SATA and SATA to IDE, if you want to access old hard drives (or use a SATA drive in an older IDE system). Several times, they've been fine with DVD burners, too.
Thanks for the info and the link, I'd like to use the (not so old) Pioneer in the new PC if I can make it work.


Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
And now for the questions...

1. Hard drive.

I suggest sticking to Western Digital or Seagate for the most reliable drives. That said, however, I've had some luck with Hitachi drives in the past few years here, no complaints, and the drives tend to be 10% or lower cost than the others.

The best deals tend to be at Amazon, Geeks .. sometimes Newegg, but not as much as people seem to believe. Use the links at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-com-1528.html if you would (it helps this site). If you live near a Fry's Electronics or Microcenter, compare prices there to the ones online. Sometimes it's lower, sometimes not.

I've preferred Seagate a lot more in recent years. Although some Seagate drives in 2008 had issues that required a firmware update (and thus explains the large amount of "refurb" drives available from Seagate), I've not been disappointed.

The Western Digital drives I bought in 2001-2006 have not aged gracefully. Several of them get louder as they got older, often with loud whine and high-pitched noise. I had to replace a few of them simply because the noise drove me nuts. An external 400GB WD that I bought in late 2005 crashed last summer, and I had to pay about $1,300 to OnTrack for data recovery. It crashed in the middle of being backed up, how's that for irony? Maybe the WD drives are built different now, but I wait for Seagate sales, or opt for the lower cost Hitachi drives that have given me better luck. I've found the Seagate and Hitachi drives to be quiet, making less noise than even the slow-moving 120mm and 140mm fans.
Unfortunately there's no Frys or MicroCenter nearby. I wish there was, MicroCenter has the i7-920 Intel cpu for $200, about $80-$90 less than I have found it anywhere else online. Their website shows it as being for "in store pickup" only.

The fans in my old Dell Dimension seem to be getting louder with age. It's not overwhelming, it's just the relentless background noise that really gets to me after a while. I found a website dedicated to quiet PC parts, it might be of interest to people here who haven't heard about it before: www.silentpcreveiw.com

Some of the articles and recommended parts lists are not up-to-date, but the Forum (and Forum archives) is very helpful.


Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
2. Video card.

Because of the confusion that often ensues, I generally refer to these as "graphics cards" because it outputs computer graphics, not input/output of actual video content like TV, DVD, etc. (I overlook extra HDMI/s-video output, makes the conversation too complex.)

When it comes to computer graphics, it's really hard to beat ATI cards. As much as some people love nVidia (especially gaming fans), I've had my fair share of overheating/craptastic nVidia cards through the years. ATI had some overheating issues on various cards, here and there, but it was never as bad as nVidia from what I had experienced. Just look for user feedback on that exact card, be sure you don't see excessive negative comments about heat performance.
The graphics card I'm hoping to get is one of the newer "gaming" cards from ATI/Radeon. It's expensive, but should be a good performer for at least the next 4 or 5 years. At first I was looking at a less expensive card and adding a second one in "crossfire" mode if needed, but it seems that running two graphics cards on this particular motherboard covers another PCI slot, and depending on what other cards I need to use, like a sound-card, that could be a problem. So, going with a higher-end single card is being somewhat dictated by the choice in motherboard. The motherboard was chosen (in part) due to stated/advertised support for the next generation of "hexacore" processors, preventing the need to upgrade motherboard and RAM memory for at least the next generation of cpu's. It also has onboard 6GB/sec SATA ports and USB 3.0 ports, so it's about as "future proof" as I could get, for a computer...


Quote:
Originally Posted by admin View Post
3. DVD burner.

Your best bet is for a Samsung drive, for SATA in 2010. I've had some luck with Sony OptiArc drives, too, but prefer the Samsungs. My last few drives came from Microcenter for $25-35 each. I did a few quick searches, and Geeks has them for $30-32 each, decent price -- visit http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3235990...xt-1_8-18-2006 and click on the "DVD Drives / DVD Burners" category on the left side of the site. (They also have a great deal on a Pioneer external drive for $40 right now, if you want an external cheap.)

Pioneer no longer makes their own drives, not for about a year now, they rebadged LiteOn drives mostly, which aren't as good as the Samsungs.

Whatever you get, don't buy an LG. Those drives as so super-crappy. The best LG I've ever used was the Blu-ray/HD-DVD ROM that burned DVD/CD. That one was okay, although I still worry about it's burn quality, and worry about the day it stops reading HD-DVD.
That's too bad about Pioneer, I was really hoping to stay with them. Classic rock (60s to early 70s, mostly) is my favorite music, and Pioneer has always been a familiar "brand" as far as home stereo components go. I've never had any "Samsung" components before. It's just a familiarity/comfort zone kind of thing, but if they're currently the best, I'll give them a try, depending on whether or not I can get my Pioneer to work with an adapter.

Thanks very much as always for the thorough reply,

Scott
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