DVD burner with laptop or external

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I can get a DVD burner from Dell for $200 extra dollars or I can stay
with the base CDRW/DVD drive. I think I want to get a DVD burner
though and saw in price watch I can get an external for about $125.
Should I go the external route to save a few bucks? Is external
better? What brand would you suggest? Thanks

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

> I can get a DVD burner from Dell for $200 extra dollars or I can stay
> with the base CDRW/DVD drive. I think I want to get a DVD burner
> though and saw in price watch I can get an external for about $125.
> Should I go the external route to save a few bucks? Is external
> better? What brand would you suggest? Thanks

Well, I would say that it all depends on how much DVD creation you plan on
doing -- and what formats you want to be able to support.

When I got my last laptop (little under a year ago now), it only came with a
CDRW/DVD player. I didn't plan on doing anything with DVD-RW at the time,
but only a couple weeks after having the laptop got into digitizing old VHS
stuff that I filmed years ago. So, began to look at burners.

I knew I wanted a burner that would prove to be solid, stable, and capable
of handing all the DVD formats. (DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW). So,
started lurking on different video newsgroups, reading web sites, etc.
Finally decided on a Pioneer DVR-AO6U, which is an internal 5 1/4 slot
drive. To be able to use it with a laptop, I bought a converter kit that
allows 5 1/4 type drives to be ran externally. (Basically, its just a small
box, with an internal power supply, and has a firewire/USB controller that
integrates with the hardware you want to convert.)

A little bit costly when I got it year ago, but didn't have much options for
DVD-R/W's that worked with all formats. I couldn't be happier with it
though. I've done literally hundreds of burns now as after I transfered
home VHS stuff for myself other family members wanted me to make them a
copy. Eventually, had friends/family asking me to transfer their VHS stuff
to DVD.

Great toy. Making DVD menus is fun too. Also great for doing hard drive
backups.

I'm not recommending the Pioneer DVR-AO6U specifically, surely you can
probably find a faster drive now for much cheaper. (IIRC, I paid like $350
for the drive alone. Its probably like $100 now. LOL. Don't you just love
how hardware depreciates in value overnight?) :^)

If you can live with the specs for the Pioneer DVR-AO6U now, and see it
cheap somewhere, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it though. It has proved
to be rock solid. (At the time, it was "the" drive, recommended by video
sites, if you were doing quite a bit of home DVD video creation.) Probably
is a successor to it by now, I'm sure.

Also, I don't use the DVD-RW for playing CD's, DVD's, burning CD's, etc. I
only use it for DVD creation. Hopefully that will give it a long lifespan.

Anyway, sorry I couldn't give an exact answer -- but I would definetly
recommend considering what type of use you plan on having mainly with it and
doing some reading (newsgroups, video web sites, etc) before deciding on a
drive.