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Data Storage Upgrades Hardware

Super-Fast Dual-Layer DVD Writing 189

Posted by timothy from the plain-white-wrapper dept.
An anonymous reader writes "If you've been putting off buying a dual layer DVD burner because they're so slow, check this out. The latest NEC drive burns dual-layer disks at 4x, writing over 8gb in 25 minutes. It also burns-single layer disks at 16x on both formats."
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Super-Fast Dual-Layer DVD Writing More

Super-Fast Dual-Layer DVD Writing

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  • Super FASTER Dual-Layer DVD Writing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:09PM (#10357150)
    Toshiba just introduced the SD-R5372 [toshiba.com] with 5x dual layer writing.

    What I want to know is when more of these drives will start coming out with Serial ATA interfaces. Yes, they don't need the speed, but it would be nice to buy new drives in the format they're migrating to for other reasons.

  • It's the media, not the drive. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by explorer ( 42481 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:13PM (#10357167)
    No, the drives have been cheap for awhile. It's the expensive media that makes it pointless right now. Last I checked, Ritek DVD+R dual-layer blanks were going for $9.50/each. Thanks but no thanks.

  • When will the format wars end? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:13PM (#10357172)
    Do the "do every format" DVD writers like this just mean that there will be no single DVD format, or will one format eventually win out? Then again, with DVD writers becoming almost, if not as cheap as CD burners, is there really any point in waiting to get a DVD burner?
    • Nah, there's no point in waiting any more.

      As far as standards and compatibility is concerned, who knows??? I know that my powerbook only accepts DVD-R media, my Pioneer standalone player in my home theatre rack plays both + and -.

      So, regardless of the standards, I can use my sub-100 dvd[+-]R burner in my pc to do what works for me, regardless of what "standards" are going to be victorious.

      Dual layer media is too expensive at this time to consider it for everyday use, imo.

      So, there, I answered p
    • yeah right, like there is a single HD format....
    • There's no point in waiting and hasn't been for a while. There's only a significant difference between formats when writing, so your only concern has ever been getting new media, not compatibility of written media. Since dual format drives came out, there's nothing to stop you.

      I've had a dual-format sony for a couple of years. I just buy whatever media is in stock and cheap.

      And as you say, the recorders are cheap. I saw Office-somebody had dual-format writers for $40 last week. Just go get one.
    • I have a 4x TDK burner. I've been looking at all these new, fast, cheaper drives, but for me, none of them are worth it (and neither was the 4x I bought for the sake of spending money).

      One reason:
      Video editing and DVD authoring in linux are flaky at best. =\

      If anyone has good and CURRENT info on it, I'd be thrilled. Screwing with dvdauthor, mencoder, and transcode has just really overcome any sort of value. =\
    • Then again, with DVD writers becoming almost, if not as cheap as CD burners, is there really any point in waiting to get a DVD burner?

      The only reason to get one is if you need one.

      Now this may sound simple, but just because a DVD burner costs So the real question becomes, do you need it? I had a coworker who wanted in on an order to newegg a couple of years ago. He wanted a new 30 GB drive, and they had just dropped in price. I think they were still around $100 though. He got the drive and because h

  • All very nice but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:14PM (#10357177) Homepage Journal
    I wonder when the dual layer media is going to reach a sensible price.

    With the recent constant reductions in price the writers will be cheaper than the discs before long.

  • Pioneer DVR-108 does the same (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:16PM (#10357192)
    The pioneer DVR-108 has a 4x DL and a 16x for both single layer formats. I bought one for $10 less than the 107 which doesn't do DL.
    • Yeah, and my dvr-108 is already installed in my computer for weeks. so what is the news about 4x DL writing?
    • I've been reading reviews on CDRinfo [cdrinfo.com] for quite a while and it looks like every drive has drawbacks.

      Some have low CDR/CDRW writing speeds, some have slow DAE, some have high error rates, some cannot deal with popular copy protection schemes, some cannot overburn, some balk at cheaper media...

      It almost seems like you need to get several different optical drives for optimal performance.

      I hope that Plextor's upcoming model [cdrinfo.com] is worth waiting for.

  • I've got one (Score:5, Informative)

    by Buelldozer ( 713671 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:18PM (#10357202)
    This drive rocks! It's quiet, fast, and I've flashed the firmware to make it both region free AND faster than factory.

    Newegg for $77, what could be better?

  • Quality of write? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:28PM (#10357254)
    Has anyone done any tests on the quality of the drive's writes? I have a Lite-On 8x DVD+/-R drive that everyone raves about, combined with 8x Taiyo Yuden media. I burn them at 4x, and I *still* have to let Nero verify the write every time, with 1 out of 8 or so being bad burns. I'm more concerned about my burned DVDs being readable in a few years than I am about speed. Maybe I just got a bad drive?

    • Re:Quality of write? (Score:5, Informative)

      by markus_baertschi ( 259069 ) <markus@@@markus...org> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:49PM (#10357370)

      The extensive DVD-writer & media tests in CT I've been reading show that almost all DVD-writers have quality problems when writing faster than 2x. Media quality is a big problem and you have to find which media your writer happens to like.

      I think this is an even greater problem then the DVD+/- controversy. Most writers write both these days, you know hat you get before you buy. But many media/writer combinations have quality problems and here you don't know if you'll get a usable result in advance.

      Markus

    • For the NEC drives, check CD Freaks NEC forum [cdfreaks.com]. For other drives, check their Recording Hardware Forum [cdfreaks.com].

      (No I'm not trying to be a karma whore by posting this twice.)

    • Re:Quality of write? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alorelith ( 118865 )
      LiteOn DVD burners have a major problem with DVD-R media, in my experience. I have to verify EVERYTHING I burn with my remaining DVD-R media. All the +R stuff I get works the first time, and it's not even TY, just RICOHJPN (which is admittedly not too bad). So either you are using -R media, your drive is bad, or your media is iffy (hard to believe for TY).

    • I haven't had any problems with burning DVDs at 4x--in fact, my drive refuses to burn at anything less. Which is why all this talk of 16x writers worries me:

      $ echo $[1385*16]
      22160
      $ hdparm -Tt /dev/loop7 # cryptoloop
      Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.02 seconds = 21.16 MB/sec
      $ test $[2116*1024/100] -lt 22160 && echo ':('
      :(
    • You may have fake Taiyo Yuden media.

      Apparently [cdfreaks.com] there are lots of fake Taiyo Yuden discs circulating. They have the same media code (TYG02) as the real discs, but the discs are of inferior quality, and definitely not made by TY.

      The same thing happened back when 2x drives were popular, there were some companies (mainly Princo) who used TDK's media code, so that they could trick the burners into burning the discs at 2x. The only problem is that most of these discs were awful even at 1x, and you'd wind up
    • I bought an 8x burner but 4x media was cheaper so I've been burning at 4x. No errors so far except for one tiny file that requires me to read it twice occasionally. Paranoia makes me verify my burn with my own custom verifier.

      One Problem - I burned a multisession disk and closed it after 4 sessions - then it wasn't readable. Now I just create single session disks by filling DVD RW first and then copying to DVD R.

      The DVD RW almost feels like a hard disk for occasional work

      I'm keeping an MD5 hash on every

  • Sony to announce experimental 8 layer 200 GB ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pentium69 ( 734323 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:32PM (#10357270) Homepage
    Here is an extract from this story http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10540/ [cdfreaks.com]

    Whilst we wait for dual layer media to tumble in price, we can satisfy our craving by contemplating this news release from PC World. According to this article, Sony has cast caution to the wind and developed an 8 layer 200 gigabyte Blu-ray disc. Although they have not decided whether to commercialize such a product, they are saying a 4 layer 100 gigabyte version is expected to hit the consumer market within the next 2 years.

    Do you think movies will be distributed on this media? DVDShrink compression ratio will be like 1% !!!
  • on a maxed 1st generation G5, right?

  • Old news (Score:3, Interesting)

    by __aailob1448 ( 541069 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:37PM (#10357307) Journal
    I've had my 3500A for about a month now. It offers a great performance/value ratio in theory. In practice, Dual Layer media is prohibitively expensive, as are high speed Single layer DVD+-R so I'm still burning single layer at 4X...

    It's nice to know that My Nec is able to do much better though.

    • Not so sure what you consider to be expensive for single layer media. I just picked up a 50 pack of inkjet printable, Ritek 8x +R discs for under $30.

      I'll admit that isn't the traditional free-after-rebate thta we're all used to for crappy CD-Rs, but $0.60 a disc with a near-zero coaster rate in a printable product counts as darned cheap to me.

      BTW - I'm using a 2500 and a 2500A in my two machines with burners. The only readability issues I've had are with RW discs in non-recordable drives and consumer pla

  • Prices for blank dual layers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StateOfTheUnion ( 762194 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:38PM (#10357315) Homepage
    I heard a rumor that part of the reason blank Dual Layer DVD's are so expensive (besides the fact that the technology is new and that margins are probably high at the top of the performance curve) is that production yields of dual layer blank platters are currently very low . . . Has anyone heard anything similar? Or was this a groundless rumor?

    • Re:Prices for blank dual layers (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:53PM (#10357392)
      Well according to this article: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/129 [cdfreaks.com]

      According to Philips the production of the media should not be much more complicated than the production of current dual layer DVD-ROM discs. Mrs. Harpe of Philips Consumer Electronics says: "It's too early to be specific about prices. However, we can say that the production process of dual layer DVD+R is similar to DVD9 production.


      So sounds groundless to me.
      • Not nessecerily, as production yields for DVD9 disks are already below single layer disks. It requires some more specialized machinery to combine the disk layers, and such machinery will probably need to be modified to work with recordable dye media.

        • Hmm. Well, if we consider that (imaginary) production yeld for a single layer is y=0.9, then for double layer it will be y^2*combination_yeld (again, imaginary 0.9). That alone would make it at 0.73.

          I know jack about this, but I'd imagine they check at most optically disk surfaces before packaging them up. Not that they can record some test on them (apart from sampling the batch).

    • ...dual layer burners are now cheap and abundant. But production of dual-layer DVDs hasn't really ramped up yet. Result? You have a large market who, even if they each just buy a few dual layer discs, is enough to keep the price high.

      Kjella

  • Anyone have experience with a dual-layer drive and a G5? Are the drivers there? Does Toast support them?

  • Technology wanted: FMD-ROM 140GB (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wills ( 242929 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @07:03PM (#10357428)
    I am still waiting very patiently for the 140GB FMD-ROM (Fluorescent Multilayer Disk Read-Only Memory), "slated to be ready before the end of the year" (2000) [slashdot.org], manufactured by that truly stellar company Constellation 3D Inc. with laboratories in Israel and Russia.

    As it happens, the most cost-effective high-capacity storage technology remains the hard-drive based on magnetic media.

  • Great but what about Blu-Ray RECORDABLE discs?

    Can anyone tell me of a press release stating that Sony or one of it's partners plans on selling discs you can burn any data too? Or is Blu-Ray a read-only solution? I have not seen any edvidence that Sony plans to put BD-DVD burning tech for the PS3 or any other future product of thiers.

    I only ask this because I got this dumb for brains friend who's 'waiting' for 30GB rewritable discs to come on in the next 2 years. Trying to explain to him that this $79 N
    • Sony already has Blu-Ray writers. Unfortunately, I only know of one current application for them, and that is in the realm of professional video production. Sony's line of XDCAM equipment uses a form of Blu-Ray technology. To quote [camcorderinfo.com]:
      • The new XDCAM disks include 23.3 GB of storage capacity as well as random access file selection. The disk itself is housed in a rugged plastic case that increases durability far beyond the normal DVD. Worthy of note is the differentiation between the blue-violet lasers used in

  • Write both layers at once? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thai-Pan ( 414112 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @07:08PM (#10357458) Journal
    I can't help but wonder if it's possible to write to both layers at once.

  • When will read/write optical media be enough? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @07:31PM (#10357579) Homepage

    One of the big problems now are the high cost of decent tape backup systems. The drives are expensive, and the media is expensive, but it is about the only choice out there.

    Backup needs to be as large as, or close to, the size of disks. Backup media have to be cheap enough so multiple copies of the data can be made, and some of it stored offsite.

    With disks growing far more than any other media, tape is barely catching up, and optical media (Rewritable CDs, and rewritable DVDs) is way behind.

    What we need is to have a reasonably prices read/write medium as large as existing disks, so one can keep a daily backup (5 work days or 7 week days), and an offsite monthly backup.

    So, we need a standard format Rewritable DVD media that is 40 or 80 GB, and the technology to grow quickly to keep up with 120 and 250 GB disks.

    (Before you say USB 2.0 external hard drives, these are good and all, but you need many of those to have a daily backup and some of them offsite too).

  • Hey Look!! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    only $372 for a 30 pack of dvd-r dual layer disks. http://www.meritline.com/dl-dvd-r-dual-double-laye r-verbatim.html [meritline.com] what a bargain.
  • This is news? More like a thinly veiled advertisement. The drive isn't even that new.

  • Great Product (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Arjuna01 ( 85430 ) <mmcgurty@spa[ ]p.net ['mco' in gap]> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @08:09PM (#10357915) Homepage
    I bought this DVD writer for my Dad for his birthday for $85.00 shipped from Newegg.com. Writes highly reliably at DVD-R 8X (Taiyo Yuden media). I bought mine a week later in a different color also from Newegg.com for $81.00 shipped. Newegg.com has great deals on OEM versions of this drive, and they ship Federal Express Saver which is cheap and fast. I highyl recommend this drive along with Taiyo Yuden media from rima.com. I have not seen 16X DVD-R media yet, nor have I found anyplace that sells dual-layer media for under like $14.00/disc. I'll not be doing dual-layer writes until the price comes to about $1.00/disc. We'll see it probably soon though.
  • Is it likely that these DVD+R DL capable drives will have a firmware patch to give compatability with DVD-R DL discs when they emerge? I bought a DVR-108 and I'm still waiting for a Mac flasher to get the latest firmware.
    • Highly unlikely. The capabilities of the drive (in terms of how fast it can write to media, and whether it can write to -R or +R) is determined by the actual hardware in the drive.

      There have been some cases of some older LiteOn drives being upgraded to do dual-layer +R discs, but that's due to the way that LiteOn actually writes to them (or so the people in charge of the hacks say).

      Plus, you bought a Pioneer drive... Pioneer is notorious for not releasing firmware upgrades to unlock new functionality.
  • I'm currently using cheap Princo 4x media. (Not too nasty so far, no coasters out of about 15 burns, but who knows how long it will last). So far I'm very very happy with the drive, but I'm certainly not pushing it to its limits.

    I did see a strange MCI device problem where neither videos or DVDs would play. Reinstalling sound/media drivers didn't help. Nor did uninstalling and reinstalling the drives. What did help strangely enough was disabling the new drive and re-enabling it. Windows XP pro basically go

  • ND-2510A (Score:3, Interesting)

    by atomic-penguin ( 100835 ) <wolfe21@marsFREEBSDhall.edu minus bsd> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @10:50PM (#10359251) Homepage Journal
    If the ND-3500 is anything like the 2510A, I highly recommend NEC dvd burners. I bought the 2510A about a month ago, and have used it quite a bit to burn Data-CDs and homemade DVD-Video. Haven't tried out the dual-layer capabilities, because I am unable to find dual-layer media off the shelf. It burns fast, reliably, and they are reasonably priced.

  • Give me cheap media over speed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by __aamkky7574 ( 654183 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @07:21AM (#10361019)
    The problem with dual-layer burners at the moment isn't really the speed but the price of the blank media. I got an NEC 2510a for the ridiculously cheap price of 80, which burns dual-layer at 2.4x - more than acceptable in my book. However, while I can get good-quality single layer blanks for around 60c each, dual-layer blanks are around 6. So I'll be holding off on those for a while, I think....

    P.
  • NEC ND-3500A 16x4x16x DVD+R/RW 16x4x16x DVD-R/RW 48x24x48x CD-R/RW 8.4GB 4x +R9 Dual-Layer IDE Optical Burner Drive

    Get them while they are hot [xpcgear.com]

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