DVD Burner

**DaveBrawl** · 11-02-2009, 09:36 AM

Question for all of you tech savvy gentlemen (and ladies) out there. What would be the best dvd burner I can buy for a reasonable amount of money (ie not a fortune)?

My mom wants to convert the old video she and dad used to take of my brother and I every year before the first day of school over to dvd because the tapes are so old and she doesn't want to lose the footage.

She's already bought the VHS conversion device and wanted me to convert it to DVD, so I started to do it here recently and found my computer apparently didn't come with a dvd burner. She was going to take it to Walgreens or some other joint to get it done instead of putting more money into an expensive burner, but the prices for that are ridiculous as well so I'm just gonna get the burner and do it....I just need to know which to get. I'm guessing external would be the way to go even if it is a little more pricey. That way I won't have to hack up my case, and I can just unplug it when I'm done with it, because I doubt I will be using it all that often.

So tell me TPWW, what is the best choice?

**Jura** · 11-02-2009, 11:53 AM

Shouldn't be much of a problem. Just replace your old drive with the dvd burner. It's just a matter of putting in two cables and your PC will take care of installing it.

Internal:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...25%20-%20%2450

External:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...50%20-%20%2475

It seems external is about double the price of internal. If you really don't want to open up your case and you can settle for the double in price go for it but it's like the easiest thing to do to your computer aside from installing ram. The only thing you should be aware of is if it's IDE or SATA. I got a Lite-On drive but recently it decided not to read any CD's only DVDs so I can't recommend them from personal experience.

**DaveBrawl** · 11-02-2009, 02:53 PM

Yeah I have no problem opening up the case, especially if it's that much more. I was just reading about a couple of them this morning and it seemed like the internal drives were so much slower at burning regular cd's for some reason (reviews didn't really explain why) so I was thinking if it wasn't much difference I'd go external.

Now that you mention it I should probably get a little more RAM too. Not related to the cd burner, but I figure the computer could probably use more speed. Thanks.

**Matchbox** · 11-02-2009, 05:03 PM

You'll probably need more Ram anyway. Some of the conversion programs are memory hogs.

**DaveBrawl** · 11-03-2009, 02:17 PM

Very likely. I downloaded Nero months ago when I tried to make something else thinking maybe I had a dvd burner, but i had no blank dvd's to try it with so I ended up making a very sucky video cd. However the option was available to use, and last night I was flipping through the computer manual and it gave a very brief description on how to make dvd's with the computer so maybe it will indeed do it. I looked at the device manager to check and see and it just lists cd/rw or something along those lines. So that pretty much told me it wouldn't do it. I'm just going to get a pack of dvd's and try and see if it works then if not then I'll get the burner.

**DaveBrawl** · 11-03-2009, 09:49 PM

Ok tried doing it and got a warning about not having the right drivers or hardware or something. So back to Jura's drawing board.

11-02-2009, 11:53 AM	#2
Jura ▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬ Posts: 16,011	Shouldn't be much of a problem. Just replace your old drive with the dvd burner. It's just a matter of putting in two cables and your PC will take care of installing it. Internal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...25%20-%20%2450 External: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...50%20-%20%2475 It seems external is about double the price of internal. If you really don't want to open up your case and you can settle for the double in price go for it but it's like the easiest thing to do to your computer aside from installing ram. The only thing you should be aware of is if it's IDE or SATA. I got a Lite-On drive but recently it decided not to read any CD's only DVDs so I can't recommend them from personal experience.

11-02-2009, 02:53 PM	#3
DaveBrawl Inconceivable Posts: 9,887	Yeah I have no problem opening up the case, especially if it's that much more. I was just reading about a couple of them this morning and it seemed like the internal drives were so much slower at burning regular cd's for some reason (reviews didn't really explain why) so I was thinking if it wasn't much difference I'd go external. Now that you mention it I should probably get a little more RAM too. Not related to the cd burner, but I figure the computer could probably use more speed. Thanks.

11-02-2009, 05:03 PM	#4
Matchbox I'm Matchbox Posts: 10,465	You'll probably need more Ram anyway. Some of the conversion programs are memory hogs.

11-03-2009, 02:17 PM	#5
DaveBrawl Inconceivable Posts: 9,887	Very likely. I downloaded Nero months ago when I tried to make something else thinking maybe I had a dvd burner, but i had no blank dvd's to try it with so I ended up making a very sucky video cd. However the option was available to use, and last night I was flipping through the computer manual and it gave a very brief description on how to make dvd's with the computer so maybe it will indeed do it. I looked at the device manager to check and see and it just lists cd/rw or something along those lines. So that pretty much told me it wouldn't do it. I'm just going to get a pack of dvd's and try and see if it works then if not then I'll get the burner.

11-03-2009, 09:49 PM	#6
DaveBrawl Inconceivable Posts: 9,887	Ok tried doing it and got a warning about not having the right drivers or hardware or something. So back to Jura's drawing board.