If you have
been around long enough, you will notice this is the third
DVD Burner comparison I write for TechSpot. In our
first
round-up, written about two years ago, we reviewed what
could be considered second generation drives; these could
burn discs at 2x and 4x speeds, depending on the recording
format supported. During this, and even earlier stages, the
DVD recorder market used to struggle because of high prices,
expensive media, and slow burning speeds.
So, after a turbulent start, prices
began to drop, but media types became the focal point. This
left the customer baffled when they went shopping for media,
not knowing if their drive accepted DVD+ or DVD- formats. I
can’t imagine how many returns retail stores like Staples
and Office Max have gone through because of such customer
confusion… drive returns, media returns, what a darn mess!
About one year later, we showed you a
much better-looking picture in our
second round-up. Drives
could finally burn both formats almost without compromises,
and full disc compilations could be made in less than 10
minutes. What we showed you then were 8x and 12x generation
drives, which were sold for the magical price of $100, or
even a bit less if you went for OEM products.
DVD Burners have had a long way growing
towards maturity, and after reviewing these three heavy
hitters, I would say the technology has almost been
perfected. This time around we bring you last generation
units from LG, Plextor and NEC. Not only these will support
both kinds of media and burn them at 16x speeds, but also
support dual layer media, which means you can store ~8
gigabytes of information in one disk, these hot tamales do
it all!
Take a look to the following chart for
detailed burning capabilities in all drives:
Only three different products out of
the dozens you will likely find in the market may not
seem to be enough, however we were very careful when
choosing the drives for this round-up. These are some of
the most popular and acclaimed products by system
builders and enthusiasts alike.
Test Setup
This article was written on a test PC
with the following specifications:
ABIT
IS7 Motherboard
Intel
865PE Chipset
Intel
Pentium 4 Hyper-Threading Processor 2.8 GHz
512 MB
DDR PC3200 Ram @ 800MHz
GeForce 4 128MB Video Graphics Card
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
Antec
300W Power Supply
Dual Layer Technology
Dual layer technology was developed by
Philips in cooperation with MKN, and was first unleashed in
2003. This new technology allows you to store up to 8.5
gigabytes of data (approximately 4 hours of DVD-quality
video) on a single DVD dual layer disk. Here is a paragraph
I grabbed from the press release:
The dual-layer DVD+R system uses two
thin embedded organic dye films for data storage separated
by a spacer layer (see figure). Heating with a focused laser
beam irreversibly modifies the physical and chemical
structure of each layer such that the modified areas have
different optical properties to those of their unmodified
surroundings. This causes a variation in reflectivity as the
disc rotates to provide a read-out signal as with
commercially pressed read-only discs.
Basically, it’s like taking a thinner
layered single disk and adding a second layer to it.
Dual layer (DL) media is backward
compatible with current DVD players. But could it be too
good to be true, you ask? Well, there is a big
drawback. Currently, pricing for blank DL media is in the
$5-10 range per disk. That is very expensive compared to
less than 40 cents for a single layer DVD+R, but do realize
this is still new technology, so prices are expected to
continue dropping in the coming months, even more so once
blu-ray and other similar superior burning technology hits
retail.
