CD Re-writers

[w hole]

Hello All

I have been thinking about getting one of the above.

I am new to this side of Computing, so wonder if anyone who has some experinece can give me some guidelines, or a DO and DON'T list.

I want to be able to make some Audio CDs and also do some Data Storage.

Kind regards

W. Hole

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@w hole: very simple really,
dont spend an awful lot of money on one
do get one with BURNPROOF
do get a reasonable speed ones, often quoted as , for example, 40x16x10 means 40x read, 16x write and 10x rewrite (1x being the speed of audio cd reading @150kb/s). So the higher the speed the better. Do bear in mind that if you want to write VCD for your DVD or Audio CD for the more "expensive" sound systems, anything faster than 16x WRITE is a no-no cos CDs you make wont be readable.
dont buy scsi cdwriter unless you have no other choice, ie if your pc doesnt support Ide.
do install the cdwriter on 2nd ide channel (preferably on its own) and absolutely NOT on the same ide channel as your primary ide channel
finally, blank CDs are cheap, anything from 9.75p to £2.00 is acceptable. dont go with the saleman blur that you must buy audio graded cd to burn audio cd, that only applies when you have a recordable audio hifi.

Other than those points, the world is your oyster really.

 

[w hole]

Thanks DragOnfly

Much appreciated.

Can you tell me what BURNPROOF is and why I will need it?

I have been looking at one made by Mirror with the following specs :

Fast 800mb Data/Video/Music Recording
48 x Write
12 x Rewrite
48 x Read
EIDE/ATA Interface
Includes Nero Recording Software
Both CD-RW + CD-R compatible

£44.99 inc VAT

Any thoughts on that, there is no mention of BURNPROOF unfortunately.

Kind regards

W.H.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@w hole: burnproof is a technology which delivers the data to the CDWriter in a constant stream, preventing buffer-underrun which makes the Writer stops in middle of a write operation rendering the blank CD useless.

without burnproof, you have to stop all other programs running, including antivirus, screensaver etc during a CD writing session.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@w hole:

the cdwriter you're looking at seems ok, although there's cd at slightly cheaper @ www.scan.co.uk or www.dabs.com

800mb is not compatible with old cd players, blank cd is also expensive. most cd players can cope with 700mb and cheaper blanks.

couldnt find out who makes or sells your Mirror CDwriter to read and see if it has burnproof, also cd makers use other technologies to prevent buffer underrun. it pays to look for those.

 

[lee32uk]

The Lite-on CDRW drives are good.I have one myself.Aria computers sell one for £48.18.It has Smart-Burn technology too (Burnproof).Also usually comes with Nero burning software too.

www.aria.co.uk

Lee

 

[w hole]

Hello both

Thanks again for the info.

The Mirror is sold by PC World [Net Only].

I have had another look, and it doesn't mention if it is Burnproof, so I have sent them an Email to see if they know. This might take some time, is there any other way of finding out?

Regards

W.Hole

 

[Burnt Chips]

W HOLE: Ive got a Ricoh Mp9120a you can have for £30 +p&p
its a cd writer/rewriter/cd player +DVD player (cost me £130 a year ago) surplus to me as mine all scsi now. I will also throw in a real magic Dvd card £50) never got it to work on my setup(card that is. Pm me if u want. Dave

 

[w hole]

Thanks for the offer Dave - see pm.

Can anyone tell me what sor of audio quality I can expect to get when copying a CD.

If I have the time/patience/software etc. can I actually produce an exact copy in full hi-fi?

Regards

W.H.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@w hole: if you stick the original cd into the drive, click cdcopy, you'd get an exact copy (cant do it if it has copyprotection, but it's rare). Usually takes 5mins to produce a copy.

 

[lee32uk]

If you use CloneCD you can copy virtually anything Tried copying win XP with Nero and it didnt want to know....with Clone no problems ;)

Lee

 

[lee32uk]

Just found this link on another Forum.Its for the website 'Jungle' who are selling a CDRW for £9.99 while stocks last.Might be a bargain for someone.

http://www.jungle.com/webapp/wcs/st...d=-1&productId=11208381000&itemId=11208381001


Lee

 

[jimbo]

That's a bargain ok Lee and I do know the Phillips burning software is very user friendly. In my opinion Nero Burning is more difficult which is why I use Roxio CD Creator 5 (fomerly adeptec).

Jungle are a great company and I used to visit their shops when they were the Software Warehouse. I recently purchased a HP 845C desk jet printer from them for a friend. Cost was £49 and came with 2 cartridges.

Jimbo

 

[s*t*a*r*m*a*n]

Nero burning rom 5.5 has to be the easiest software out there.
it has a wizard which takes you through the process of creating a disc be it audio cd, data cd, multi session or dvd. I have a plextor which is a professional make mainly due to it being able to copy raw mode which is very useful when making a back up of an original with protection on it but i think plextor changed there firmware in the later 24 speed models so they do not may not copy as well but would advise researching this rumour. Dvd burners like the pioneer 04 are also capable of burning audio cds or dvds. The pioneer 04 dvd burner has an excellent sound reproduction on audios and has 0 errors to 0.1 when extracting the image under tests. It is now being superceded by the 05 which has just became available on the market. The 04 is a 2x speed and the 05 is 4x speed which burns a dvd in 15 minutes.#
Obviously this may be out of budget range as cd/rw drives are very cheap but not all models are as good as others at audio extraction.

Buffer Underrun

"A buffer underrun occurs when your computer system cannot keep up the steady stream of data required for CD recording. The CD recorder has an internal memory buffer to protect against interruptions and slowdowns, but if the interruption is so long that the recorder's buffer is completely emptied, a buffer underrun occurs, writing stops, and most often the recordable CD is ruined."

burnproof writers avoid the above problem.

the webite link below is highly recommended
it will take you what they recommend are the top 5 cdrw burners.
this site is full of information on cd copying.

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_writers.shtml

 

[Old Satellite]

A word of caution to all CDRW would be purchasers.

The sell through of 40 x and 48 x and 52 x write speeds are not what they really are !.

None of them can actually write a full disk at this speed the technolgy for writing uses both CAV and CLV the CAV aspect is used to obatin the addition writing speed at a certain area of the disc.

CAV is constant Angular velocity
CLV is constant linear velocity

The actual time for the complete writing of a CDRW from a 16 X to a supposed 52 X is minmal unless you are going to be burning hundreds of discs.

Also check out the leatest drives for the newer Mount Ranier functionality this will greatly improve the usability of CDRW in the near future when Microsoft implements the new format has a standard.

Also if you are quick you can still catch some of the 1 st generation DVD RW that have a full CDRW functionality for around a 100 pounds.


Next year you can expect the CDRW business to slowly change towards a Combi drive ( CDRW with DVD rom ) and also the pace of DVDRW will increase has the price continues to fall.

I agree with the information provided to ensure that you purchase a drive with Burn proof technology.

You can also check out thew CDRW information site for the latest in the market and software downloads etc.

Link is provided below.
http://www.cdrinfo.com

Regards


Old Satellite

 

[Jontydog]

I have just bought an MSI Dragonwriter 48x12x48 for £46 from Micro Direct in Manchester and can strongly recommend it. It has Exactlink which is the equivalent to burnproof. The only bad cds I have had using it are from bad original copies.

 

[s*t*a*r*m*a*n]

Prehaps interesting to someone. Regarding Karaoke discs.
i am a fan of karaoke down the pub and like to entertain the masses any chance i get.

Karaoke discs cd+g (karaoke + graphics) can only be played and burned by certain models of cd-r burner. One make is the Plextor.
My 16/10/40A can do this but many cannot.

just thought i would mention that.

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@starman: have u ever heard of Realorche? written by creative labs (sound blasters) programers from Korea. It's a windows karaoke prog, brilliant, you can down the songs from various places and sing to your heart content. My kids love it, they can sing to sk8ter boy and dirrty all day long, i install it on the laptop, keep them occupy on long car journey.

 

[pixey]

Dragonfly_69, I can't understand why you have written this
"dont buy scsi cdwriter unless you have no other choice, ie if your pc doesnt support Ide. " because apart from being more expensive than ide, scsi is the dogs danglies, uses a lot less processor power, can truely copy on the fly without making disk images because it doesn't use the ide bus.

pixey

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

@pixey: back in the good old days, IDE could only manage 33Mbits/sec then it was a good idea to buy SCSI drive only and they were the only reliable drives around. These days with modern ATA interface, we're looking at 100MBits/sec or 133Mbits/sec also CD writers nowaday have enormous buffers (2-8MB, pathetically big!), it wouldnt make economic sense to buy scsi, typically an IDE drive costs between £40-£80 and a scsi drive will set you back £120 min. Plus you have to install scsi card in your pc, mess about with drive id, etc.. with IDE cd writers you could also copy "on-the-fly", i have never had any problem with that. and a motherboard with scsi built-in tends to cost a lot more than a "plain" motherboard. With the introduction of Firewire and USB2, there is no longer a need for external scsi cd writers. Gradually we'll see less and less of anything scsi. BTW, do you know how much a scsi3 cable with 7 devices cost? It'll set you back nearly £100! A 2-device scsi3 is about £38. an external LV160 cable will set you back some £120, what a rip-off.