DVD Burner FAQ & Review

A CD burner, which connects to your computer, can both play and create CDs. DVD burners, on the other hand, are a bit more advanced and can both play and create CDs and DVDs. With a burner, discs are loaded and unloaded via a sliding tray, and they're read using a laser, just like in your CD or DVD player. The laser shines on the reflective inner layer of a disc, detecting differences that are patterned to represent data. But unlike a regular CD or DVD player, a burner's laser can also create--or burn--these data marks.

Still, you can't just stick an old Michael Bolton CD into a burner and write over it (much as you might want to). Burners use a few different kinds of discs, each for a slightly different task. A DVD burner can read CD-ROMs, such as a store-bought music CD, and DVD-Videos, such as your store-bought copy of Toy Story. A DVD burner can also read and write data on a CD-R disc--the R stands for recordable--as well as on DVD-R and DVD+R discs (don't worry, we'll explain the differences between -R and +R later). Additionally, most CD and DVD burners can also read and write data on rewritable discs, which you can rewrite over and over again (about 1,000 times); a rewritable CD is referred to as a CD-RW, and rewritable DVDs come in a few formats, including DVD+RW, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM.

          
They look the same, but there are some important
differences between DVD and CD burners.

What's the difference between a CD burner and a DVD burner?
 

In this guide, we'll concentrate primarily on DVD burners. Why? All DVD burners can burn CDs, but CD-only burners won't burn or even play DVD media of any kind. Furthermore, DVD burners have become so affordable that there are fewer reasons to buy a CD-only burner

X Speed

Shorthand terms are used to describe how fast a burner performs. A CD-RW drive rated 52X/32X/52X can write a CD-R at 52X, write a CD-RW at 32X, and read a CD at 52X. The X stands for times the original transfer rate of a disc. For a CD, the original transfer rate is 150 kilobytes (KB) per second; so 52X would equal 7.8 megabytes (MB) per second, and 32X would come to 4.8MB per second (1MB equals 1,000KB). Note that those are only the maximum ratings, however--you'll need a 52X-rated CD to capitalize on the drive's speed potential; depending on the task, the disc, and the drive, the transfer rate still may not reach 52X. Another thing to know about the max rating: at 16X and above, CD-RW drives write in speed zones. In other words, they start off slow and incrementally increase their speed until they're writing at full velocity.

DVD drives are rated the same way. A DVD burner rated 4X/2X/12X can write DVDs at 4X, rewrite at 2X, and read at 12X. However, newer DVD drives are increasingly referred to by their plus and dash recording speeds only. For example, the latest batch of burners is often called 8X8 drives--meaning that they can write both DVD+R and DVD-R at 8X. This is to distinguish them from the first batch of 8X drives which burned DVD+R at 8X but DVD-R at only 4X.

DVDs' original 1X transfer rate is 1.385MB per second--much faster than CDs'--and an 8X DVD drive can transfer data at a whopping 11.08MB per second. Like CD-RW drives, DVD writing at 8X and above occurs in speed zones. There are currently only two DVD speed zones, and the upshift occurs early in the process, so the difference between the rating and the actual time to write a disc is pretty close. Take note that DVD-RAM's 1X transfer rate is about 700KB per second, making it much slower to burn than other DVD media.

The table below translates CD and DVD speeds into their approximate burning times.

HOW TIME FLIES: APPROXIMATE CD AND DVD BURNING TIMES

X rating	Time to burn a 650MB CD	Time to burn a 4.7GB DVD
1X	80 minutes	58 minutes
2X	40 minutes	29 minutes
2.4X (DVD+RW only)	---	24 minutes
4X	20 minutes	14.5 minutes
8X	10 minutes	8.5 minutes
12X	6 minutes	N/A
16X maximum	5 minutes	N/A
24X maximum	3.3 minutes	N/A
32X maximum	3 minutes	N/A
40X maximum	3 minutes, 20 seconds	N/A
48X maximum	2 minutes, 40 seconds	N/A
52X maximum	2 minutes, 20 seconds	N/A

CD burners, at 52X, have already reached their maximum speed, but DVD burners are expected to continue to climb to 16X. Unless scientists develop new technology (which they might), 52X and 16X seem to be as fast as the respective media can spin without breaking up.

Formats: What They Mean

Trying to make sense out of the alphabet soup of DVD formats--the mysterious jumble of pluses and minuses, Rs and Ws, and RAMs and ROMS--may trigger a high-school algebra flashback. We won't spend too much time on why these various formats exist--suffice it to say that competing vendors have differing philosophies and market agendas. Panasonic and the DVD Forum are primarily responsible for the original DVD-RAM and DVD-R/RW formats, while Philips and a splinter group, the DVD Alliance, have pioneered the DVD+R/RW alternative.

  
We have the DVD Forum and its rival, the DVD Alliance,
 to thank for the confusion that surrounds DVD formats.

CD formats are fairly simple and come in two flavors: CD-R recordable and CD-RW rewritable (note that the dash isn't spoken; it's pronounced CDR and CDRW). DVD's mish-mash of standards features no less than five major formats, however: DVD-R (pronounced DVD-dash-R), DVD-RW (DVD-dash-RW), DVD+R (DVD-plus-R), DVD+RW (DVD-plus-RW), and pronounced-as-spelled (no dash) DVD-RAM.

All five DVD formats offer roughly 4.7GB of storage, but they differ in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. DVD-R and DVD+R may be written to only once, but they offer high compatibility with drives and set-top DVD players. DVD+RW and DVD-RW can be written and erased approximately 1,000 times, but they are a little less compatible with some DVD players.

DVD-RAM can be written and erased up to 100,000 times, although it's a slower media, and few drives or set-top players can read it. Furthermore, DVD-RAM often comes in protective cartridges that you must remove before inserting the discs into most drives. In removing a DVD-RAM from its cartridge, unfortunately, you significantly cut its 100,000-rewrite rating, due to the likelihood of damage from handling and elements.

You'll have to consider a number of factors when you choose a burner. Of course, cash is king, and the amount you're willing to spend will largely dictate which drive you'll end up with. The price of DVD burners continues to plunge, and these do-it-all devices offer the best bang for the buck. Still, if you're not ready to spend at least $100 and you're primarily interested in burning CDs, you can pick up a CD-RW drive on the cheap. Or you can spend just a few dollars more for a combo drive--a CD-RW that can read, but not write, DVD's.

Double-layer or Blue-laser Drive

Another reason to go cheap for the time being is that bigger and better technologies await in the near future. Double-layer drives, which can write on special double-layer DVD discs that hold twice as much data (8.5GB) as the currently available single-layer DVD-R or DVD+R discs, have just begun to come to market, and although they're expensive (and slow), we're pretty excited. Twice the data is nice, but what's really compelling about double layer is that these discs are big enough to fit an entire uncompressed commercial movie. Still, double-layer media won't be widely available until later this summer, and it'll be expensive. Proceed with caution.

Blue-laser (also known as Blu-ray) drives and discs that can pack 27GB of data onto a single-sided disc, but don't hold your breath. Expected to cost thousands of dollars when they're released in 2005 or 2006, blue-laser drives will be capable of recording, rewriting, and playing huge, high-definition television files.

What kind of disc should I use?

DISC TYPE	RECORDABLE	REWRITABLE	CAPACITY	ATTRIBUTES
CD-ROM	--	--	74 mins./650MB or 80 mins./700MB	Nonrecordable. Software typically distributed on CD-ROM. Commercially pressed rather than burned.
CD-R	Once only	--	74 mins./650MB or 80 mins./700MB	Good for recording audio CDs. Highly compatible with CD players.
CD-RW	--	Up to 1,000 times	74 mins./650MB or 80 mins./700MB	Less compatible with CD players. Slower than recordable media. Less expensive over time (if reused).
DVD-R	Once only	--	4.7 GB	Highly compatible with set-top DVD players.
DVD+R	Once only	--	4.7 GB	Slightly less compatible than DVD-R with set-top DVD players.
DVD-RW	--	Up to 1,000 times	4.7 GB	Slightly less compatible than DVD-R and DVD+R with set-top DVD players.
DVD+RW	--	Up to 1,000 times	4.7 GB	Slightly less compatible than DVD-R and DVD+R with set-top DVD players.
Double-layer (DL) DVD	Once only	--	8.5 GB	Large enough to hold most full-length movies without compression. Compatible with set-top players.
DVD-RAM	--	Up to 100,000 times	4.7 GB	Much less compatible with set-top DVD players. Good for archiving.

If you're using your drive for backing up files, editing or working with unfinished video, storing programs that you might patch in the future, or any other task where your data may change over time, we recommend using rewritable discs, such as -RW, +RW, or -RAM. Although these discs cost more initially, they're reusable, so they're a more economical solution over time, not to mention more environmentally friendly.

Use recordable discs (-R, +R) when you're absolutely sure you'll be keeping data (for example, when you're burning a movie that you'll want to hold on to) or when you need to be 100 percent certain that the disc will play in any machine (most CD players won't play a CD-RW, for instance). But take note: The compatibility of DVD+RW and -RW discs isn't as much of an issue as it is with CD-RW; rewritable DVDs are nearly as compatible with drives and players as DVD-recordable discs.

Can I copy commercial DVDs ?

The ability to create copies of the media you've purchased for personal use is a long-accepted facet of the fair-use doctrine in U.S. copyright law. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) states that it's illegal to break the CSS copy-protection mechanism employed by most commercial DVD movies. What does that mean? Most fair-use advocates say that the policy directly contradicts U.S. copyright law, but the DMCA seems to indicate that you cannot make a copy of a commercial DVD even for personal use and you certainly cannot give a copied DVD to anyone or watch copied DVD files on your computer. We assume that fair use will eventually catch up and be established as a safety valve for consumers (this has been the pattern with previous technologies, such as VHS), but for now, the territory is still uncertain and a bit dangerous.