Dual Layer DVD reccomendation?

[Kooldino]

Gonna pick up a Dual Layer DVD buner for someone. Didn't know if anyone had any reccomendations on a model? I'm going to be putting it into an external IDE USB 2.0 enclosure.

[Guru]

Lg

[Gurm]

You want to put the least-reliable burning technology currently available... into the least-reliable external enclosure currently available? What's WRONG with you?

Do I have a recommendation? Yeah, here goes:

Don't do this.

How's that?

Dual-layer is a hit-or-miss thing. 50% of people who buy dual-layer drives can NEVER produce a successful dual-layer burn that works in their player. At prices that are hovering near $10 a disc retail (yeah you can get them for $6 per online, but STILL - c'mon!) that's a pretty terrible ratio. Even if you get it right after a dozen tries, you've wasted $100 in media experimenting!

Add to that the fact that USB 2.0 is so very VERY wrong for external CD/DVD burning, or hard drives, and you've got a recipe for never once making a disc work.

Here are the bottlenecks inherent in you burning dual-layer:

1. The media isn't as compatible as single layer media. With either the burner OR the set-top box or DVD-ROM. People with older set-top boxes have honestly about a 50% success rate reading dual-layer media. People with BRAND NEW boxes? 9 out of 10 can read the media IF it's burned 100% successfully. That's still lower than the 100/100 that can read single-layer media.

2. The drives aren't particularly good at burning a reliable dual-layer disc. Liteon has updated the firmware about 100 times in the past 6 months. Like, every other day. And they STILL can't get it right. Pioneer is probably a little better. LG? I have no idea, I wouldn't burn with an LG drive in general. I like my drives to score "two sheep" from Elby, not "no sheep".

3. Software can't handle it. Right now if you want a good dual-layer burn, your ONLY choice - and it'll only work on SOME machines properly - is Sonic RecordNow 7 or later. But guess what? It's full of spyware and bloat. And it sucks for anything other than dual-layer burning. And it costs money. Nero? 50/50 if the layer break will completely screw the disc. DVD Decrypter? The same, sadly. It seems that nobody can get the layer break right except for RecordNow.

4. USB = The devil. USB has no interrupts - or in a hardware polled situation it has no priority. This means that ANYTHING ELSE on the system will interrupt the transfer. Buffer underruns are never fun, and despite "burn proof" or whatever, they can ruin a burn. Sadly, buffer underruns are par for the course with USB enclosures.

So, CAN someone who knows EXACTLY what they're doing and has EXACTLY the right hardware and a brand new DVD player get reliable burns on dual-layer media? Yep.

Can YOU, or more to the point the person you're setting this up for? Probably not.

My advice? Firewire, single-layer burner.

Unless this is for data. If it's for data then just get whatever. An LG drive, a cute enclosure, whatever. I was, in all this ranting, assuming you wanted to burn VIDEO.

[Kooldino]

2. The drives aren't particularly good at burning a reliable dual-layer disc. Liteon has updated the firmware about 100 times in the past 6 months. Like, every other day. And they STILL can't get it right. Pioneer is probably a little better. LG? I have no idea, I wouldn't burn with an LG drive in general. I like my drives to score "two sheep" from Elby, not "no sheep".

I assume Elby is a guy who writes for storagereview or something?

3. Software can't handle it. Right now if you want a good dual-layer burn, your ONLY choice - and it'll only work on SOME machines properly - is Sonic RecordNow 7 or later. But guess what? It's full of spyware and bloat. And it sucks for anything other than dual-layer burning. And it costs money. Nero? 50/50 if the layer break will completely screw the disc. DVD Decrypter? The same, sadly. It seems that nobody can get the layer break right except for RecordNow.

Good thing you mention this - The only software I'll really be using to burn on these is Norton Ghost...run off of a boot disk.

4. USB = The devil. USB has no interrupts - or in a hardware polled situation it has no priority. This means that ANYTHING ELSE on the system will interrupt the transfer. Buffer underruns are never fun, and despite "burn proof" or whatever, they can ruin a burn. Sadly, buffer underruns are par for the course with USB enclosures.

The interrupts shouldn't be an issue since I'll be running Ghost and only Ghost.

My advice? Firewire, single-layer burner.

I may go with the single layer burner in that case. Firewire isn't an option. USB 1.1/2.0 is all we've got. This is going to be used with 30 PCs, and he's not gonna buy 30 firewire cards.

Unless this is for data. If it's for data then just get whatever. An LG drive, a cute enclosure, whatever. I was, in all this ranting, assuming you wanted to burn VIDEO.

Just hard drive images.

[Gurm]

I assume Elby is a guy who writes for storagereview or something?

Living under a CD-burning rock, I see? Elby = Elaborate Bytes, makers of CloneCD. The "sheep rating" is how accurately a drive can reproduce a target image. "Two sheep" drives can reproduce virtually any original image, including disc defects if desired - which means it can also replicate virtually all copy protection. "One sheep" drives can do RAW DAO (raw instead of cooked, DAO = disk-at-once instead of session-at-once or track-at-once) burning and can burn an error onto a disc if desired, which means they can replicate SOME protections. "No sheep" drives cannot burn RAW DAO at all, can't replicate original disc structure at all. This means that your burnt image may look NOTHING like your original, even if the original has no protection at all.

Now, this MOSTLY doesn't apply to data. So it's less of a worry. LG drives, which someone mentioned earlier, are like MOST DVD writers in that they are "no sheep" drives. Liteon, Pioneer... MAYBE Toshiba are the only companies which make "two sheep" DVD writers. LG _CD_ writers are perfectly good drives.

Good thing you mention this - The only software I'll really be using to burn on these is Norton Ghost...run off of a boot disk.

Don't know if Ghost supports dual-layer. It "ought to", but there's no guarantee. I'd check up on that.

The interrupts shouldn't be an issue since I'll be running Ghost and only Ghost.

Doesn't matter. But as it's data you shouldn't have a problem. The drive will spin up and down, but if it's data who cares?

I may go with the single layer burner in that case. Firewire isn't an option. USB 1.1/2.0 is all we've got. This is going to be used with 30 PCs, and he's not gonna buy 30 firewire cards.

Again, it's just data. Shouldn't be an issue.

[Technoid]

At work I use an Asus external USB2 dual layer dvd writer (essentially a normal Asus writer in a branded OEM usb2 enclosure) with Ghost and (single layer discs) it works 100% even on USB1 and SLOW machines.

But as Gurm has already pointed out, DL media is expensive as hell so I have never tried them

[PAugustin]

Currently the best quality/perf/price ratio is the Nec ND3520. The reader part is not the best one but it is (one of) the best burners available and is pretty cheap over here. if you need proof just visit www.cdfreaks.com

[Dr Mordrid]

I've been using an LG DVD-everything ( +/- R/RW and RAM ) burner for a while and am very happy with it.

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Currently the best quality/perf/price ratio is the Nec ND3520. The reader part is not the best one but it is (one of) the best burners available and is pretty cheap over here.

I got mine about a week ago from newegg for $50 shipped.

[Mehen]

Friend of mine got the NEC one as well, so far no problems. Not sure if he has tried dual layer, but if you're gonna get a DVDrw may as well be a DL one.

[UtwigMU]

Considering the price of dual layer burners is negligible by now, going with a dual layer burner is not a problem per se, you will burn mostly single layer discs.

I'd go with NEC or Plextor. Go read reviews on cdrlabs, cdrinfo, cdfreaks...

Toshiba has merged their optical division with Samsung now and they were generally only good in reader department.

Go NEC if you plan to get another burner soonish, go Plextor if you intend to keep your burner for a few years untill bluray or HDDVD trickles down.

[Kooldino]

Yeah, I've heard really good things about the NEC.

So I guess for now I'll go with a single layer NEC, and a USB 2.0 enclosure. Later down the line, we can upgrade to a good DL DVD burner once they're 100%.

[Wombat]

Yeah, I've heard really good things about the NEC.

So I guess for now I'll go with a single layer NEC, and a USB 2.0 enclosure. Later down the line, we can upgrade to a good DL DVD burner once they're 100%.

The 3520A IS a dual layer. Go with it.

[Jammrock]

Yeah, I've heard really good things about the NEC.

So I guess for now I'll go with a single layer NEC, and a USB 2.0 enclosure. Later down the line, we can upgrade to a good DL DVD burner once they're 100%.

Before DVD DL will be perfected it will be repleaced by Blu-ray (HD-DVD will more than likely flop on PC since almost all PC makers, including Dell and Apple, are backing Blu-ray). TDK just announce they got a 100 GB BD 2x disc on 4 layers working.

[Wombat]

Before DVD DL will be perfected it will be repleaced by Blu-ray (HD-DVD will more than likely flop on PC since almost all PC makers, including Dell and Apple, are backing Blu-ray). TDK just announce they got a 100 GB BD 2x disc on 4 layers working.

It won't be replaced, any more than CDs have been replaced. DVD has huge market presence, and people will need to burn DVDs for their DVD players just as I burn CDs for my CD player.