Tech Guide: Buying a CD/DVD burner

Understand CD/DVD burners | Specs that matter | Select the right format | Which discs to buy | What you can do with your burner | The software you need
Select the right format
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 the extra money 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, DVDs.

Drive options: Innie or outtie? | External connections | How fast is fast enough? | Double layer and blue laser

Innie or outtie
You'll have to decide whether to connect your burner to your computer internally or externally. Internal drives cost considerably less, but you'll have to open up your computer to install one -- a daunting task if you've never done it before.
Installing an external drive is much simpler and requires simply connecting a few cords to your PC. As such, external burners are significantly more portable and easier to share in a household or a small office. Take note, however, that external drives connect to your computer via a USB 2.0 or FireWire port; if your PC doesn't already have one of those, you'll need to install one, which, as with an internal burner, will require you to open up your computer. Performancewise, we've noticed little difference between internal and external units.

In any event, if portability isn't a concern and you have an adventurous soul, we recommend buying an internal burner over an external burner -- the savings is worth the extra half hour it will take you. We can even help you figure out how to install your burner.

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Which external connection should I use?
SCSI and parallel ports used to be popular connections for external drives, but more modern technologies, USB 2.0 and FireWire, also known as IEEE 1394 (and iLink by Sony), have rendered them obsolete. USB 2.0 is the more common connection type, although FireWire offers greater transfer speeds.

Four-pin FireWire   Six-pin FireWire (also serves as a power source)   USB 2.0 port
Four-pin FireWire Six-pin FireWire (also serves as a power source) USB 2.0 port

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How fast is fast enough?
We all crave the latest and greatest technology, but drives that are one step behind the bleeding edge usually offer the best price-to-performance ratio. As of May 2004, the fastest DVD burners were rated 8X/4X/12X; that is, they are capable of recording at 8X on DVD+R and DVD-R, writing at 4X on DVD+RW and DVD-RW, and reading DVDs at 12X. These DVD burners are also pretty handy with CDs, recording on CD-R at 24X, writing CD-RW at 24X, and reading CDs at 40X. Still, the fastest CD-only drives, rated 52X/32X/52X, retain only a slight edge.

Unless you're burning dozens of DVDs each day, the extra 15 minutes per burn that a slower 4X burner will cost you won't kill you -- but it could save you a few hundred dollars. Even a 2X drive (if you can find one) will do the job for many users. One caveat: If you're considering a bargain-bin 2.4X DVD+RW drive, make sure it also writes DVD+R -- first-generation models didn't.

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Should I wait for a double-layer or blue-laser drive?
Sony DRU700A
Sony's dual-layer DVD writer the DRU700A 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 hold twice as much data (8.5GB) as the currently available 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 year, and it'll be expensive. Proceed with caution.

Also coming down the pike are 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.

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Talkback 13 comments

    Very useful article. Thanks. ...Anonymous -- 21/06/04

    Very useful article. Thanks.

    Any chance you could do an article reviewing some budget external cd burners - I need one but I have no idea which to buy. Help! Thanks.

    Excellent explanation of the g ...Anonymous -- 30/06/04

    Excellent explanation of the gobbledy **** abbreviations used with DVD's and the various format limitations; e.g. I had no idea DVD-RAM was physically fragile.

    Great article, now I won't emb ...Anonymous -- 02/12/04

    Great article, now I won't embarrass myself by referring to DVD-R as "minus R" thanks so much!

    Clear and informative presenta ...Anonymous -- 10/12/04

    Clear and informative presentation.

    You need to update this. 16x a ...Anonymous -- 14/12/04

    You need to update this. 16x are the norm now and on the table relating to speed vs time is N/A

    In this article you have incor ...Anonymous -- 05/01/05

    In this article you have incorrectly defined 1MB as equalling 100KB, it should be 1MB = 1000KB.

    "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 100KB)."

    Well written and informative.E ...Anonymous -- 10/01/05

    Well written and informative.Easy to understand for a novice. I'm looking to buy a dvd burner soon and this answered many question I had.

    THANK YOU. I CAN NOW ANSWER SO ...Anonymous -- 04/07/05

    THANK YOU.
    I CAN NOW ANSWER SOME OF MY WIFES QUESTIONS ABOUT WHY WE NEED A NEW DVD DRIVE.

    Avoid "Heartburn Pro" Unhappy user -- 07/08/05

    Just wanted to share my experience with Iomega and HotBurn pro. I bought a Iomega USB CD-RW drive and HotBurn Pro came with it.

    HotBurn pro copies music CD's OK (no violation, this is a CD a friend made and gave me permission to copy), but I couldn't make a readable data CD, even when I slowed down write and added a simulated burn step.

    I tried to update the product using the "update" button, but the download didn't work, I got a message that "your current installation is not valid".

    Worse, I had to put up with registering at iomega.com just to GET the download. I think companies should make it as easy as possible to download bug fixes, and registrations are a mistake (especially if the sofware doesn't work after all the rigamarole).

    So, I'm deinstalling Hotburn pro, and given how nosy Iomega was, will be looking for companies that just want my money, rather than my money and my email...

    website John Stephens -- 01/12/05

    One of the most difficult websites to read. Blue writing on blue background: bad design

    DVD Burners / player compatability Victor Johnson -- 31/12/05

    Very informitive, however-Can I transfer digital camara pics w/a dvd burner to dvd disk format that can be played/viewd with the common home/tv type DVD-Player. Do I need a special software and/or dvd burner? Anyone, please. Thankx

    Advice on dvd burners Desmond Auer -- 14/05/07

    The article is well thought out and presented. Just one query, what are the hardware requirements for using a dvd-burner?
    I have a Pentium 1.1 GHz processor with 256 MB RAM running Windows XP and I was told that my machine would not be able to run a dvd burner. Is this correct?
    If so, what ARE the requirements for a computer to run a dvd burner?

    iSkysoft DVD Creator for Mac sese -- 10/05/09 (in reply to #320079329)

    iSkysoft DVD Creator for Mac is the best dvd burner for mac users,This mac dvd burner can convert all formats such as MP4, M4V( without DRM protection), MPA, MPG, MPEG, MOV,3GP, 3GP2, FLV, MOV,VOB, DAT, TS, TP, TRP, M2TS, AVI, MKV to DVD on Mac OS X.
    http://youtubetodvd.blogspot.com/

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