I'm thinking of getting a new burner next week and was wondering if anyone had any advice what to look for. Is it better to get a DVD burner instead of a CD burner? If so, are there different types of DVD burners? I've never owned a DVD burner before, so I really know nothing about them. Is there anything at all that I should look at besides the read/write/re-write speeds?

Thanks in advance. I hope that this is appropriate for the Slackware forum. I only use Slackware, so I usually just post here.

wheather you get a dvd or a cd burner is up to you... dvds have way more capacity, but cd drives are more popular... i've been happily using an old LG cd burner for several years (16X/10X/40X)... the fast ones of today work great also... i can recommend LG burners... but i'm sure there's plenty of other good brands...

I would defintely get a DVD burner. The price per gigabyte is cheaper
A single sided, single layered DVD stores about 4.7 GB, which you can get for 50 cents each.
A CD stores 700 MB, which runs for 20 cents each.
Rought estimate of costs.
DVD 9.4 GB/$
CD 3.5 GB/$
You'll save in the long run.
You can get a CD burner for about $20, whereas a top of the line DVD burner can be had for $100 from newegg.com or dealsonic.com.
I recommend the Pioneer DVR-108 16X Double Layer CD Burner.
It can record those double layered DVDs, so you can make copies of movie dvds.
The thing with DVD burners is that there are so many standards for media.
DVD+R
DVD-R
DVD+RW
DVD-RW
DVD+R DL
You want a burner that can read a write all those types.
When buying media, i recommend DVD-R, which is the most compatible with DVD players if you want to make your own movies or convert some VHS to DVDs.
Also, the 16x burner only burns at 16x for the last 200 MB or so of the DVD, so a 16x DVD burner is not much fast than a 12x depending if the mechanics are constant linear velocity or cosntant angular velocity.

If you're itching for a new burner, i suggest the pioneer, which is made to create the most readable disc, although not for blazing speed. Difference isn't that noticable anyway.

i recommend pioneer 108, love it!
dont worry about the bitsetting, just buy a good media and you'll be fine.

here the review "DVR-108

sure DVD burner is better and its price gets cheapper

I went with a Lite-On DVD burner from newegg for $80.00 w/ shipping.
It supports both DVD+ R(W) and DVD-R(W).
LinuxQuestions Hardware
DVD - howto


The DVD tools package that comes with Slackware supports DVD+.
I have burned DVD + from the command line using growisofs without problems
and as an experiment have made a dvd + that did play in a commercial DVD player
The status of DVD- is not clear to me. It is part of cdrecord "Pro" version which requires a "Key"
The present Key has an expiration date
CDrecord Readme
DVD - also seems to be supported by the DVD+R(W) tools that comes with Slackware 10
(need version > 5.0) but it does use cdrecord.

Excellent Link for DVD burning using the DVD tools package

I also have a liteon DVD + and - burner. K3b supports everything and is very slick - www.k3b.org

I just got a Pioneer DVR-108, but I can't get it to work.

Do I need to install modules or something? It won't mount or anything. I'm running Mandrake 10. Not slackware. I hope you guys can still answer my simple question.

dude, i have this old phillips internal cdrw without a face plate that has never let me down. It's only 8x but it never fails. It's going on 6 years old. Maybe i should get that face plate.....

Thanks for all of your advice guys. I got a new DVD burner today. I went with the Lite-on. I don't see any model numbers on any of the packaging or in the manuals, but it is listed in dmesg as:
I didn't try any DVDs yet, but I did boot into the 2.6.7 kernel and used k3b to burn a CD. Man, it worked great! My old computer has a 4X writing CD-RW. This thing has a 40x writing speed. I durned a 76 minute CD in 3:16. On my old computer, that took about 40 minutes.

I am all about instant gratification, so I picked it up at best buy. $104, but I got it today.

Thanks again,

Yay... you lucky rich... ... person - my wife has a DVD+-RW DL on her laptop that she got from work - I have a 12X CD-R...no burner, just a CD-R...

Yay...

Sniff...

:)

I almost cried. That's the secret to me having any money. No wife.