$99 NEC 4x DVD -/+ RW @ Newegg!

[Mr. Chambers]

already ordered this guy day before yesterday, but thanks for the heads up, perhaps someone else will want an 8x rather than this 4x.

 

[Papier]

Bunch of good deals here. I might get myself one.

 

[aka665]

this NEC was 1 of the 1st +/- recorders at 4x, so they're like the guinea pig.... i would rather get something else...

 

[larva]

They've also been out long enough that you can learn what they actually are rather than throw around groundless generalizations.

 

[Andy71600]

im new to dvd-burners, and i am thinking about picking one up. My only question is wtf is the +/- thing?

 

[Maxvla]

im new to dvd-burners, and i am thinking about picking one up. My only question is wtf is the +/- thing?

some of the blank media is dvd+r some is dvd-r which is a byproduct of the format wars. just get one with both and you'll be able to burn just about any dvd recordable (except dvd-ram).

 

[larva]

im new to dvd-burners, and i am thinking about picking one up. My only question is wtf is the +/- thing?

There are four media types supported by drives of this type. DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW. The "-" formats are an older specification for drives and media, originally supported by Pioneer, amongst others. The "+" formats are a newer specification supported by Philips. Both formats work in most home players, but there are no guarantees. DVD-R works in a few more really old players, but just about anything sold in recent years will play +Rs and +RWs.

The NEC ND1300a will record at 4X on +R, 4X on -R, 2.4X on +RW, and 2X on -RW media. You may find one brand of +R disks play in a certain player where another doesn't. I have had flawless luck with the Memorex (Ricoh disk) +R and +RW media I have burned in my NEC. Even my 3 year old Pioneer DVD-ROM drive reads them, and it is not supposed to support them.

The new NEC 8X (ND-2500A) supports 8X recording on either +R or -R, the first of a new breed. The other 8Xs on the market only go 8X with +R, slowing to 4X on -R media. The chipset that allows the NEC to burn 8X on either is a NEC product, although Pioneer will soon be using it as well. The Pioneer drive will be more expensive though, as NEC is the real source of the technology.

The NEC ND1300a is one of the best 4X drives on the market at present, and one that supports the advanced "bitsetting" technology. This allows you to choose the book type you write as, and choosing DVD-ROM while writing on a RW disk will allow some home players that normally cannot read RWs to do so.

Considering the price, excellent quality, top performance, and the unique bitsetting capability and great rip speed (bitsetting and high speed ripping require a custom firmware readily available for this drive) the NEC1300a is the one of the most versatile and highest quality drives on the market, and a super value that is easy to recommend. I don't regret buying mine at all, and the burn times are purely adequate. The new NEC 8X would be nice, but does carry a price premium, and 8X media is not widely available at this time.

 

[Mr. Chambers]

great post larva, as always! i can't wait for mine to come, newegg says i should have it day day after tomorrow, along with a 50pack of ritek dvd-r's, which i've read are pretty good/reliable media.

 

[Softgod]

If I remember right this is the same as my plextor dvdr. I know that there are some NEC's that can take the Plextor firmware and then you can use Plextools on it!

 

[larva]

Actually the point is the there are some Plextors that are NEC's, not the other way around. Plextor does not manufacture drives, merely re-lables (and marks up) the products of the real drive makers like NEC, Sanyo, Pioneer, etc.

 

[Mr. Chambers]

would their be any benefit of using plextools on this drive? i've never owned plextor, i dont even know what plextools is

well i checked my tracking info, and it looks like i'll have it tomorrow morning yay for me.

quick question though to anyone who can answer, which format is "better" or *is* their a better format? i ordered those dvd-r's but a friend (whom is known to be a smacktard, so i take his "recommendation" with a grain of salt) - is telling me that dvd+r is "way better"

?

 

[Maxvla]

+ is newer but i don't know if its any better than -

 

[larva]

DVD-R media has a slightly better compatiblity rate in testing with home DVD players, but most anything recent will play either.

I'm not up on the exact technical differences between +R and -R media, but +R media does lend itself more easily to high burn speeds. This is why the 8X drives prior to the new NEC only burn 8X on +R media. The NEC is the first to allow 8X on -R media. Likely faster burn rates than 8X will be the sole domain of +R, but even that remains to be seen.

So in short, burning at 4X, I don't know of any pressing advantage to using +R over -R, unless your drives or home players show a preference for one or the other. The NEC 4X burn flawlessly on either with the modern firmwares.

 

[Maxvla]

DVD-R media has a slightly better compatiblity rate in testing with home DVD players, but most anything recent will play either.

I'm not up on the exact technical differences between +R and -R media, but +R media does lend itself more easily to high burn speeds. This is why the 8X drives prior to the new NEC only burn 8X on +R media. The NEC is the first to allow 8X on -R media. Likely faster burn rates than 8X will be the sole domain of +R, but even that remains to be seen.

So in short, burning at 4X, I don't know of any pressing advantage to using +R over -R, unless your drives or home players show a preference for one or the other. The NEC 4X burn flawlessly on either with the modern firmwares.

what a great salesman.. lol

now i'm torn between this NEC drive, the maxtor 250gb for 142 bucks, and some speakers for my backup rig .

 

[cstarritt]

i think im gonna wait a bit more before i buy a dvd burner

i made the mistake of buying a 2x cd burner back when they were $400 and i plan on waiting till they get a bit lower first

 

[Maxvla]

i think im gonna wait a bit more before i buy a dvd burner

i made the mistake of buying a 2x cd burner back when they were $400 and i plan on waiting till they get a bit lower first

big difference between a 2x cd burner for 400 dollars and a 4x dvd burner for 100.

cd burning maxes at 52x while dvd burning will likely max out at 16x since its limited by the mb/s it can xfer on IDE. 4x is alot closer to 16x than 2x is to 52x

 

[Mr. Chambers]

thank you for the clarification larva.

as for you Maxvla, if you got a burner, you wouldnt need that huge HD, and new speakers for your backup rig? man my backup rigs dont even *have* speakers

 

[larva]

As far as speed, I've had burners since 1x CD-R drives were state of the art. 74 minutes a disk...

4X DVD is fine. You are looking at 14 minutes for a full disk. This is tolerable. The main attraction of the new 8X drives is that they burn +RW media at 4X. Drives like the NEC 4X burn +RW media at 2.4X, resulting in a ~23 minute burn time for a whole disk. This violates my 15 minute rule, which simply states that greater than 15 minutes a disk sucks, while it doesn't matter nearly so much how far below 15 minutes you go unless you are doing mass production.

Also note that the burner's speed is not always the limiting factor. If you are putting dual layer or two disk movies on a single disk, the re-encoding will take at least the 14 minutes that it takes to burn at 4X, so faster burn rates can't help you. Also bear in mind that even really fast readers like my Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM drive cannot even keep a 4X DVD burner fed during a disk to disk dupe while on the inner tracks. Again, faster burn rates do little to shorten the overall job time. Burning from the hard drive with pre-processed data is the only situation in which 8X burn rates really make a big difference, so bear this in mind when deciding how much burn speed you really need.

The value represented by the new ~$140 NEC 8X is just as good as the ~$100 4X. I find the 4X to be adequately fast in practice, especially as I have plenty of other things to spend money on. But in general, if you aren't strapped for cash, the new 8X drives look attractive, especially if burning to RW is a big priority for your usage.

 

[Maxvla]

thank you for the clarification larva.

as for you Maxvla, if you got a burner, you wouldnt need that huge HD, and new speakers for your backup rig? man my backup rigs dont even *have* speakers

you are quite correct about the hd/burner issue. i hadn't thought of it that way.

as for backup rig.. its really just my server. i only have headphones for it and when my friends are over and messing around with fruityloops or whatever its a pain when they want to let me listen to something we can't listen to it together. i'm probly going to get a cheap 2.1 setup like the Z340s from Logitech. just something that sounds decent and puts sound into the air.

 

[Mr. Chambers]

ah, well in that case you cant go wrong with the 340's man, i bought my dad a pair for his computer for christmas, and they sound very good for what they cost!

as for the big hard drive, thats *my* thinking of the situation. i was also going to pick up yet another hard drive (i have 2 already, a 40 and an 80), when i realized that most of the space is taken up by alias episodes and other movie files and whatnot. so a burner, besides allowing me to backup my dvd's, will allow me to not have to buy yet another drive, and its probably safer to have something backed up on discs, vs. a hard drive...

yeah larva, the speed issue is something i dont think alot of people understand. i was in another forum, and this guy was telling everyone to stay away from this 4x and to wait for 8 and 16x drives, because these were "so slow" i dont even think he had one.. or thought that they were the same as CD recording speeds