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dvwannabe · Jun 10, 2002, 03:14 PM

I want to start authoring DVD's on my mac. I have a G4 dual 450. I plan on buying a burner and DVD Studio Pro. I just have begun researching this and have a few questions. I am a total newbie so please excuse and please correct any stupid comments.

1. What burner should I get. I was thinking about getting the Pioneer DVR-104 which is the superdrive that ships with the new macs. However, I believe it only burns DVD-R which doesn't work with my DVD player (Panasonic CV-51) Is DVD-RW a better solution for being compatible in more players?

2. What is the best DVD burner? Are they all compatible with DVD Studio Pro?

I was surprised to see how many players won't accept DVD's burned on the new macs. They position it as a "professional" DVD authoring solution, but not being read by all DVD players doesn't seem too professional to me.

Thanks for reading this, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

Eug · Jun 10, 2002, 05:21 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by dvwannabe:
I want to start authoring DVD's on my mac. I have a G4 dual 450. I plan on buying a burner and DVD Studio Pro. I just have begun researching this and have a few questions. I am a total newbie so please excuse and please correct any stupid comments.

1. What burner should I get. I was thinking about getting the Pioneer DVR-104 which is the superdrive that ships with the new macs. However, I believe it only burns DVD-R which doesn't work with my DVD player (Panasonic CV-51) Is DVD-RW a better solution for being compatible in more players?

2. What is the best DVD burner? Are they all compatible with DVD Studio Pro?

I was surprised to see how many players won't accept DVD's burned on the new macs. They position it as a "professional" DVD authoring solution, but not being read by all DVD players doesn't seem too professional to me.

Thanks for reading this, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <hr /></blockquote>a) I dunno how well, but the CV51 supposedly supports both DVD-R and DVD-RW.

b) The Pioneer A04/104 "SuperDrive" burns both DVD-RW and DVD-R with Toast.

c) DVD-RW in general has less compatibility with standalone DVD players and DVD-ROM drives. DVD-R is in the range of 90% overall, and DVD-RW is in the range of 65% overall. The quality of the media makes a big difference however. Properly encoded DVD still may not work if burned on cheap media.

d) DVD Studio Pro is $1000. I trust you can spend this kind of money?
Otherwise, for us mere mortals, iDVD 2 is $20, and should work with the drive if you install it internally.

e) If you're willing to spend $1400 on software and a burner, you may want to consider spending another $150 on a DVD player if your CV51 truly is problematic. Note you may also need other authoring software, since iMovie isn't going to cut it.

f) Check my sig.

***Caveat*** I don't own any of the above hardware, and I don't use DVD Studio Pro or iDVD2 or Final Cut Pro or whatever. I own a Panasonic LF-D311SC (Firewire), and use it primarily for data with DVD-RAM/-R. Perhaps others can comment on professional setups and can talk about DVD-R authoring drives (which use different DVD-R media), or the virtues of tape or DVD-RAM in this context.

[ 06-10-2002, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: Eug ]