# Solved: External Hard drive OR External Hard drive/dvd-rw combo?



## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

I want to get an external hard drive/dvd burner combo if there is such a thing. To make this question as simple as possible...I need a hard drive that my camera can be plugged into with the firewire. I also need the hard drive that is able to plug in to the USB2 slot on my computer, because
my new Dell doesn't seem to tolerate a firewire card which I installed and then took out and returned to the store. It froze my computer and I tried everything to stabilize it but had no luck. It did work long enough to download 10 min. or so of video and I burned that onto a cd. Thats when I found out I had a dvd-rom not a dvd burner......long story I know. Sorry. I just want to figure out the most economical way now to save my movies and burn them to dvd also using either another external dvd burner or maybe there is a hard drive/dvd burner combo?? Or should I just get two separate externals? 
Again: I need the hard drive/burner to plug into my computer with usb2.
Then the firewire from the camera would go into the hard drive/burner to download the movies.


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> I want to get an external hard drive/dvd burner combo if there is such a thing. To make this question as simple as possible...I need a hard drive that my camera can be plugged into with the firewire. I also need the hard drive that is able to plug in to the USB2 slot on my computer, because
> my new Dell doesn't seem to tolerate a firewire card which I installed and then took out and returned to the store. It froze my computer and I tried everything to stabilize it but had no luck. It did work long enough to download 10 min. or so of video and I burned that onto a cd. Thats when I found out I had a dvd-rom not a dvd burner......long story I know. Sorry. I just want to figure out the most economical way now to save my movies and burn them to dvd also using either another external dvd burner or maybe there is a hard drive/dvd burner combo?? Or should I just get two separate externals?
> Again: I need the hard drive/burner to plug into my computer with usb2.
> Then the firewire from the camera would go into the hard drive/burner to download the movies.


Hottie, try a different firewire card. The freeze on the computer is due to the drivers and you almost certainly can fix that problem--a different card will have different drivers.

You can't hook a camera directly to a hard drive--that won't work. If you don't use a firewire card, then your only other option is to buy something like this;

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV_703/intro/usb703intro.asp?pid=USBAV703

It has a USB connection and you can plug your camera into its firewire port. I saw the above in Walmart actually.

But I would not give up on the firewire card. Again--get a different model and if you have the same problem, post back in this thread and we'll help you get that installed. The firewire card is only $30 or so.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> Hottie, *try a different firewire card*. The freeze on the computer is due to the drivers and you almost certainly can fix that problem--a different card will have different drivers..


Mulder is there a firewire that has a good reputation? I would like to only have to install this ONE more time if you know what I mean. What a pain.

The one I first installed was this: Stratitec IC1394 - IEEE-1394 3-Port Firewire/i.LINK PCI Card.......which I bought at Walmart (you never know about the quality there) so I'm thinking maybe a "name brand" might be better. Any suggestions?


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> Mulder is there a firewire that has a good reputation? I would like to only have to install this ONE more time if you know what I mean. What a pain.
> 
> The one I first installed was this: Stratitec IC1394 - IEEE-1394 3-Port Firewire/i.LINK PCI Card.......which I bought at Walmart (you never know about the quality there) so I'm thinking maybe a "name brand" might be better. Any suggestions?


Go to CompUSA and ask them--there is not a big issue with quality--its a pretty simple card.

Here is the top rated one at NewEgg--it has two firewire and three USB ports for $20:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815106004

Here is one for under $10 with three ports:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124003

They are cheaper then they used to be--I would get the one with the two USB and 3 Firewire because for an extra $10 you get two USB ports. If you are concerned with it working, then go to CompUSA so you can return it.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> Go to CompUSA and ask them--there is not a big issue with quality--*its a pretty simple card.*


Thats why I bought the firewire card at walmart for $24. (they took it back and gave me a refund even though I mangled the package pretty bad getting the card out  ) ......that didn't work and I got a "hardware malfunction" message. I tried getting the correct drivers from their website but it was still screwing up my computer.

I didn't think it mattered what brand because they are all pretty similar. I'm going to check Dell's site too for the firewire card they recommend for use with their computers or I could call their tech support and talk to someone at Dell, I think I have a year of free tech support at Dell.

And then I'll probably do what you said and talk to someone at CompUSA about which card they recommend and I can also ask about an external hard drive while I'm there Thanks Mulder!! I'll let you know what happens


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> I can also ask about an external hard drive while I'm there


I wouldn't buy an external hard drive. Just buy an hard drive enclosure and stick a regular hard drive in that. That way, the enclosure can be used with different hard drives and the enclosure/IDE hard drive combo is usually cheaper than an external. They have those at CompUSA as well.


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> I didn't think it mattered what brand because they are all pretty similar.


The cards are similar, but the drivers can be very different. Also, the card you bought may just have not worked. I would bet another card would work fine.

BTW--if it doesn't work in on PCI slot, try it in a different one.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> BTW--if it doesn't work (firewire card) in on PCI slot, try it in a different one.


Mulder...you're right and I know that because the PCI slot I first tried didn't work at all, and then it barely worked in the second slot. But, I do need to try another card with different drivers like you mentioned. Hopefully that will work.

When I get the new firewire card and I get the new firewire to work, then I probably won't bother with the extra hard drive, I'll just get a dvd burner.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

FWIW, external hard disks are GREAT for backup, I use a bunch of them here, and I have them installed as most of my clients as well.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

If your firewire card doesn't have a TI chipset---then you are looking for trouble. I recommend the ADS Pyro card----works faultlessly and used by many professionals on high-end rigs. No need for drivers----XP will find it when you turn your computer on.

As far as HD's go, Mulder's advice is excellent---although all enclosures aren't created equal---the controlers in particular---If you aren't handy with a screw driver and attaching cables, then I would go with one of the larger ready built ones----Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi etc all make them. Here is the website for the Pyro card.

https://www.adstech.com/products/API300/intro/API300intro.asp?pid=API300

As far as a seperate DVD burner goes---again, you can attach most of them directly to the ports of your firewire card (the ADS has three I believe), or if you are more adventuresome you can insert one in your computer.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

JohnWill said:


> FWIW, *external hard disks are GREAT for backup*, I use a bunch of them here, and I have them installed as most of my clients as well.


Maybe someday I'll get one if I need the extra backup!



linskyjack said:


> If your firewire card doesn't have *a TI chipset*---then you are looking for trouble. *I recommend the ADS Pyro card*----works faultlessly and used by many professionals on high-end rigs. No need for drivers----XP will find it when you turn your computer on. .


 I'll check out the TI chipset feature. The ADS Pyro card looks like its very solid and sturdy (the one I tried installing from walmart was kinda wimpy) linskyjack....I only want to install the firewire card one more time. I'm not sure if the first one I tried had a TI chipset??


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

This will be the last firewire card you ever need----I have installed it in many machines and have never had a problem. Chances are the first card didn't have the TI chipset and thus, gave you problems.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

linsky....does TI stand for texas instruments? If so, I remember seeing something (similar to that on the "instsructions" included with the firewire card from wal-mart)....unfortunately, I do not read (all of the) instructions and cannot remember But, the next card I get, if TI is Texas Instruments, will be sure to have that in it I might have to spend some time reading instructions and actually chatting with "dell" about the compability issues if there are problems installing the firewire. I'm going to wait until I go to CompUSA and talk to an "expert" about what firewire card to install. (however I'll be armed with the specifics I've learned here to help me with that decision)


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

LOL---forget Compusa "experts"----thats an oxymoron. ---TI stands for Texas Instruments----Hotskates, there are two things I have learned in the course of working in video-----

1. Don't cheap out---buy the best you can afford---In this case, the Walmart card had to be some piece of crap that some buyer bought in bulk from some half-arsed mfgr.
2. The Pyro card is not that much more expensive--maybe ten bucks if you shop around.

3.The Dell isn't the reason the firewire card was accepted or rejected----its a function of the OS, and the card itself.

4. Whenever possible, use firewire over USB-----

Here is the process.

1. Buy the card (should be in the 29-39 dollar range)
2. Insert the card
3. Turn on the computer---XP should find the card and install the driver---
4. Plug your external hard drive into one of the firewire ports on the card. (Make sure you get a drive that supports firewire) Mulder recommended building your own or purchasing a tray--thats a possibility but you could also by one already built. For instance, you could get a Western DIgital 120gb drive for 179.99 at Compusa---I am sure you could pick it up cheaper somewhere else (www.newegg.com--etc)

5. Capture your video to that drive (thats all you should have on that drive)

6. Edit your video in an NLE----
7. Convert to mpeg and burn to DVD----YOu can buy an external DVD burner that supports firewire---if you need a recommendation let me know.

If you want me to take you through the steps, let me know-----


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

linskyjack said:


> The Dell isn't the reason the firewire card was accepted or rejected----its a function of the OS, and the card itself.
> 
> Here is the process.
> 
> ...


Well I went to Comp USA and for $30 I bought a belkin firewire 3-port pci card and after installing it, my computer (windows xp) recognized the new hardware right away after I rebooted. It did show the TI compatability that you talked about. I plugged my video camera into the firewire and was able to download video with no problem. It worked great.

I looked at dvd burners while I was at the store and there were some as low as $79. which surprised me. I'm going to study up on the various models on the market before I decide on which one. Then I can make dvd's out of my movies. In the mean time, I can and did, download the video onto my computer and made a little movie which I burned onto a cd. It plays the movie with the editing I did, on Windows Media player.

What external dvd burner would you recommend linskyjack?


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

Well I'm reliEved that it now works (hate to sound so sure then end up being wrong!) As far as burners go--much depends on how fast a writer you want and whether or not you want it as an external or internal (or if you want to buy an internal and throw it in an external box) The easiest thing to do would be to buy the external,but those are a tad more expensive. Sony makes one for 134.50---the Model number is DRX800UL (got this price from newegg.com). I have been using a much slower Sony for two years and it works great. Newegg is also offerring free three day shipping and this drive supports both USB 2.0 and firewire (the one you should use). If it doesn't work for you then you can send it back no questions asked, with no re-stocking fee. Anyhow, you can spend more for a drive that has a bigger cache and a higher burning speed but I dont think you want to spend over 200 bucks. By the way, the Sony is an external so its plug and play---Good luck and let us know how it goes.


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> I looked at dvd burners while I was at the store and there were some as low as $79. which surprised me. I'm going to study up on the various models on the market before I decide on which one. Then I can make dvd's out of my movies. In the mean time, I can and did, download the video onto my computer and made a little movie which I burned onto a cd. It plays the movie with the editing I did, on Windows Media player.
> 
> What external dvd burner would you recommend linskyjack?


hottie, I still do not like the idea of DVDs for backup home movies--I have experienced far too many problems with burning to DVD--that medium is just not very reliable. What will happen is some of your DVDs will play fine, others will freeze--they'll get scratched and won't play, etc. I can't stress enough to people if you are going to spend the time (and it will take a lot of time) converting home movies to MPEG put them on a hard drive and then either buy a media player or a networked DVD player like this one:

http://www.govideo.com/Index.asp?GV=D2730

An excerpt from the link:



> By going into the My Movies area, you see a list of all of the MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 video files available for streaming. There are three methods for obtaining movie content on the PC today. First, a lot of content can be downloaded from the Internet. Second, a lot of people have TV tuner cards in the PC and are already recording TV shows to their PC with basic digital video recording software. *Finally, many people have digital camcorders and are sending that content from the camera to the PC to do their video editing.*
> 
> The Networked DVD Player can stream these movies from the PC to the TV at the touch of one button on the remote control, unlocking this valuable content that had previously been trapped on the computer. It is important to note that no content is being stored on the DVD player itself. Everything is stored on the PC's hard drive and is being streamed through the home network, through the DVD player for viewing on the TV.
> 
> The Networked DVD Player continues to garner awards and recognition, having been selected by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) as a 2003 Innovation Award winner and capturing Popular Science Magazine's Editor's Choice Award. Debuting with the best new products the competition had to offer at last years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the GoVideo Networked DVD Player was a Finalist for TechTV´s Best of CES 2003.


You wouldn't put all your computer files on DVDS or CDS would you?  Then why put all your videos on DVD? The only difference is you need something to get them from your computer to display on your television, which is a media player or networked DVD player.

Once you get all your movies on a hard drive (250 Gig should be plenty) you can then make "highlight" movies and burn those to DVD to give to your relatives. IN other words, you can take bits and pieces of different movies and put them together in a nice highlight film.

Trust me--you will be much happier with all your movies on a hard drive than with DVDs. They are all there to play at the touch of a button and you don't get errors like you do with DVDs--at least not near as often. At the very least, since you have to copy the movies onto the hard drive to burn them to DVD, then keep them on the hard drive as well as burned to a DVD. Then someday when you'll realize I was right when you actually abandon the DVDs and use the stuff directly from the computer!


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

linskyjack said:


> Well I'm reliEved that it now works (hate to sound so sure then end up being wrong!)


You're usually right in this forum--dead wrong in the Civ Debate forum!


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## jiml8 (Jul 3, 2005)

JohnWill said:


> FWIW, external hard disks are GREAT for backup, I use a bunch of them here, and I have them installed as most of my clients as well.


I have been having good luck using DVD-Rs for this.


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

jiml8 said:


> I have been having good luck using DVD-Rs for this.


"Luck" is certainly the right word because DVDs are notoriously unreliable. Backing up 100 Gigs of Data to 25 DVDs is like having 25 little hard drives just waiting to fail (one scratch will do it). They are fine for secondary backup, but primary backup should be to a hard drive.


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## jiml8 (Jul 3, 2005)

Mulder said:


> hottie, I still do not like the idea of DVDs for backup home movies--I have experienced far too many problems with burning to DVD--that medium is just not very reliable. What will happen is some of your DVDs will play fine, others will freeze--they'll get scratched and won't play, etc. I can't stress enough to people if you are going to spend the time (and it will take a lot of time) converting home movies to MPEG put them on a hard drive and then either buy a media player or a networked DVD player like this one:
> 
> http://www.govideo.com/Index.asp?GV=D2730
> 
> ...


I suspect that the issue here is similar to the issue we have had for years with CDs; construction quality seems to be highly variable and different technologies seem to cooperate with some brands of drives but not others.

I have HP and Yamaha CD Burners and Sony DVD burners around here. With the CD burners, I have had abyssmal luck with memorex, but have done well with cheapy-cheap, buy 'em by the hundred generic plain white label CDs.

With the sony DVD burners, so far I haven't had any problem with anything. At this point I have been using Verbatim DVD+R, Office Max brand DVD-R, and several different brands of CDs. Everything seems to work fine, and they seem to be - at this point - showing a decent shelf life.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

Mulder said:


> You're usually right in this forum--dead wrong in the Civ Debate forum!


I was waiting for that--By the way, you are correct about the unreliability of DVD's for long term storage solutions. In my mind, the only fairly good way of preserving those home movies is via that actual DV tape master, with maybe one or two back ups on DVD. If you are real concerned with backup, then you can actually dub a second copy of your master every couple of years because like any other media, tape has a limited life and stuff can go wrong. I just accessed some High8 tapes I made maybe 15 years ago-----they looked fine and I was easily able to capture them and edit them with no problems. Last but not least, the DVD should be seen as a delivery medium----lets say you want to show the family the movies on your TV etc----it really is handy.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> hottie, I still do not like the idea of DVDs for backup home movies--I have experienced far too many problems with burning to DVD--that medium is just not very reliable. What will happen is some of your DVDs will play fine, others will freeze--they'll get scratched and won't play, etc. I can't stress enough to people if you are going to spend the time (and it will take a lot of time) converting home movies to MPEG put them on a hard drive and then either buy a media player or a networked DVD player like this one:
> 
> You wouldn't put all your computer files on DVDS or CDS would you?  Then why put all your videos on DVD? The only difference is you need something to get them from your computer to display on your television, which is a media player or networked DVD player.
> 
> ...


Mulder...Eventually I will get an add'l. 250 hard drive, because I do get the fact that dvd isn't always reliable. I am going to keep all of my mini-disks for backup as well, just as I saved all of my old 8mm tapes after transferring them to VHS. The dv minidisks are only about $4.00 each. (although probably cheaper at costco where I haven't checked yet). I haven't decided on an external or internal hard drive yet.

I looked up the properties on the 10 minute video I downloaded last month and was surprised at the size....130MB. The file name wasn't mpeg, it was "Windows Media Audio/Video file". Is a MPEG file compact/smaller? I can see why I would need such a large hard drive to store these movies if they all take up that much space.

I was very surprised how well my computer handled the whole video download process with a hard drive of only 80GB.


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## jiml8 (Jul 3, 2005)

Mulder said:


> "Luck" is certainly the right word because DVDs are notoriously unreliable. Backing up 100 Gigs of Data to 25 DVDs is like having 25 little hard drives just waiting to fail (one scratch will do it). They are fine for secondary backup, but primary backup should be to a hard drive.


The way my system is organized I don't back up the whole thing. Usually, I shoot critical data across my LAN or over the internet from one system to another for routine backup, and every now and then (depending on my workload) I backup a couple of DVDs worth of critical data which I then take offsite to a safety deposit box.

Over the last 10 years of doing this (previously with CDs) I have had one important CD fail and another become difficult to read. Neither was terribly critical - nonessential archival business records (mostly scanned images of incoming checks) that were rolled off the HD to make room for new archival business records. I presently have a pretty good sized stack of CDs from the "old days" and I recently ran through the stack to make sure they were still OK. I have had most of the old memorex CDs fail, but the generics are holding up.

The "secret" seems to be to avoid using paper labels on CDs, label them with black permanent magic marker, store them out of the light, and keep the climate fairly uniform and not too humid.


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## jiml8 (Jul 3, 2005)

Actually, I have a couple of questions for people about their portable HDs.

My experience has generally been that the hard drives in laptops tend to have a much higher incidence of trouble than the HDs in towers. I attribute this to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" that laptops endure; even when carefully handled they still get banged around a lot. 

Also, I myself am particular about my tower HDs and I always use SCSI, which are the most reliable and the highest performance - and the most expensive.

But, if my attribution is correct, then it follows that a removable HD used as a backup medium should experience rates of trouble similar to those of a laptop, which would suggest that you should be running chkdsk on your mobile HD frequently.

For reference, I run chkdsk on my personal laptop 3-4 times a week or more, and I often find problems.

So, to those of you who use mobile HDs, do you frequently run chkdsk? What do you find? Rates of file system troubles substantially higher than on your desktop or tower systems?


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

hotskates said:


> Mulder...Eventually I will get an add'l. 250 hard drive, because I do get the fact that dvd isn't always reliable. I am going to keep all of my mini-disks for backup as well, just as I saved all of my old 8mm tapes after transferring them to VHS. The dv minidisks are only about $4.00 each. (although probably cheaper at costco where I haven't checked yet). I haven't decided on an external or internal hard drive yet.
> 
> I looked up the properties on the 10 minute video I downloaded last month and was surprised at the size....130MB. The file name wasn't mpeg, it was "Windows Media Audio/Video file". Is a MPEG file compact/smaller? I can see why I would need such a large hard drive to store these movies if they all take up that much space.
> 
> I was very surprised how well my computer handled the whole video download process with a hard drive of only 80GB.


Hotskates--both mpeg and .wmv files compress the original----Now I forget, are you recording with one of those cameras that goes directly to a minidisk. In other words, is your media a tape or is it a disk? Mpeg takes up more space and is the delivery format for DVD's. It is also playable on many DVD players and is of a higher quality (although you can adjust your quality to make your files smaller) WMV's are playable on your Windows Media Player.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

linskyjack said:


> Hotskates--both mpeg and .wmv files compress the original----Now I forget, are you recording with one of those cameras that goes directly to a minidisk. In other words, is your media a tape or is it a disk? Mpeg takes up more space and is the delivery format for DVD's. It is also playable on many DVD players and is of a higher quality (although you can adjust your quality to make your files smaller) WMV's are playable on your Windows Media Player.


linskyjack...My media is tape. I'm thinking that the WMV format that was automatically used because I only have a cd burner and not a dvd burner. (I have a dvd player but not the burner.) I would guess that when I get the dvd burner the download format will automatically go to MPEG?


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

Great Hotskates then that master tape is your most reliable (and cheapest back up) and most importantly, it holds the data in its purest form before it has been compressed. Before creating DVD's, you will need to compress the video to mpeg----Most DVD authoring programs give you that ability and it is part of the work process.


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> linskyjack...My media is tape. I'm thinking that the WMV format that was automatically used because I only have a cd burner and not a dvd burner. (I have a dvd player but not the burner.) I would guess that when I get the dvd burner the download format will automatically go to MPEG?


I don't know about "automatic" but if you have to choose, make sure you choose "DVD compatible" which is MPEG-2. Not all MPEG-2 is DVD Compatible. Most programs have a choice "DVD" or "DVD compatible" to encode your video onto the hard drive and that's what you should use. The reason being you can then easily burn to DVD--its already encoded.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Well, my husband and I went christmas shopping yesterday at my favorite store, Circuit City. Hubby wanted to know if I needed for the computer. I picked out an external dvd burner (nothing fancy), that I'm sure will be just fine for burning dvds of video footage. It was $109. and with the $20 rebate, a final cost of $89. THe store was so packed yesterday and of course the dvd burner wasn't priced correctly, not uncommon for that store. We waited in line about 20 minutes with the cashier trying to get the rebate form to print out after we paid the $109. Finally she just gave us the $20 and said Merry Christmas. Fastest rebate I ever got THe bad news.....I have to wait untiil Christmas day to "Open" my present  Here is what he bought: 
Lite-On® Double-Layer External DVD+/- RW Drive (SOHW-1673SX)


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

Lite-On is a good brand, but why do you need external?  You could get an internal at about half that price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106988

and you don't have it taking up room outside your case--you pull out the CD drive you have now and put in the new one (or install it in an empty bay if you have one). Externals are typically for laptops or where people don't have any room to put them internal or where you want to switch the drive amongst several different computers.

Take it back hotty and order yourself an internal from NewEgg.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> Lite-On is a good brand, but why do you need external?
> 
> Externals are typically for laptops or where people don't have any room to put them internal or *where you want to switch the drive amongst several different computers.*
> .


That is exactly why I wanted an external. I can use it with my laptop or my desktop. I did see that there was a big price difference between the externals and the internals. There was a really nice HP internal for about $75, but then I couldn't use it with my laptop.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Of course, you could have had a nice internal for $40, and the external case for another $25...


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

I could "coulda, woulda, shoulda" all day long, but I'm happy with what we bought..... 
Seriously


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> I could "coulda, woulda, shoulda" all day long, but I'm happy with what we bought.....
> Seriously


Well, Mulder does want to keep you happy!


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## Mulderator (Feb 20, 1999)

hotskates said:


> That is exactly why I wanted an external. I can use it with my laptop or my desktop. I did see that there was a big price difference between the externals and the internals. There was a really nice HP internal for about $75, *but then I couldn't use it with my laptop.*


In that case, you just copy whatever file you want to burn from the laptop to the desktop. Laptops aren't really designed for video editing and burning DVDs. I have a DVD RW drive in my laptop and it takes forever to burn with that drive so I always copy files to the desktop and use that. Not sure if the speed will be different on your laptop--depends on whether you have USB 2.0 on your laptop. If you don't, its going to take a month of Sundays to burn a DVD through a USB port.

For that matter, if you don't have USB 2.0 on your desktop, you should buy a USB 2.0 PCI card because that external will be really really slow if you don't use 2.0.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

Mulder said:


> * if you don't have USB 2.0 on your desktop*.


I DO have USB 2.0 on my NEW Dell desktop and a firewire as well.  I just wanted to have the burner available to both computers and I have pleanty of room on my desk for the external dvd.



Mulder said:


> Well, Mulder does want to keep you happy!


 Oh, I'm Happy!!!


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

I need a little advice on DVD burners I'm ready to buy that internal DVD burner now at New Egg or elsewhere..............But there are so many.......is there one brand better than the other? And what about speed?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I've had good luck with the Lite-On, LG, and Pioneer brands, I have one of each here. I have the Lite-On with LightScribe in an external USB case, the others are internal.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

JohnWill said:


> I've had good luck with the Lite-On, LG, and Pioneer brands, I have one of each here. I have the Lite-On with LightScribe in an external USB case, the others are internal.


Thanks JohnWill I have an external LightScribe DVD burner too and it works great, only someone stepped on my cord and now I can't fire the thing up SO, I thought that rather than search for another cord, I would just go ahead and by an internal burner. I'm still kicking myself for not realizing my new Dell didn't come with a DVD burner...only a player. From what I've seen there are lots of internals to choose from. I just wanted to be pointed in the right direction.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

I ended up buying a HP dvd burner and installed it today. I was surprised how easy it was and I was glad my Dell computer had all the right cords just sitting there ready to be plugged in. It only took me 15 minutes!!! I just burned 6 videos onto a dvd for backup and it worked great. So, I'll finally mark this thread CLOSED:up:


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I'm curious, why didn't you taek the external DVD out of the case and install it? If it's not working as an external, the description sounds like the drive itself was fine, just the cord? What cord are you talking about?


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

JohnWill said:


> I'm curious, why didn't you taek the external DVD out of the case and install it? If it's not working as an external, the description sounds like the drive itself was fine, just the cord? What cord are you talking about?


 the power cord is the one that was damaged. Someone stepped right on the end and bent the pins that plug into the dvd burner. The brand was "lighton", not lightscribe like I mistakenly mentioned before. I don't thnk this model could be made into an internal dvd burner by taking it out of the case. (I could be wrong about that though.......that burner is already put away and I'm not going to bother tearing it apart to see).

THe new burner is made by HP and One thing I have always loved about HP products is that they always come with great instructions and they always work and install pretty simply.......even when installed into a Dell. Like I said it only took about 15 minutes.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Sure it can. I've never seen an external case that didn't have a standard CD/DVD drive in it.


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## hotskates (Jan 11, 2002)

JohnWill said:


> Sure it can. I've never seen an external case that didn't have a standard CD/DVD drive in it.


Well........now ya tell me Just kidding............at least I have a spare now!!!


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