I have a 4 year old computer with a DVD ROM (read @ 40x CD, 16x DVD) and a 4x DVD +R/RW writer. Nothing is wrong with either drive I just would like to upgrade. Is there any reason not to replace both drives with two 16x DVD writers? I would love to be able to burn 2 disk at a time. Will I be able to do that if I have AnyDVD, NERO 6 Ultra, and 2 burners? BigDM
IMHO- on a "regular" PC you will not be able to do both - because the process is so CPU intensive. I'm not sure on those "dual" layer CPU's. I can do it on my PC cause it's a dual CPU server type. Actually I can burn a movie, rip a movie and surf all at the same time. But I do notice that the PC slows down a little. Maybe someone with a dual-layer CPU will chime in. Having a lot of ram might help.
First I would suggest that you look into BenQ1640,1650, or 1655 Burners. Yesterday catfreak mentioned that even the BenQ is not riplocked and this can speed up ripping a DVD before burning to another device. At the price of burners today, nothing wrong with having two. As for burning two DVD's at the same time, yes it is possible depending on your system and software especially since the encoding is more PC intensive then the actual burning. Would I recommend it, no. If you really wanted or needed to burn multiple DVD's then I'd suggest a DVD replicator instead.
I plan to purchase 1 or 2 of the BenQ drives depending on the response to my post. I was wondering if there was anything special about a DVD ROM drive that I can't get with a burner. In the past 2-3 months I am having to spend more time burning movies using steps (DVDFAB Decrypter, VobBlanker, AnyDVD, Recode2) where in the pass I just used AnyDVD and Recode2. Although my burner is a 4x I have been burning all of my disc at 2x speed. This is becoming very time consuming. I want to speed up this process and I was wondering should I get 2 dvd burners or 1 burner keeping my DVD ROM drive (is 16x still fast?) or buy a new DVD ROM and a burner. I ordered the following system from HP 4years ago, let me know if it is possible to run 2 burners. 2ghz (HT) Intel pentium 4 512MB DDR/PC3200 120Gb 7200 HD DMA 160GB 7200 HD (added a 2nd HD myself) 16X DVD ROM 4x DVD +R/RW Softwares (Professional XP, Nero6 Ultra, Shrink, DVD Decrypter, DVDFAB Decrypter, VobBlanker, AnyDVD) What is a dual layer CPU or server? Rarely do I burn CDs (data or music). The drives are use primarily for playing DVDs or burning them. By the way how do I check my actual ROM speed? I think I can do this with Nero but don't know how. I hope this helps. Bigdm
If you get a BenQ1640,1650,1655 then you can burn at 8x all day long without a hiccup if you are using quality media such as TY, etc. From what you just stated that would be the way to go and with a P4 2.0 I wouldn't do two burners.
@ ScubaBud Now you'v got me curious. Hypothetically you want to use two burners at once. What sorts of things to you need? What are the pros and cons IYHO?
@Inescapbl Let me know if this works for you... If you have Nero Recode2, just open it up "twice", select rip to a HDD in both cases, then select Burner 1 in one open window and Burner 2 in the other.
ScubaBud, I am using quality media and choose to burn at 2.4X with my 4X burner after reading many posts here at AfterDawn. Since my HP ROM drive only reads +R, I was wondering if I should replace that as well. I bought this system before HP started installing +R/-R drives. I figured this would give me more flexibility and if one burn went down I had a 2nd. On rare occasions I was hoping to run 2 burners at a time. Why did you not recommend this because of the P4 2.6 ghz? Is there a minimum requirement or setup to do this? Also, I would like to know how fast my ROM is actually reading compared to the max 16x spec. Depending on the figures I may still but a second burner but I don't know how to use Nero to get this information. Thanks, BigDM
@Scubabud, I can see how that will work. I'm more curious as to the pros and cons of doing two at once. Things like quality, cpu draw, corruption...things like that. Any insight?
Inescapbl I,ve never do it nor did I have any desire to do so for several reasons but the main one is I have 4 PC's and 3 burners so no need. I do know that I only use 33% at any given time when encoding so I'm sure it would work on my main system.
