Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter David D.
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David D.

Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?

A DVD writer is also able to read DVD discs, so why two drives ?
 
David D. said:
Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?

Few are.
A DVD writer is also able to read DVD discs, so why two drives ?

Presumably someone is getting rid of DVD readers that
are pretty useless now with DVD writers so cheap now.
 
David said:
Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?

A DVD writer is also able to read DVD discs, so why two drives ?

Mainly to allow copying from one to the other. At one time saving wear and
tear on the writer was considered desirable due to their high cost, but
with prices today that's not really an issue anymore.
 
Previously David D. said:
Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?
A DVD writer is also able to read DVD discs, so why two drives ?

Sounds like a misconfiguration to me. Maybe supported by
a bogus marketing argument. Or mabe somebody bought too
many readers and is getting rid of them this way.

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
Sounds like a misconfiguration to me. Maybe supported by
a bogus marketing argument. Or mabe somebody bought too
many readers and is getting rid of them this way.
Linux Trolls just don't get modern computing.
Never ripped, (shrunk), and burned a DVD?
 
Why are desktop PC sold with DVD writer and Dvd reader drives ?

A DVD writer is also able to read DVD discs, so why two drives ?

I use both on my main PC. The reader is much better than the writer
at reading marginal or damaged disks (like aging burned disks or
scratched disks), and is faster as well, so I use it for ripping CDs
and DVDs.

That said, it would be easy enough to get by with just a burner, if it
was good at reading marginal disks, and the rest of the PCs around the
home all have single drives.

max
 
Mr said:
Linux Trolls just don't get modern computing.
Never ripped, (shrunk), and burned a DVD?

No. Why would I want to do that? If I want to watch a DVD I either
buy or rent it. Imagine that.
 
Linux Trolls just don't get modern computing.
Never ripped, (shrunk), and burned a DVD?

Still can do that with just one burner and no extra drive of any kind.
With decent DVD burners under $100 (under $50 for cheap models), the
issue of wear is meaningless anyway.

Pop in the original disc, rip to HD, shrink it, burn to blank.
Ripping and shrinking on the fly from DVD to DVD burner is very slow
and can be tedious if there's a coaster and no final ISO image on the
hard drive.
 
Impmon said:
Still can do that with just one burner and no extra drive of any kind.
With decent DVD burners under $100 (under $50 for cheap models), the
issue of wear is meaningless anyway.

Pop in the original disc, rip to HD, shrink it, burn to blank.
Ripping and shrinking on the fly from DVD to DVD burner is very slow
and can be tedious if there's a coaster and no final ISO image on the
hard drive.
--
I don't know of any that shrink on the fly.

DVD shrink creates an ISO and burns it. The advantage of ROM plus burner
is you don't have to swap the disc an hour or two after you started.
 
I don't know of any that shrink on the fly.
DVD shrink creates an ISO and burns it. The advantage of ROM plus
burner is you don't have to swap the disc an hour or two after you started.

Pretty minor effect now with the burn being so fast now.
 
Previously Impmon said:
On Thu, 4 May 2006 09:51:20 -0700, "Mr Bilderberg"
Still can do that with just one burner and no extra drive of any kind.
With decent DVD burners under $100 (under $50 for cheap models), the
issue of wear is meaningless anyway.
Pop in the original disc, rip to HD, shrink it, burn to blank.
Ripping and shrinking on the fly from DVD to DVD burner is very slow
and can be tedious if there's a coaster and no final ISO image on the
hard drive.

Well, that is about what I expect. Though I don't think that this
operation is "modern computing" except for a very small group
of people.

Arno
 
Impmon said:
Still can do that with just one burner and no extra drive of any kind.
With decent DVD burners under $100 (under $50 for cheap models), the
issue of wear is meaningless anyway.

Pop in the original disc, rip to HD, shrink it, burn to blank.

And if you want to go DVD to DVD direct then a reader & writer is
faster. No?
 
max said:
I use both on my main PC. The reader is much better than the writer
at reading marginal or damaged disks (like aging burned disks or
scratched disks), and is faster as well, so I use it for ripping CDs
and DVDs.

That said, it would be easy enough to get by with just a burner, if it
was good at reading marginal disks, and the rest of the PCs around the
home all have single drives.

max

The problem, i believe, is not the read step, but the write step. I
think that there is lots of read/write error checking that occurs
between source & speakers, and I don't have to worry about it.

How does your reader error rate manifest itself?

What i need to know is that my digital source file was written, with
great accuracy, to the target. So enters "different brands of burn
media".

And the ability to test the output.

duh
 
The problem, i believe, is not the read step, but the write step. I
think that there is lots of read/write error checking that occurs
between source & speakers, and I don't have to worry about it.

I've got a long history of chasing deteriorating CDR burns, and some
with DVD burns. The initial burn is good, the verification is good,
but the disk starts to have errors after a period of time - 6 months,
a year, two years, whatever.

This is a well-documented effect now, and I was one of the early
"alarmists" on this.

I have quite an assortment of CDRs made over the years, on a wide
variety of media and burners, that were unreadable until I got my
current DVD reader (LiteOn 163). These same disks are unreadable on
my various Plextors, NECs, Teacs, etc.

While the initial write conditions are critical (medium, burner, and
speed), the ability to read disks that have problems is important to
some of us.
How does your reader error rate manifest itself?

Failed reads and slow reads, getting worse at the outside of the disk.
What i need to know is that my digital source file was written, with
great accuracy, to the target. So enters "different brands of burn
media".

A post-burn compare will accomplish much of this, of course, but will
not tell you how your media will hold up over the next X years
(whatever's important to you).

There's really no way to test this except to wait. Lifetime testing
has serious flaws when extrapolated to real-world results, and dye and
reflective layer formulas are constantly changing on OEM disks. I'm
sure you're aware that brand names mean absolutely nothing.

I see some correlation between brands that fail compare after a
full-speed burn and brands that deteriorate sooner, but it's not super
strong, as many brands considered good back in the day are in my
unreadable pile.

My current best results come from media I've tested on my specific
systems, burned at half the max burner speed, and verified after burn.
This isn't a guarantee, but it has improved the odds a good bit for
me.
And the ability to test the output.

duh

If it's important to you, you should think about recopying regularly,
or re-verifying to see how the data integrity is holding up.

We all make our tradeoffs between risk and effort, of course. YMMV,
as always.

max
 
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