CDs,+ DVDs,..........

Willy's question about the CDs has Me Thinking,......

This new 'puter I've got here can run,+ burn Both,......

So,....... If I want to Back-up My 'puter,....
How is it done,+ What DVDs should I be looking for,......DVDs Do hold More Info,..Right,..??...
I see both CDs,+ DVDs with several different letter designations in their titles,.....
And have No Clue what most of it Means.......
It seems to me that a DVD that can be used,+ Reused would be the way to Go,......
What Letter Title would That be,..??.....

Another thing,......
If I want to bring some of my Photo Albums back home to show off some of my Stuff,....Boats, Houses, Projects, just Stuff,.......
I have many friends Without 'puters,(Damn Backwoods Maineiacs).....

Can I borrow the kid's portable DVD player,+ Show them off That Way,..??....
These are Still Photos,.. Not Videos.....

Thanks for any Ideas,..............

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

The wife scans photos then puts them in a montage onto a disc.thats all i know ,but she has been having trouble in playing them in a regular dvd player.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

CD's hold around 700MB while a DVD holds 4 GB. Almost 6X as a CD.

If your computer has a DVD burner, there is a difference in DVD's. Some are -R and the other is +R. Your documentaion should tell you which one you have. You also need DVD burning software. It is not the same a CD burning software.

If you make a DVD, yes you can play it on a dvd player.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

I'll have to dig up the papers on this thing,....

I have Belarc Advisor installed,+ It gives a pretty thourogh listing of the 'puter,+ everything In it, or hooked to it....
It says I've got This for a Drive,....
"HL-DT-ST DVD-RW_GSA-H11N [CD-ROM drive]"

And this for a Disc Burning Program,.....
"NTI Disc Copy Application Version 7, 0, 0, 1"

And this is for CDs I guess,......
"NTI WaveEditor Version 2, 0, 0, 5 "

CD's hold around 700MB while a DVD holds 4 GB. Almost 6X as a CD.

Click to expand...

I Like that Idea.........

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

OK, it looks like you have a DVD burner, but I am not familar with NTI, sorry.

But it looks like the WAV editor is for .wav (music) files, Just not sure if the other application is for CD only or DVD as well.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

NTI is a cd/dvd burning software. I have it on my puter. Tried it once and gave up to much trouble. I use windows media player. Works good enough for me.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

Also most DVD players will play a burnt cd or dvd. So you should be able to show off your pictures by copying them to cd or dvd, and playing them on a dvd player.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

[colour=blue]Your DVD drive is an LG burner, it will read and burn cd's and DVD's. This model will handle '+R' or '-R' blanks - no problems.

Install 'Nero', it's the only program you will ever need to burn CD's, VCD's, montages', DVD's etc etc.

I

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

You will need to know the speed of the burner as they went from 2x to 4x to 8x to 12x to 16x

A 4x burner will not work with the new 16x disks you have to buy 4x disks I LOVE PROGRESS


Tommays

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

OK Tom,...... Any Idea where that Info might be Found,..??....
'Cause I Haven't a Clue.......

Btw,.... There's No Paper with this 'puter,.... It Must be available from the 'puter itself,... Somewhere......

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

If you look in the control pannel under hardware at the DVD drive it will list the model # like GCE-8400B which is a 40x 12x 40x CD-RW drive

You can google it and find the specs MINE was a 4X and i found and update so it can use 8X disks

Tommays

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

If you look in the control pannel under hardware at the DVD drive it will list the model # like GCE-8400B which is a 40x 12x 40x CD-RW drive

Click to expand...

I'm not having Any luck with This,.........

Anybody got any more Ideas as to Which Discs I should be Buying,..??.....

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

The only way to tell for sure what model and type you have in the way of DVD is to look at the case of the DVD unit. With the actual seriel and model numbers off the case, you should be able to "google" it and find more information. You will most likely be able to find more current firmware for the unit, but I recommend that you do not up grade the frimware unless you know what you are doing. A mistake in upgrading firmware can render the unit usless. If what Duraruna has indicated is true, your burner is a multiformat burner. It will be able to use DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW generally speaking. I would suggest that you stick with +R or +RW disks. They burn faster. The speed of the disk doesn't matter so much. If you burner is rated for 8x speed burning and the disk is only rated for 4x, the burner will scale back. If the disk is rated for 8x and the burner for 4x, the burner will max out at 4x. If you don't want to open up your computer, you can always go buy one of each and try to burn to them. If they both work, great. If the burner is a + or a - burner, one of them will not work. The rewritble disks on average can be rewritten about 60 times or so before they become unreliable. Now, the better the material that goes into the disk, the longer it will be usable. I would not recommend any type of RW disk for long term storage of data. By long term, I'm mean years.

As to your question of viewing images on a portable DVD player, it depends. You will need to check with the documentation of the player. Some players require a specific file structure on the disk for it to read the files properly. Some players us a flat file structure and other have built in browsers that allow you to have seperate subfolders so you can organize the pictures in seperate groups on the disk.

Hope this helps.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

Ayuh,....... That's a Step in the Right Direction,......

It appears that this burner is a (+) or a (-) burner,.....
I guess I should call the Geek that sold be this Acer 'puter,+ Ask Him which Speed discs to buy.....
'course,.... Then I'll have to buy them from Him........d

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

[colour=blue]Bondo, after extensive research (I googled the model number :} ) it appears that your burner is only a year or 2 old. It will automatically scale up or down depending on the disc you use, no need to worry about speed. Also, nero checks the disc speed and also auto scales up/down.

BTW, it's interesting what colorado04 says about '+' burning faster, I burn many DVD's and I find '-' to be more reliable and faster. Maybe it's the software that makes a difference - dunno.

Regardless, they are cheap enough - experiment!

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

Ayuh,...... Thanks for all the Info,.....

The 'puter is less than a year old,.....
And,.. I've got Nero on my other 'puter, which is on the home network,....
That 1 is a Dell,...... Maybe I'll try Both of them to see which works Better......
I bought some 1x-16x discs the other day,.....
My Love is sorting thru all her Pictures now,+ we'll be trying this Soon......

So Far,.... The Only Issue I see is that I bought +R discs,.. Not RW.....
After I got them home I noticed that they're a Single burn, archival discs....
But I guess that's OK,....
Just got to be Sure that I get what I Want on them the 1st time.........

Once I get to Doing this,.......... I'll report back,+ let ya's Know how bad it Goes............d

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

To have the capability to backup & restore you will need specialized application software to do it. A simple copy/paste from the hard drive to a DVD burner won't hack it. You need to be able to handle Windows itself, a slug of hidden files, the registry and so on. I use one called Acronis True Image. Check their web site. I find it easy to use. I use a second hard drive rather than DVDs. You may need to also depending on how much space you now use. Check by going to Windows Explorer then to your C drive & right click Properties.

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

IMO - The "burn once" DVDs will be fine. The problem with the RW ones is that you have to erase them before re-using them and the cost.

For $20 (newegg.com) you can get a 100 pack of +R or get a 30 pack of +RW. Not worth the effort for me...they are a "disposable" item (make sure you shred em though).

-JMW

Re: CDs,+ DVDs,..........

Hey Bondo, I just went through the same thing. I bought an LG and did some research on the disks. The +R and +RW are pretty much the standard going forward. (Until Blu-ray and other standards)

To make sure your DVDs are compatible with older players and even some newer ones like the cheap one my Dad bought late last year@#&%#!!, use the -R or -RW. This is the older standard and they will be playable in pretty much every DVD player. The +R and +RW will work in all newer high quality players.

I bough Nero 7 Ultimate and have been happy with it. I made some DVDs with movies and slide-shows combined with sound during the menu that I recorded of my son playing guitar.

If they shipped a copy of Nero with your drive, it probably has Nero Vision included which is their DVD creation program. If not, you can enter the serial number on the Nero website and get around $10 or so off the price of the newest version. This version has some of everything.

I have used their burner software for many years. It will also let you make a MiniDVD out of a CD-R. CD-Rs cost $.08 or less and DVD-Rs cost $.25 or so. This lets you save some money especially if you don't have 4GB or 8GB (Dual layer) worth of pictures to put on a DVD.

As I understand it, your DVD burner is a variant of the GSA-H10N. Probably just the version they shipped with your Dell or other manufacturer's computer. It will use all -+R & -+RW media. It also probably has light scribe which is a technology that will etch a picture into the top of the CD/DVD if you are using LightScribe media. Cool technology, but it takes a while to burn the picture into the top of the disk. It will have a LightScribe logo on the front if it does have LightScribe capabilities.