CD/DVD combi drives

[petrefax]

combination CDRW/DVD drives?
i've never used one, so have no idea whether they are good or bad

i'm building a pc for a mate in work & am thinking about using one

firstly cos he's a mate & i'm keen to keep costs down, but he's also a bit of a n00b, so want to minimise the possibility of "tech-support" calls too so thought the one drive does everything approach might be less confusing

anyone got any experience of them, any thoughts / opinions??

any input greatfully received, ta

[hans]

A combi drive will be good for the average user. What are your mates needs. For the heavy user who requires ripping and copying constantly,i reccomend getting a seperate dvd and cdrw, if for average user it should be fine. Combi drive does not preform at the high speeds as stated. Check out www.cdrlabs.com

[Lexeus]

I have a combo drive. Works fine, and as you said cuts the cost down a bit.

[petrefax]

cheers fellas (both from s.wales! do they only sell combi drives here or sommat )

mate from work is unlikely to be ripping/copying at all to start with afaik he don't own a home pc at all at the moment, cheers for the link tho

[spikegifted]

I know that lots of today technology trends are about integration, but there's only so much integration you can do before you're stuck.

Take the small TV/VCR as an example... If the VCR part goes funny and you want to have it fixed, you loose your TV also. And the same applies if it's the TV part goes funny...

Apply the same logic to CD-RW/DVD combo, what do does that do for you? Not a lot... If you decided to start copying CDs, you'd need a second drive to copy anyway! It is far better to have a stand alone CD-RW and then a DVD ROM drive. I think...

[Lexeus]

Originally posted by spikegifted
Apply the same logic to CD-RW/DVD combo, what do does that do for you? Not a lot... If you decided to start copying CDs, you'd need a second drive to copy anyway! It is far better to have a stand alone CD-RW and then a DVD ROM drive. I think...

You dont need to. Thats only if you want to copy 'on the fly'.
Its just as good, actualy more reliable, if you let it take an image of the CD and save it to your hard drive, and then write the CD, thats what I do.

[Ethos]

Copying Cds "on the fly" is always a bad idea in my opinion. I've recently bought a cd-r/dvd combo from having a dvd-rw and dvd drive and I would say I prefer having the one drive. If you go for a good brand these will be just as good as having both a dvd and cd-rw drive and a smaller cost.

[Lexeus]

Originally posted by Ethos
Copying Cds "on the fly" is always a bad idea in my opinion. I've recently bought a cd-r/dvd combo from having a dvd-rw and dvd drive and I would say I prefer having the one drive. If you go for a good brand these will be just as good as having both a dvd and cd-rw drive and a smaller cost.

right on !
but why you ditch a DVD-RW for a CD-RW ? Can i buy the old drive ?

[SilentDeath]

definatly get a dvd-rw, with the pioneer 105 getting very cheap now they is no point in buying a cdrw/dvd combo drive

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by Ethos
Copying Cds "on the fly" is always a bad idea in my opinion.

That is entirely dependent on what drives and what software you're using. All my optical drives in my main rig are UW SCSI (CD, CD-RW, DVD-ROM) and I've yet to make a coaster, apart from my own mistakes.

Originally posted by Lexeus
Its just as good, actualy more reliable, if you let it take an image of the CD and save it to your hard drive, and then write the CD, thats what I do.

I don't see how making an image on harddisk then copy the image onto a CD will make it any more reliable than on the fly (disc-to-disc) copying...

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by spikegifted
I don't see how making an image on harddisk then copy the image onto a CD will make it any more reliable than on the fly (disc-to-disc) copying...

I have to admit, Ive never seen a coaster come out of this Lite-on of mine... i usually do on-the-fly....

As for the choice though... if your keeping the costs down.... a com-bi should be fine...

[gss03]

I always assumed that with CD combo drives that you compromised on speed when they were combined into the one unit.
Certainly I thought this was true back in about 2000, but is this same principle still the same now?

[Agent]

Crating an image on the HD and then burning that to CD, makes a huge difference when copying copy protected CD's.

It shouldnt make any difference for normal CD's.

[Lexeus]

Originally posted by Agent
Crating an image on the HD and then burning that to CD, makes a huge difference when copying copy protected CD's.

It shouldnt make any difference for normal CD's.

What cd's are worth copying if they are not protected ?

[SarG]

Originally posted by Lexeus
right on !
but why you ditch a DVD-RW for a CD-RW ? Can i buy the old drive ?

No, cause i did