question about DVD Shrink/Decrypter with external drives

[DVDFan1969]

I am still having to reflash my drive every few days or so and i'm getting fed up with it so someone recommended an external DVD/CD Burner drive. I found one at Wal-Mart which is an HP and it's a 60 dollar one. HP's are pretty reliable so i think it'll be a good one. I haven't bought it yet as i'm short on money until i get paid on Friday but in any case,you should still be able to use these programs with it i assume. Does anyone have an external dvd burner drive and know if it will work on these? just thought i'd ask. Thanks ahead of time.

Paul

[Chewy]

an internal one would be better, that's a good price tho, what model is it?

all dvd programs should work fine with an external, just might slow down a little

[DVDFan1969]

as i mentioned chewy,it's an HP. i'd like to get an internal one but it'd cost 200 bucks for someone to come here to install it and as this PC is 3 years old,i don't know if that'll run ok or not.

[Chewy]

http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?category=4&manufactor=37

this only lists some of the HP drives

installing a new one internally shouldn't be that hard, ask a friend?

if your computer doesn't have usb2 then an internal would be the way to go

people are frequently posting here with drives that they bought recently that are old for dvd burners,
newer models are much better than those made 2 years ago

HP has a bad history of not supporting their drives with timely firmware updates

[DVDFan1969]

i see

i see chewy. i'd like to get a new pc,preferably one with vista in it,but as my payments aren't quite done yet on this one,i'll have to wait. it should be up by april or may then i'll get one. but in any rate, hp seems to be the best price as of now. otherwise i end up paying a ton of money,and i want to save up for a new pc as i said above.

[smkymntgrl]

Here's one:

one

or:

this one

I have had good luck with my external lite-on. They are pretty reasonable and one of those does have free shipping right now. I've been looking out for one to send to my Mom so I've been watching. The second one has lightscribe and the free shipping.

[Chewy]

http://3btech.net/exsadula18xd.html

this was the best deal I could find for a friend the other day

case is probably junk, but for 60$ w/ firewire(good laptop accessory)

it was 50$ fri nite

[DVDFan1969]

have a question

have a new question about these. now these external dvd burners will not only burn but they'll play back as well right? in other words after it finishes burning i could turn on Windows Media Player and it'd start playing the DVD? just curious.

[smkymntgrl]

Yes they burn and play just like an internal does. I read my discs with my internal and then burn to the external. You can also read with the external and burn to the internal. Or you can read and burn with one or the other. I can watch a disc from either one.

[DVDFan1969]

ok

i figured as such but i wanted to be sure. by next week i'll have figured out how i'm gonna buy one. i can't wait. hopefully i can find one that is burnable for both DVD+R and DVD-R. that'll kick butt.

Paul

[smkymntgrl]

This is what you would want a dual format or all format burner, which I think most of them are now. I know the burners I posted in the links will do both.

Dual format means the DVD writer will burns both "DVD plus" and "DVD minus" media; all format means the DVD burner will burn "DVD plus", "DVD minus", and "DVD-RAM" media; Dual Layer (DL) means the writer will be able to burn both the normal DVD media (4.7 GB) and the higher capacity DVD media (8.5 GB).

[DVDFan1969]

what exactly is DVD-Rom and DVD-Ram discs? can you use these to copy movies that have 2 sides or something? please let me know.

[Chewy]

dvd-rom is a factory pressed disk, not a burned one, but we can bitsett/booktyped dvd+r/rw's to dvd-rom and fool players

dvd-ram is the ultimate rewriteable media but not designed for video files

[DVDFan1969]

i think i understand. not sure. but ok thanks chewy. as i said before though,i wish i could just buy the external now but oh well.

[DVDFan1969]

ok i did some investigation on DVD External Burner drives and Wal-Mart has 3. 1 is an HP which goes for $107.98 a Sony for 99.98 and a Lite-On which goes for 87.98. HP is model DVD840ve,Sony is Drx-830u,and Lite-On is model 160p6su. they all look good but sadly because of the price,i am not sure i want to go that route. Wal-Mart originally told me these players were between 40-60 bucks but it turns out even though i said External,they thought i said Internal. goes to show these people only hear what they want to hear. I felt like imitating Strother Martin from Cool Hand Luke and say "what we have here is a failure to communicate" lol. But oh well. Just thought i'd let you know and what you thought about these external players. http://www.walmart.com/search/search...burner&ic=24_0 there's the link to these 3 players.

Paul