[eaz51]

basically i've had mine for a few years now and its going i can tell, i just wanted to know what is better to buy an internal or external as well as good brands to buy, any advice would appreciated. also i want to know if there are any better burning programs than the ones i use, i use nero and convertx2dvd, but mostly convertx

edit - after reading the other thread about Doreiku with his burning issues i wanted to know that considering that my burner is literly 5 and a half years old would cleaning it do any good or is it just better to buy a new one like i was planning on doing originally? Also if cleaning it would solve my problem how would i go about cleaning it properly?

ps sorry to ask some many questions but i do a LOT of burning and well i like to watch my moves/shows without having to borrow my friends player all the time

[Dnajun_Tnuieh]

Originally Posted by eaz51

basically i've had mine for a few years now and its going i can tell, i just wanted to know what is better to buy an internal or external as well as good brands to buy, any advice would appreciated. also i want to know if there are any better burning programs than the ones i use, i use nero and convertx2dvd, but mostly convertx

edit - after reading the other thread about Doreiku with his burning issues i wanted to know that considering that my burner is literly 5 and a half years old would cleaning it do any good or is it just better to buy a new one like i was planning on doing originally? Also if cleaning it would solve my problem how would i go about cleaning it properly?

ps sorry to ask some many questions but i do a LOT of burning and well i like to watch my moves/shows without having to borrow my friends player all the time

If you want to try cleaning it, open it up, dust it out with either a air can or air compressor. make sure not to scratch the lens with anything, and after you've done that run a cd lens cleaner.

But I would just get a new internal one, you can get them for under 20 USD, depending where you live.

(open it up as in, not opening the disk tray, but taking it apart)

[jologs16]

It depends if ur a mobile type of person, if u r then you should get an external, but internal drives are usually cheaper and faster.

[eaz51]

Originally Posted by jologs16

It depends if ur a mobile type of person, if u r then you should get an external, but internal drives are usually cheaper and faster.

yea thats what i ended up coming to the conclusion of and i already ordered a internal earlier today it i should hopefully get it soon

[Lemnear]

Since you already ordered it (and unless you want to try and catch the order before it gets shipped to change it) for the future for just a DVD burner I'd recommend a Sony with Lightscribe capabilities. The lightscribe disks are a bit more expensive, but can make life so much easier if you're burning a series that's say 120 episodes to keep tract of where you are and not screw up in the labelling. Plus there's some cool templates to play around with. Have had mine for almost 5 years and run into no problems, and the lightscribe still burns in images fine.

One thing to keep an eye out for is blue ray recorders. Have been over at hardware shops at times when they're on sale for very reasonable prices. Probably after the whole Christmas rush their prices will drop down a big chunk again. While the media is still a bit expensive; it will start to come down in time. Being able to burn an entire tv series/season onto 1 disk via convert2dvd is very appealing, saving what otherwise would have taken 6 regular dvd roms.

With more and more anime being encoded from HD/BR sources average filesizes for single episodes have generally double, or even quadripled if you're going all out for 1080p quality. Though the episodes will be a fraction of size compared to their source, they're going to start taking up a lot of space. Even with disks being so cheap these days I find it preferable to have anything sitting on my storage array backed up to DVD in case of catostropic failure; and are easier to let friends borrow or copy quickly and easyily. Blue Ray burners are expensive right now, after using it for just a few months you re-cooperate your investment in savings that you would have others had to expend if you were using a regular dvd burner.