DVD Disc Recording Drives + FULL MediaStudio Pro

[Jerry Jones]

The Electronic Mailbox has a pretty nice deal going...

The Panasonic LF-D311 DVD-R / DVD-RAM disc recording drive is being bundled with FULL version of Ulead's DVD-enabled MediaStudio Pro 6.5 for $599. There is a Pioneer/MediaStudio Pro bundle, also, for $150 more:

http://www.videoguys.com/ulead.htm

[paulw]

Not a bad price but the problem is that the DVD-RAM will not play on any DVD player. You could make a lot of coasters out of DVD-R disks before you got it rite.

[wkulecz]

Actually I've had no trouble with coasters. Problem is, the DVD-R compatability with existing players is more like 20% than the claimed "90%" or "most".

While perhaps 90% of the players I've tested accept DVD-R and start playing them back problems are video mosiac glitches, freeze-frame-jump-ahead, broken FF/REV, broken chapter navigation :-(

Obviously these guys have a different definition of "compatable" than I do.

Problem could be authoring software, MSP6.5 encoder, or the basic technology is flawed. I've no way to tell. I've authored with MSP6.5 DVD plugin, DVD Factory Trial, bundled MyDVD 2.3 and 3.0. The quality of the encoding from DV to mpeg2 using the bundled software is far inferior to MSP6.5 NTSC-DVD template.

I'd advise waiting until this is resolved. Most "happy reviewers" are likely only testing superficially or happen to have one of the compatable players (mostly Sony, Panasonic, and Pioneer models). If all I did was pop a disk in a player and watch it for 5 minutes or less I could honestly tell you it works in most players or even 90% of the current players, but I've tested more thouroughly and few completely play the disks without problems.

I've posted the gory details as I discovered them in some first and second week of October threads.

If you and your audience are willing to buy new players to watch your disks glitch free, then the quality is very good if you throw out the bundled software and use the Ulead authoring and encoding tools.

I've heard claims that Panasonic burned DVD-R play on some models that my Pioneer burned DVD-Rs glitch on. Don't know if its lack of really testing the disks on the player or the Pioneer burner gets it wrong while the Panasonic gets it right. I've no idea what software was bundled with these Panasonic players used by the people making these claims. The Pioneer burns 2X while the Panasonic burns DVD-R at 1X so the hardware is clearly different.

DVD-RAM is a solution in search of a problem IMHO. Cost per GB is too high, Capacity per disk is too low to back up todays hard drives.

--wally.