A question for those of you who've only just bought a DVD burner...

[Arky]

Hi,

As many of you will know, I've been authoring DVD content (on a non-professional basis) for a couple of years now, but until only recently, I've been forced to author very limited content to CDR, which is frustrating on a number of levels - not enough rotational velocity to permit a decent bitrate for full D1, and also not anough damned capacity to permit either a decent duration, or a decent bitrate.

Now that I have an A04 (bought only a month ago), I decided that in order to galvanise myself into action, to author some new content to DVD-R (I'm talking about DV-footage, not DVD rips), I needed to take drastic action and throw sentiment out the window. With this in mind I forced myself to ceremonially burn (by "burn", I mean throw them on my neighbour's bonfire!) my CDR-authored projects, Wednesday last week! This was stressful but I am glad I did it.

...So, I am just curious - for those of you who have been in the same position, some of whom I knew from Flexion, - what have you decided to do with your old CDR-based DVD-work??


Arky ;o)


P.S. LOVE the new burner, AND the new burner prices - I remember when the A03 first hit the market, and it was nearly £800 - OUCH!!


...NOW all I have to do is decide what my first DVD-R DV project will be! (any suggestions??)

[tom para]

Arky, you're so foggy. Ask again and I'll pour my brains out.

[Arky]

lol - thanks for the compliment! :P

I'm just asking if I'm the only one who's abvandoned their old CDR-based projects, what with the advent of cheap DVD-R and DVD+R writers. Am I alone in having suffered the frustrations of DVD authoring to CDR, and in seeing no real reason to hold on to such work now I have a DVD-R burner?

Perhaps I shouldn't havce destroyed them - I could have added them to my CDR coaster collection...


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

uhh, ive just got lots of burnt discs lying around unlabeled ;)

and about cheap DVD-R/DVD+R prices:

A04 AUD$1100
MP5125A AUD$850

ill wait a little thanks, probably pick up the new sony early next year, should be good, probably expensive though.

Enf...

[Nogami]

I tossed out all my old CDR stuff when I got the DVD-R - but really, there wasn't that much - I had absolutely no interest in making CDRs of movies other than as a learning process as I knew the timeline for my move to a DVD-R was less than 6-8 months.

I did a full DiVX menued, subtitled, self-installing CDR for Mission Impossible 2, then decided to wrap up my DiVX movie days. I still do DiVX encodes, but not for any big-name stuff, mostly my own projects that I want to share.

I suppose it's a matter of finding a new challenge:

I don't find encoding to be a problem, subtitling and audio are both reasonably easy, and menu design and fancy command sequences are quite simple.

I do all my work in Maestro - I've taken a few cracks at Scenerist, but never really found any compelling reason to move to it - Maestro does everything that I've required it to do, and it seems more intuitive and faster.

[bbiandov]

Arky,

In the BIOS scan how does your a4 show up along with the other IDE devices. Mine says 104 despite the label, serial number and tech support guys confirming its A04?

[Arky]

Thanks for the replies, everyone (even tom para! ;) ).



@ auenf :

["about cheap DVD-R/DVD+R prices:

A04 AUD$1100
MP5125A AUD$850"]

I'm sorry to hear that you are being ripped off for the Pioneer drives over there. I know you are a long way from the states, or europe, but I do wonder, with the price of freight these days, if it wouldn't still be possible for you to get a sensible price by importing one yourself from europe? I must admit, though, the Sony does sound pretty 'hot'.



@ Nogami:

I'm inclined to agree with you about Maestro vs. Scenarist, but this doesn't stop my interest in Scenarist. I've read Doom9's excellent crash course a few times now, and the 'fog' regarding the Scenarist authoring process does seem to be lifting a little more, each time I read the guide. "intuitive" is a word which applies to Maestro, a hundred times over, but not even ONCE to Scenarist!! I keep meaning to explore the depths of GPRMs etc with Maestro, but to be totally honest, I have found, for my own projects, that I have been quite satisfied with Playlists alone.



@ bbiandov:

My drive shows up as a 104, but the drive itself IS identical to an A04. As soon as I can be bothered to flash it, though, it'll be showing up as an A04! I downloaded the files a fortnight ago, but simply haven't got around (picked up the courage..?!) to flash the firmware as yet:

(unofficial "region-free" and "104-becomes-A04"):

http://kickme.to/dvd105s

& (official - no real need to visit here, if you visit the above link...):

http://www.pioneer-eur.com/eur/support_software.jsp?category=support/software

#~*~BE WARNED - Flashing your firmware is a risky process, I do NOT want you to return to Doom9 and complain that you followed the above links and have screwed up your drive through a faulty flashing attempt. If you decide to go ahead and flash your 104's firmware, it is at YOUR OWN RISK!!~*~#


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

Originally posted by Arky
Thanks for the replies, everyone (even tom para! ;) ).



@ auenf :

["about cheap DVD-R/DVD+R prices:

A04 AUD$1100
MP5125A AUD$850"]

I'm sorry to hear that you are being ripped off for the Pioneer drives over there. I know you are a long way from the states, or europe, but I do wonder, with the price of freight these days, if it wouldn't still be possible for you to get a sensible price by importing one yourself from europe? I must admit, though, the Sony does sound pretty 'hot'.

getting it shipped over would be ok (got a couple of sticks of crucial that way, and im currently playing with a US Nomad Jukebox 3 (USD$399 v AUD$999), but for the price its probably not worth not having the warranty.

the A04 is still lower cd-r/w specs than my current drive, and the ricoh drive is the EXACT same specs as my current drive, minus the dvd writing (i have a ricoh MP9120).

Enf...

[bbiandov]

Guys guys, hold on, I bought my A04 for US $310 from www.avlogic.com and at the time (two weeks ago) they had free shipping so I only had to pay damn tax on it...

[auenf]

Originally posted by bbiandov
Guys guys, hold on, I bought my A04 for US $310 from www.avlogic.com and at the time (two weeks ago) they had free shipping so I only had to pay damn tax on it...

free shipping from USA to me would rock ;)

ENf...