Urban Myth? DVDR drive premature death by using to rip

[Mr.Bitey]

Hi All,

This is such a newbie question :)

Is it an urban myth that using your DVD burner to rip disc's will lead to premature death by 'wearing out the laser' ?

I would imagine its a different laser that does the reading hence even if the reading laser wears out prematurely you can still burn..

ie. Should you get a DVD-ROM drive to do the ripping and leave the burner to doing the burning?

Cheers,
MrBitey

[Kedirekin]

I think it's likely that burners only have one laser. The laser power is probably much lower for reading, so reading shouldn't affect the lifetime of the laser much. Besides, the lifetime on these solid state lasers is huge - like 100,000 hours (11 years of constant 24-hour-a-day use).

I don't think wearing out the laser is this issue though. It's more an issue of wear on the mechanisms that position the read/write optics. The tolerances are so tight that the slightest wear will result in burning coasters (and I think writing would fail before reading would).

I don't think there can be any argument that ripping DVDs with your burner places wear on it. What I don't know is if premature wear on the drive means it fails in 14 months instead of lasting 4 years, or if it means 10 years instead of 30. Not knowing the answer, it's just prudent to get a read-only drive for ripping, because they are so darn cheap.

[Doom9]

I don't think it's an urban myth but you have to put it into proportions. I had a DVD-ROM that only worked for about a year before showing the first signs of age, and eventually it became completely unusable after 1.5 years. During that time, I was listening to MP3s from self-burned CDs all the time (reading directly from the CD which was in my DVD-ROM). I have never expericned the same before, or after but I've never used a drive as much as this particular DVD-ROM.
Now, in the old days we had programs who did the DVD encoding directly from the DVD, but took hours and hours to complete the process. During that time, the drive constantly has to spin up and down, which wears out the drive. If you do that on a daily basis, your drive is likely to last less long than if you use it "normally".
Now if you use a DVD transcoding tool that finishes within 20 minutes, it isn't as bad as the drive is pretty much spinning all the time (not at full speed either).
But, it's definitely not about wearing out the laser, it's about wearing out the mechanical parts of your drive.

[Mr.Bitey]

:thanks:

Will pick up a dvd-r drive for ripping only..

Cheers
MrBitey

[OvERaCiD23]

Originally posted by Mr.Bitey
:thanks:

Will pick up a dvd-r drive for ripping only..

Cheers
MrBitey


Hmmm, if I were you I'd use my current drive until (if) it wears out. Then by the time that happens, we'll probably have 16x burners and all sorts of other stuff. That way you won't feel bad upgrading as you would if you had two 1-2 year-old drives lying around.

[Kedirekin]

I love reversed logic. :D

There's nothing preventing you from replacing a drive *before* it wears out. Why would you want to be forced to replace the drive, or worse have it fail at a time when you can't afford to replace it.

[Doom9]

actually.. what I do is sell my old computer stuff. I get a new computer like every 12 months but still get a fair price for the old one (or the bits and pieces I'm selling off). I did replace that damaged 12x DVD-ROM with a 16x one, so that was no major improvement. Right now I have once again a DVD burner to be sold since I've recently upgraded to 8x.

[JustinH]

Right, I sell all my junk before it gets too old also. I build a new computer about once a year also.

If you are worried about wearing out a drive, you are keeping it too long.


JH

[Kedirekin]

I guess I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. I never get rid of old hardware. I still have my 486DX100 from many years ago (haven't plugged it in in ages though). Heck, I still have a Commodore C128 - it'd probably even still work if I could find a working power supply.

I spent nearly $300 on my burner (you should all thank me - the prices wouldn't have dropped if I hadn't bought it ;) ). It's adequate for my needs, and I expect to get 3 or 4 years good use out of it.