There’s a dearth of information about DVD burners at my favorite hardware sites. I posted this at the anandtech forums:
So what does the doper gang think?
I plan on waiting just a bit longer for the price to drop
I’m sitting on the couch, watching football, when suddenly a thought pops into my head… doh, posted to the wrong forum again.
Mods please relocate this to IMHO.
$99 has historically been that price level (from cnet.com artical - I just happen to agree). Not to say that you should buy it at $99. If you need one you might have to spend considerably more. Also the $99 level is the point at which you could buy one, not that you would buy that particular one as you may want some bells and whistles.
Basically cnet decided that $99 is the point where the ‘whatever’ is being produced in great numbers by off brands forcing the price to lower across the board.
4x +r disks can cost $10 each.
It depends on what happens with the formats, as you know there are two main formats , -r & +r +r disks cost about twice what -r disks cost.
Thats why I got the sony dru500a, at the time it came out, it was $253 with tax & shipping from dell. Of course I had to wait 2 months for it. Now, you’re lucky if you can find it. Or even get it at list price, $349.00 (Office Depot: list price $349.00 our price: $379). This one does -r & +r so when one format wins, I can still use it 
Okay.
I too have been wondering when the time will be right to buy a dvd burner.
Anybody have a dvd burner that can tell me this:
How do they work? Is it like a VCR, that you can set to record your fav show while you are out?
Debaser, I believe the OP was referring to computer DVD burners (y’know, like CD-RW), but, yes, I believe the set-top ones are designed to be more or less VCRish. (Or at least that’s how they were described a year or two ago, when things were still in the R&D stage.)
As for the computer equivalent, is there a “standard” that’s compatible in a majority of set-top DVD players? (And why does it feel like I’ve asked this before?)
Thanks for the responses everyone. Here’s a link to the anandtech thread if anyone is interested.
I’m torn over what to do. I really need to backup my hard disks, but it seems like waiting a year would save me a lot of money and time.
P.S. handy, thats the exact drive I’m drooling over. How in the world did you manage to get one for $250!
I woud wait and consider an external or additional hard drive for backup. They are not fast enough and still pricey.
It’s the lack of standardization that conerns me. As I understand it, there are five different formats: DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. Newer drives handle several formats but not all: DVD-RAM/-R, DVD-R/-RW, and DVD+R/+RW seem to be common.
I do have a DVD-RAM drive at work and it’s nice for backups. But unless you really need removable media (backup, transporting, archiving), an external hard drive seems to be more cost-effective.
Maybe he hangs out at Anand’s Hot Deals forum?
(God, what a weird picture that is…)
“P.S. handy, thats the exact drive I’m drooling over. How in the world did you manage to get one for $250!”
Before it came out, that’s right, just before, Dell was having a sale on it. Naturally, they didn’t have it, so they made us wait.
Dell is pretty cool. Catch a sale they have & you can get at pretty nice deal on it. I found it a couple weeks ago there for $337-20% That doesn’t mean they have it in stock though but they do mail it when they get it in.
Sounds like the right idea, and I think I’m going to wait a few months on this. The drives are a little too slow, and the format picture isn’t clear enough yet.
“Maybe he hangs out at Anand’s Hot Deals forum?”
Nope. I use another forum. Sometimes I use Fat Wallet but wading through all the messages there takes a long time. Not all deals come through.