CD burners and DVD drives

[october]

With my Christmas money I am going to buy some type of CD burner.

I am looking for an education in this topic. I would like advice on what to buy, advantages, disadvantages, etc. I want to know about internal versus external, CD-R, CD-RW, etc. I also might get one that plays DVD's.

If it is helpful, here's the details of my machine:
intel celeron 500 mgh
192 megs of RAM
30 gig hard drive
one CD-ROM drive 48x
2 USB ports
Windows 98 SE operating system

Any advice and information that anyone can give will be appreciated. Thanks

-october-

 

[God]

You have almost the exact same machine as me. 500 Celeron, 181 ram, etc.

To play/watch DVDs on your computer you need a DVD rom drives. They aren't too expensive.

The problem is that your PC doesn't have to drives. Does it? I'm not sure how you put this together, but you'll have to get an external drive and an internal which will replace your old CD rom 48x drive.

I think you can get a CDRW and DVD rom drive for under $100. I mean the total can be under $100.

 

[IceBlaZe]

He can get a jumbo too (CD-R/W/DVD-ROM).

 

[october]

Yeah at Bestbuy.com I saw for 139 a CD-RW/DVD drive. The only thing it did not do was write dvd's.

The DVD ability is not that important to me. It's neat if I can get it in the price, but I really want to burn music CD's and also back up data.

Is it true that music burned onto CD-RW discs cannot be played in a regular CD player? You have to burn music onto a CD-R to play in another player. That would make CD-RW's good for data only.

-=october=-

 

[IceBlaZe]

Never tried it so I can't tell you. Its quite useless for me to burn MP3's since I have Optical/Coexial out on my comp.
What I want portable I record to the minidisc, and what I want now I play and it sends the digital signal to my receiver.

I recommend this set up to anyone who can afford it!

 

[God]

Yeah, I think it is trye that you can't use your Cds burned with a CDRW on your cd players. I think most CD RW drives come with a CD R. Look around.

On the internet you can get CD RW drives and DVD rom drives for under 100 bucks. Search a bit.

 

[munzy76]

All CD-RW drives can burn to CD-Rs.

Here yah go, a CD-RW/DVD reader for 82 bucks.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

Specs:
Samsung SM-332BEA32x10x40 CD-RW/ 12x DVD OEM Combination of CD-R/RW and DVD-ROM
Specifications:
32X CD-Recording, 12X CD-Rewriting, 40X CD-ROM Reading, and 12X DVD-ROM Reading
Burst Transfer Rate PIO Mode 4 (16.6 MB/sec) DMA Mode 2 (16.6 MB/sec)
Average Access Time CD: 110ms, DVD: 120ms
Data Transfer Rate Write on CD-Record 10X ( 1,500 KB/sec)
Write on CD-Rewrite 32X 2,700 KBsec
Read CD Titles 40X 6,000KB
Read DVD 12X 16,200KB

I have purchased from www.newegg.com before and I actually have a HDD shipping from there to me right now.