dvd burning

[super_pup]

yoyoma
ive been thinking about dvd burning. my uncle recently bought an emac with a dvd burner, and it seems pretty cool. ive got a g3 imac 600mhz running 10.1.4 and also a new ibook running 10.2. what would an external dvd burner set me back? say, bottom of the range? how well do they work? reliable? slow? worth it in the long run? what do i use to play with it (something like iDVD)?
cheers & hny

[btoneill]

You can get an external burner for around $300-$400, but you won't be able to use iDVD with it, iDVD requires an apple branded DVD burner. Check www.pricewatch.com for prices on drives like the pioneer superdrive. The pioneer superdrive is the same drive apple ships, the only difference is apple drives have an apple firmware which allows iDVD to work with it. Also, you won't be able to use dvd player on a non-apple dvd drive. You can burn to them using somthing like toast, or some other products, if it's worth it to you, that all depends on what you want to use it for.

Brian

[ernie]

Originally posted by btoneill
You can get an external burner for around $300-$400, but you won't be able to use iDVD with it, iDVD requires an apple branded DVD burner. Check www.pricewatch.com for prices on drives like the pioneer superdrive. The pioneer superdrive is the same drive apple ships, the only difference is apple drives have an apple firmware which allows iDVD to work with it. Also, you won't be able to use dvd player on a non-apple dvd drive. You can burn to them using somthing like toast, or some other products, if it's worth it to you, that all depends on what you want to use it for.

Brian

Not sure about iDVD, but the DVD player works fine on my Samsung DVD player CD burner that I bought from the local PC bits shop. I do also have a brand new Pioneer A05 DVD burner, but iDVD is out of stock until iLife ships on the 15th. of Jan. so I won't know if it needs a firmware hack until then.