When I say "most-talked-about" I’m referring to "most-reviewed", as in the optical media most people were willing to write reviews about on popular tech-shopping web sites. The results I found were interesting, because the top 5 may not be what you thought would show up in this list. 1. Verbatim 8.5GB 2.4x DVD+R DL 95310...

Some tech items for sale simply defy belief as far as their shoddy quality is concerned, and believe me when I say this is not dictated by price alone whether the cost of the item is high or low. There have been some out there (maybe you’re one of them) who have spent $300 on a graphics card only to receive it and it doesn’t work. Or maybe $400 on...

Immediately upon read of the title, you’re probably thinking, "Pff.. yeah, I think I know how to burn a DVD, thank you very much." Maybe. But do you know the differences between the file systems you can use when burning a disc? In the popular freeware optical disc burning utility ImgBurn (which I use and recommend), you have the option of using a...

It could be argued that next to case fans, the optical drive on most computers is the first thing to stop working over time. It is, after all, a moving mechanical part, and anything that moves will usually always fail first. When it comes to optical drives, I don’t recommend attempting to fix them because they’re cheap to replace given the fact...

Optical drive technology has been around for decades, and the most popular format in desktop and laptop computers is DVD (the jury is still out on whether Blu-ray will ever truly replace the DVD format.) Your optical drive is something you don’t pay much attention to – until it starts having problems. Unfortunately there is no 1-2-3 process to...

Presently the vast majority of computer users still use DVD as the dominant optical media format, or to be more specific, DVD-5. It would be nice if we all used DVD-18, a double-sided, dual-layered disc that holds 17.08GB, but the 4.7GB single-layer 5 format is what’s widely available and can be purchased just about anywhere. Recently, TDK unveiled the 1TB...

ImgBurn is a popular free application for write data to CD/DVDs and creating ISO image files. Concerning the ISO specifically, yes it can make bootable discs. This is very useful for creating emergency recovery discs. In the video below, the place mentioned where to get boot diskette images is AllBootDisks. Compared to other web sites that offer the same...

When you insert a new blank CD or DVD in Windows 7 and attempt to write files to it for the first time, you see this:The two options are "Live File System" and "Mastered". But which to pick? Live File System This is a UDF (Universal Disk Format) file system and is optical media specific. The single largest issue with Live File System is...

Windows 7 includes DVD creating software called Windows DVD Maker. It is by far one of the easiest programs to create a DVD with. If you wanted any easier, you’d have to use iDVD on a Mac. The software works wonderfully save for one thing – it doesn’t always handle widescreen formats properly. In some instances you may encounter the situation...

Yes, I know that DVDs are already digital. What I’m referring to here is the question of whether it’s worth it to rip the disc to a file and use a media center for playback instead of a DVD player. The answer is yes, it is worth it – but only if you can afford the hardware and are willing to deal with a media center PC’s way of doing...

Recently we decided to take some of our seldom watched DVD’s and put them into storage (i.e. in a box in the closet). So before doing this, I looked into ripping these to my computer so we could potentially watch them without having to dig them out the closet. While searching the internet for easy options to accomplish this, I came across this article...

There are times when one is so desperate to get the data off a CD or DVD that you’re willing to try anything no matter how stupid it may be. This is exactly what happened to me last Sunday night. For years I’ve heard that toothpaste will make a scratched optical disc readable again. I never believed it. I’ve had in my possession a CD I burned...

Optical media for computers is a form of technology that everybody uses at the present time, be it for storing data, playing games and so on. Data on optical media can be a pain to work with at times, especially if the disc starts to wear down with age, or gets accidentally pitted or scratched. That being said, here are 5 utilities you should have. 1....

I’ve been in the self-publishing game for a few years now and can honestly say it’s come a long way, with the biggest advantage being that you can now get your book(s) on Amazon without the need for an ISBN. The two major players for those who want to self-publish are Lulu and CreateSpace. Both of them are fairly straightforward in the way they...

For those that have been reading my articles for some time (this is Rich, by the way, better known as "Not Dave"), I can’t stand optical discs. They’re slow to write, scratch easily, have inferior life span compared to USB sticks and the list goes on. However the one thing I absolutely can’t argue with is that it currently is the...

As you have probably read many times on this site optical media (i.e. CD and DVDs), while reliable and cheap, doesn’t last forever. Because of this, it is a good idea to create copies of your optical media, particularly install CDs to your hard drive. The best choice for archiving these is to use ISO files. In addition to having a backup you can burn to CD...

USB sticks are hitting rock bottom prices these days. A 16GB stick is now under $30. And 8GB sizes are easily available for under $15. However this is nowhere near as cost effective as burning DVDs. In fact it’s not even close. The 16GB stick is $30. Put into cost per gigabyte, each gig costs $1.88. A 100-pack spindle of Maxell (a mid-grade brand) 16x...

The days of linear format camcorders are dying. Linear as it relates to camcorders is anything using slack that requires rewinding or fast-forwarding. And to be honest I’m not sorry to see them go. This is more or less the last in line of tech products to get "off the slack", so to speak. There are many of you out there who still have MiniDV...

Whenever you go out to buy writeable DVDs, you always have the choice of +R or -R. Is it marketing hype or are they really different in the way they work? The answer is yes, they are different. Pioneer developed DVD-R and is based on CD-R. However it is important to note that DVD-R is not an industry standard like CD-R is (labeled "Red Book" and...

Those of you out there into video, especially DVD authoring, looking for a program without breaking the bank on commercial options should check out the open source program DVDStyler. DVDStyler is a cross-platform DVD authoring application that makes possible for video enthusiasts to create professional-looking DVDs. While the feature list may not blow you away,...