How to select an optical drive in a desktop computer

The scanners are highly variable in information systems. Most manufacturers tend to only list the type of car they understand with the system. What they tend to ignore when the listing of their readers is associated with different speeds. When looking at a computer system, there are two things to consider: the drive type and speed.
Types Drive

There are three basic types of optical storage used in computers today: compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disc (DVD) drives and high definition (HD / Bluray). Compact Disc storage has been drawn from the same media that we use for audio compact discs. Storage space of about 650 to 700 megabytes of data per disc. They can contain audio, data or both on the same disc. Most of the software for computers is distributed on CD formats. DVD has been the development of a compact digital video format, which also spread to the area of data storage.
DVD is primarily known for the video and has really only recently begun to be used for the distribution of software. DVD players are backward compatible with CD formats, however.

Newer high-definition optical storage has also become available in the form of Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. Each of them is capable of storing high-definition video signals or data capacities ranging from 25GB as low as in over 200 GB depending on the number of layers on discs. As the two formats are incompatible with each other, readers can use either format. They use another type of laser standard CD and DVD so that a reader may not be necessary consistent with CDs and DVDs, but many are.

Now, the scanners can come read-only (ROM), or as writers (with a designated R, RW or RAM). Read-only drives will allow you to read only data discs that already have data on them, they can not be used for removable storage. Writers or burners can be used to back up data, create music CDs and video discs that can be played in DVD players.

CD recorders are highly standardized and should be compatible with nearly all the equipment out there. Some CD may be listed as a combo CD-RW/DVD or drive. They can support the reading and writing of a CD and DVD can read the news ut not write.

DVD recorders are a little more confusing because there are many more types of media that can be used with them. Most readers, at this point, can support both the plus and minus versions of the standard with rewritable. Another new format is the double-layer or double layer, usually classified DL, which supports doubling the capacity.
Speed limit ahead

All scanners are rated by a multiplier, which refers to the maximum speed of the drive depends on the original CD or DVD standards. This is not the transfer rate when reading of the entire record. To make things worse, some readers have multiple lists of speed. How do I know this all mean?

Read-only or ROM can list up to two speeds. For a CD-ROM, there is usually only one listed speed, which is the maximum reading speed data. Sometimes, a second CD ripping speed will also be listed. This refers to the speed at which data can be read from a CD audio conversion to digital format of a computer such as MP3. DVD-ROM is usually the list to two or three speeds. The first is the speed of the reading speed data DVD while the second refers to the maximum reading speed of data CDs. Again, they can cite another number which refers to ripping speed CD from audio CDs.

ReWriters optical become very complicated. They can list more than ten different multipliers for different types of media. As a result, manufacturers tend to list just a single number for the disks and it will be for the DVD format, which allows him to record the fastest at. Because of this, try to read the detailed specifications. A reader 20x run up to when recording 20x DVD + R, but it could run at 4x using the DVD + R DL media.
What is best for me?

With costs these days for scanners, there is really no reason for the budget of most desktop computers should not include a DVD burner. As DVD can handle all the tasks of different media CDs and DVDs, it should not be a problem for most people, if they use it to burn CDs or creating DVDs. At the very least, these systems should be able to play DVDs as it is now used for distributiong software, and it can be difficult to install programs.

The Blu-ray and HD-DVD options are available for those who want high definition video. At this point format is not used for data storage in order to buy a burner or the writer of these formats is not so important. The cost for readers is still high but down quickly as they become more widespread. Of course, until the format war is entirely cleared, it is best to cover your bets by getting one that supports both formats.
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