Hi, I've got an order on hold with Dell for a Dimension 510 desktop system and they had a few choices for internal DVD burners. I will be editing videos and burning them onto DVD's and would also like to make copies of DVD's.
The Dell person recommended a dual-drive with a 16X DVD-ROM and a 16X DVD+/-RW dual layer drive.
I like the idea of having 2 DVD burners so that I can make copies of other DVD's or CD's, but would it not be best to have a dual drive with two of the same DVD+/-RW instead of the 2nd one being only a DVD ROM? What would be the advantages or disadvantages to having the DVD ROM as my second drive?
Can anyone help clarify this for me?
THANKS!!!
-liza

The disadvantage of a second drive would be to spend money for nothing. In addition to this there might be problems with buffer and copying of Audio CDs.

Nero for instance provides the possiblility to create an image file of a disc on the hard disk what you can copy afterwards to an other disc. This approach not only saves money for a second drive but very often avoids many destroyed media too. The HD supplies the data at a better speed than every CD/DVD drive. And reading errors from the source are know when you create the image file already.

In any case - you can upgrade your computer with a second drive at any time - they are cheap and easy to install - don't forget to set it as slave.

Well thanks for clearing that up for me. I just assumed that it would be easier and faster to burn from one drive to another. It sounds like I'll get the best results if I burn directly from my hard drive to the DVD burner then.
I appreciate your input-
Liza

Hi liza, i agree with stubenkastl there. Makes no differnce if u have 2 burners, just saves an image to ur harddrive anyways and u waste money on a burner. Doesnt mean to say u cant upgrade.
remember and set to slave though, like stubenkastl said.
good luck