dvd-ram : cartridge or non-cartridge ?

[colinpost]

the easy bit was tracing a panasocic e50. now to get the dvd-ram read in the pc !!

firstly whats the school of thought .....do i open the cartridge and buy a cheap (£30ish) dvd-ram reader or do i go for the expensive (£100?) for a dvd-ram cartridge capable reader ???

i'm told on the forums that opening the cartridge will deminish the shelf life of the disc, so how easy are they to open ?

what are the best drives?

so many questions (and formats !!!)...please advise

 

[DucatiEVO]

I use an old DVD-RAM drive to read the discs on my PC plugged in via firewire so I can move it between pc's. Nothing flash but does the job.

Not too keen on opening the caddy etc. I do notice when I use a DVD-Ram in my HS2 that 'high speed dubbing' becomes available. Never clocked that before.

 

[SmokyToby]

I would suggest you avoid taking the disks out of the caddies - they are probably far more vulnerable to damage than "caddyless" ones which are designed to be handled. Double sided particularly would be risky. I use caddied disks for Record-Watch-Wipe, and record on caddyless when I know I will want to edit on my PC. When I bought my E50, a caddyless disk was in the box. I use Panasonic RAM disks.

Incidentally, you might find that if you already have a DVD-ROM drive in your PC it might already be able to read RAM - the LG drive in mine does.

Cheers

 

[Rasczak]

I would suggest if you have kids, pets or anything else that sheds furr, feathers or generates a mess then you use cartridge protected DVD-RAM. If however you do want to use a DVD-RAM in a PC or a compatible standalone player (such as the Panasonic S35/S75 or latest JVC models) then you are probably best using un-caddied versions which have a protective coating to help their survival out of the caddy.

 

[bobones]

You could always get this baby for your PC. It takes caddies and comes with some nice software including decent RAM drivers (>4GB) and the elusive DVD MovieAlbumSE.