basically i am purchasing a dvd writer this week. I don't know much about it and what sort of things i can use it for. 1.) any helpful suggestions on what i can do with it, 2.) what kind of movies, music, etc i can burn,
3.) what movie format does the file have to be for me to burn it to a dvd and view it,
4.) any good website (bittorrent, etc)....
5.)any software i might need???

basically, any tips to get me started...

I use DVD X Copy, there is plenty of free software out there for burning DVD's. There are a few DVD's that are almost impossible to burn, and those are usually from Sony because of their encryption. Other than that it's a pretty easy process.

A DVD burner can be used to play CD's and watch DVD's. It can be used to burn music to CD's and burn homemade movies or make archived copies of DVD's you own. Now keep in mind that many burn illegal copies of DVD's they rent or borrow from a friend, keep in mind this is illegal. Most likely you'll never get caught if your smart, but just thought I'd let you know.

DVD movies you rent/buy are copy protected, so you will have to use one of the many ripper software programs on the net that offer the technology to crack the protection before you rip it to your hard drive. Again, this is illegal.

If your archiving home movies, you won't be arrested. Most burners come with their own burning software, again this will not break copy protection.

good luck

Randy's absolutely correct about the legality of burning rented DVD's, what strikes me is odd is that still sell the technology to burn copyrighted material. I guess the terminology of making backup copies of personal DVD's is what keeps them aloft.

i currently have a cd rom/burner/player. is there any point keeping it if i decide to go with the dvd writer??

It's always nice to have two CD/DVD drives. If you ever want to copy a CD, you can do it in real time from one drive to the other, instead of having to first make an image of the disc to your hard drive and tehn writing it to a blank CD.

Why not keep it, it won't hurt anything. Besides, you can still use it with CD's if you want to extend the life of the new burner. In my pc I have a regular DVD player/CD burner and a newer Dual Layer DVD writer. When watching DVD's I use the older one so I don't wear out the life of the new one. Or if your making copies of CD's or DVD's, you can use one as the source and the other as the destination.

Michael, what I have found is that even though there is lots of software available that costs money, like at Best Buy. By itself, it won't break the copy protection, there is always a disclaimer that you have to use one of the free online programs like DVD43 or whatever, to break the code, but they don't recommend it.

Lots of people use DVD Shrink still, but development on that freeware product stopped a few years ago. DVD Decryptor was the best it is day for ripping, and still works fine, again development has stopped on that product as well.

I use a product I bought at Best Buy called "ICopyDVDs2" for archiving my DVD's, however, I still need to use DVD43 to break the code first before I make the copy. It even has Dual Layer burner support which is nice if you own a Dual Layer burner.

I was in the market for a new DVD burner for my PC, and after a LOT of research, a BenQ brand device was on the top of many reviewer's lists. Unfortunately, retailers never had them in stock. So I went for one model up which has LightScribe technology which allows you to actually etch an image or text or anything really on to the top side of the media. Cool idea that more and more drives are picking up.

Anyway, this drive is great and very solid in performance and specs. I would recommend it.

Oh, it is the BenQ DW1655 which should be readily available, and yes, it does dual layer (no extra compression when backing up your DVDs) to help extend the useful life of the drive too.

If you are using a site like Demonoid for torrents, those downloads (ignoring legality issues) of movies are 99% of the time recompressed down to fit on a single layer DVD or less, and depending on how they recompressed it, the quality is many times junk. Keep in mind that "free" isn't always better and many times isn't worth it. DVDs are already compressed and cutting that in half or even more really starts to show if you have a bigger screen. Again, all depending on how they hacked and sliced the downloadable (again, illiegal) copy.

I have had good luck with DVD Shrink and DVD Decryptor. I can still get better quality if I use other tools to convert to an AVI. I can get a higher quality 1.4GB AVI than a 4.7GB DVD Shrink, but the AVI file can only be played in Windows, and there are no menus or extras.

I echo Nicks comments, when I use Shrink or Decryptor or one of the other methods, I usually only rip the movie and leave off the special crap. In most situations the movie will fit on one DVD-+R disk with no compression. In this scenario you will not lose any quality.

But can't you play AVI files on DVD players that can play DIVX files?

Only if the AVI files are encoded with DIVX.

OK, I sometimes catch up on 24 by getting it from the net and they are usually DIVX AVI files.

anyone know if i would run into problems with a dvd burner if i am still using windows 98, got about 13 gb in my D drive, basically, my computer is 4 years old and i hope it is still compatible.

DIVX is a requirement, as mentioned already, but they also need to be encoded at pretty exact specifications that are supported by the player. It CAN be done, and I looked at getting of of those players solely for that reason, but found that many TV shows that you can grab off of the internet are encoded and compresses by different people almost each week or so, and they don't use a common method.

Maybe someone who has a DIVX player can chime in on this as they would know best.

My LG(LDA-530) player seems to have no problem playing any DIVX file that I have downloaded. It's also region free now as I found a firmware update for it that works.

Kewl. I haven't spec'd out the LG. I was looking into this about 9 months ago, and information was a bit sketchy at best.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I really like my BenQ DW1655...

On a related subject (caution - semi-hijack in progress ), I am using Power DVD to on my PC. It is pretty basic and a couple of revs old. Can anyone suggest a good freeware alternative?

This player here plays almost all formats including DVD.

VLC Media Player

I second the VLC recommendation.

Looks like my Power DVD is corrupted, so I dumped it. vlc did the trick and has better options than Power DVD.

blackorp - take a look at this website . They seem to have a wealth of info that may help you.