I'm looking to get an external dvd burner for my imac SE G3 400hmz running Panther 10.3.9. I have a cd burner that is usb but I hear firewire is better. Can anyone recommend a good external dvd burner for me? Thanks!
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What is a good external DVD burner?
- Thread starter Ratpack1961
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Ratpack1961 said:
Hi, I have a LaCie dvd burner due to the fact that I needed Toast with it for burning and they are nice burners. So cost wise if you need software this is a good deal. Here is the link. Also look at their refurb page, some great deals there as well.
http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10014
With the LaCie you don't need to use/install Patchburn, which let's the burner work with the iLife apps as LaCie has/uses their own drivers that let you do the same thing.
One last thing as to why I gave LaCie a nod. My friend has a G3 iBook (600) and is running Panther as well. So, that is close to your specs. and his works very well for his needs...he also has 640mb RAM so it's not a speed demon but like I said it runs vey well
Good luck and injoy
I'm very happy with my LaCie Porsche double layer burner that I got for Christmas. It was and is plug 'n' play with my iBook G4 and with Toast 7 (which I unfortunately didn't get bundled, because I went for the cheapest option ()) I can burn at full speed without ever making coasters, even if I use the cheapest media I can find (That's Write)...
()) I can burn at full speed without ever making coasters, even if I use the cheapest media I can find (That's Write)...
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I have an iomega dvd burner. I bought it because of the price and it ended up being a very good drive. Reconditioned it costs $70 and ther a couple other models for a little bit more. You can check them out at the iomega outlet
Second vote for a Lacie d2 drive, FireWire with Toast 7. Not cheap, and the thing is huge, but well built, quiet and works flawlessly. Heartily recommended.
I got an internal Pioneer DVR 109 drive, which is basically what the superdrives are, and put that in some generic external Firewire enclosure.
Like the OP, I need a good external DVD burner (Firewire) to use with my snow iMac G3 (600 MHz, 512 MB).
However, I have been frustrated with the number of DVD burners I see out there that demand at least a G4 chip in order to work right.
I even e-mailed LaCie, and they promptly e-mailed me back, saying:
Now, I notice that a number of you recommended LaCie DVD drives to the OP...which seems to contradict what LaCie told me. Who is correct? Is LaCie being overly pessimistic?
And most importantly...am I looking at a new Mac if I want to burn DVDs?
However, I have been frustrated with the number of DVD burners I see out there that demand at least a G4 chip in order to work right.
I even e-mailed LaCie, and they promptly e-mailed me back, saying:
Now, I notice that a number of you recommended LaCie DVD drives to the OP...which seems to contradict what LaCie told me. Who is correct? Is LaCie being overly pessimistic?
And most importantly...am I looking at a new Mac if I want to burn DVDs?
Thomas Veil said:
I burn data DVDs on my iBook G3 700 MHz with an internal Pioneer DVR-109 DVD-+RW drive in an external Firewire enclosure at 8X with zero problems. I used it once to burn a DVD movie on a dual layer disk, and that worked fine too.
I have yet to try it on my iMac G3 400, but will do so soon.
My girlfriend and I have used our Pismos (400MHz PowerBook G3 with 320MB RAM) with DVD burners several times, even a 4x LaCie d2 firewire burner. This was before Toast 7 was released and Toast 6 didn't have buffer underrun protection, so we had to burn at half speed to avoid making too many coasters, but at 2x it worked like a dream...
It does sound like LaCie is being overly pessimistic, then. I realize burning a disk on a G3 will be a slower, but it doesn't sound like it should be as bad as LaCie makes it out to be.
Thanks to one and all, especially Pistol Pete for the suggestion.
Thanks to one and all, especially Pistol Pete for the suggestion.
Thomas Veil said:Like the OP, I need a good external DVD burner (Firewire) to use with my snow iMac G3 (600 MHz, 512 MB).
However, I have been frustrated with the number of DVD burners I see out there that demand at least a G4 chip in order to work right.
I even e-mailed LaCie, and they promptly e-mailed me back, saying:
Now, I notice that a number of you recommended LaCie DVD drives to the OP...which seems to contradict what LaCie told me. Who is correct? Is LaCie being overly pessimistic?
And most importantly...am I looking at a new Mac if I want to burn DVDs?
Well I have to disagree with LaCie on this one. My friend has a G3 iBook, I think 700Mhz and he "had a few errors" which LaCie made mention however... all he did was slow down the speed on the burner. He has a 16X Plextor DVD FW drive. getting the info on the HDD was fine but to burn it he burns at 8x and that seems to be fine (for a bit over a year now). He also bought within the last six months an external HDD from LaCie and just does the daisy chain thing but places the video on the faster drive. Since then no errors but it isn't dog slow either. If it takes me 15-20mins. to rip a video it will take him 30-40mins. Compress it is long as it takes him about an hour to 75 mins. and burning is about 20-30 mins (again 8x speed).
To encode something such as "Red VS Blue" from Halo, 18 QT files, would take me on an iBook G4 1.33GHz and max RAM 1.25mb just over "8"hrs. on his about "12" hrs. I hope this last bit was what you were getting at by saying encoding
