Are external DVD burners better quality than an internal on a laptop?

I've always had this prejudice that stock Powerbook G4 internal DVD drives are poor quality and prone to breaking down. I lost mine after less than a year of service and it seems to me that folks are regularly complaining about stock internal burners going out.
I've had no working DVD drive for a couple of years on my old G4 and I'm getting a new one this week. I also have a Sony external dual layer DVD burner that is a real workhorse for me. It's what I've been using for all these years.
Now I'm wondering, when I have the new DVD burner installed next week, do I need to baby it and use the external whenever possible? Should I only use it whenever absolutely necessary and let the external do all the heavy lifting? Is this new internal drive going to fritz out on me after six months just like the last one did?
I've burned hundreds, maybe close to a thousand, DVDs on my external Sony and the machine is still good as gold. No sign of wear.
Is there any evidence to support this idea that internal laptop drives are delicate pieces of equipment waiting to break down and that external Sonys are solid and rugged? Or is that just my personal experience and is everyone else happy with their internal drives?
By the way, my new internal drive being shipped to me this week is an OWC (Other World Computing) drive made just for the older 400 mHz Powerbook G4 Titaniums. There's not a lot of choice in the market for a drive for such an old machine.

Software is the key to quality. Period, along with the quality of the original content, if it is good quality then you will get good quality, if it's poor quailty then you will get poor quality.
Use the best.
http://www.roxio.com/

Similar Messages

Should I Use An External Burner For Better Quality With Macbook Pro?

Hey I have a macbook pro and used IDVD to burn a movie but near the end it freezes and kinda skips a bit and I was wondering cause it takes two to three hours to burn will using an external burner be better quality?

will using an external burner be better quality?
Ext. Burners tolerate burning multiple copies with fewer read / write errors better than the stock internal S-Drive that come built into many mac laptops. Stock drives heat up faster than external burners do for the most part. So the answer is, it's very possible you will get slightly better results with an external burner as opposed to an internal laptop S-Drive when burning back to back copies.
I recommend using Verbatim Dvd-r media and burning from a disc image at 4x or slower for best results.

Is m4v better quality than a remuxed MKV file via Subler?

I'm slowly building my home media server and putting my Blu-Ray's onto it. I normally do a Handbrake conversion for ATV3, so the MKV files end up being significantly smaller m4v's and the quality is outstanding. But I recently learned about the quick remux method using Subler, which quickly converts the MKV container into an m4v container without any quality loss and while keeping the same size file. But I noticed that, say, a 29GB MKV file is a much poorer softer picture on my plasma TV than the same movie that's only a 9GB MKV file (remuxed to m4v with subler for streaming over ATV3). I'm running a 300mbps cable modem so the streaming shouldn't be a problem over my home wifi. But I also noticed that the smaller m4v's (say a 3.5GB file that comes from a 9GB MKV file via Handbrake) seem to be slightly better quality than the 9GB file that was remuxed. So it seems like the larger file should be even higher quality -- but I'm getting better results with a smaller file that's Handbrake'd from MKV to m4v.
Is there some sort of streaming setting on the ATV3 that needs to be set or adjusted that will allow the full gorgeous pic quality of a 29GB file to stream right through to it, and look better than the Handbrake'd m4v file? It feels like there's a bottleneck somewhere that's not letting all of the complete picture information through, and an intact, perfect 29GB file should look light years better than that 29GB file Handbrake'd down to 4GB. Trying to figure this out before I continue down this home media server path cuz it's a lot of work to do these Blu's one at a time.
Kirby

I have no experience of the remuxing you describe, but interesting observations.
There is nothing you can adjust on AppleTV - it will either play the encoded movie or it won't.
AppleTv's generally playback the h264 codec (in an m4v container) - there are many many versions/levels of this codec and each generation of AppleTv has been able to play slightly more sophisticated versions.
I suspect but cannot prove that the issue you notice is due to AppleTV attempting to support advanced h264 features but making compromises which affect playback quality - in other words it is cutting corners to playback advanced h264 profile features rather than refusing. Handbrake on the other hand has time at its disposal - it has been refined over many years by dedicated enthusiasts so if a simple remux is all that's required i'd be surprised they have not implemented that. Instead I suspect it more accurately processes enhanced h264 features before transcoding into a new smaller m4v file. Equally there might be settings in HB which artificially sharpen or otherwise alter the video which you prefer. I'd compare the BluRay tothe remuxed or HB versions to attempt to decide which was more faithful to the original but even then it would be dependent on the BluRay player's settings in some cases.

External DVD Burners & iDVD Compatibility

I am looking to purchase external DVD burners for use at my school - that are compatible with iDVD.
I am running iLife 5 on many different pre-intel Tiger Macs (mostly eMacs)
I have looked for a definitive listing of burners and have been receiving conflicting pieces of information.
I understand that I students can save iDVD projects as Disk Images then burn after the fact... but it would be nice to know which External Burners are compatible with iDVD without having to go the Disk Image route.
Any assistance that you can provide me would be tremendously appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Dave

Hello Dave,
iDVD 5 does not natively support external burners. What you have discovered concerning the creation of disk images, though, is not simply a workaround, but a widely recommended procedure, as it greatly reduces the risk of burn errors.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=939694&start=0&tstart=0
hope this helps
mish

Which external dvd burners are compatible with lion?

I'm looking into buying an external dvd - dvdL - cd burner but wanted to make sure it would work with lion.. anyone ?
thanks!
H

I have successfully used apples external SuperDrive.
However, I get faster results using the Mac's built-in SuperDrive.

Why are burned DVD's poor quality from the IDVD?

I made a slideshow in iphoto and exported to IDVD so I could burn copies. The show lloked great on screen but the first copies on dvd's were terrible. The quality of images are very poor and seem to be depixilated? Why would the copies be so poor? Does the widescreen or standard have something to do with it??
Help

Hi
There are levels in h*e*l*l*
iDVD - is same as DVD Standard - Interlaced SD-Video
Feeding iDVD progressive or HD material will not improve result but degrade this as from
- iMovie'08 to 11 - as they can not deliver - but only every second line of the picture
- iDVD downscaling from HD - is doing a bad job
So by using a program that can deliver - best possibly DVD is the result
- iMovie HD6
- FinalCut any version
- FotoMagico™ - (for SlideShows)
If this is not enough - then DVD is no option as HD-DVD is rare and needs special HD-DVD-players - alt
• Blu-Ray e.g. from Roxio Toast™ but still needs BD-Player as PlayStation3 etc
• out in high quality to USB-memory to be played on device that can do this
• Play via MacBook and out to a HD-projector/TV
DVD quality
1. iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)
• Best Performances
(movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.
About double on DL DVDs.
2. Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not self-containing, no conversion)
• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos and the Ken Burns effect NOT is used. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.
3. I use Roxio Toast™ to make an as slow burn as possibly e.g. x4 or x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application when burning from a DiskImage.
4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc). For SD-Video - if HD-material is used I guess that 4 to 5 times more would do.
5. I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW) - DVD-R play’s on more and older DVD-Players
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
(I use JES_Deinterlacer to keep frame per sec. same from editing to the Video-DVD result.)
8. Don’t burn more than three DVDs at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while before next batch.
iDVD quality also depends on.
• DVD is a standard in it self. It is Standard Definition Quality = Same as on old CRT-TV sets and can not
deliver anything better that this.
HD-DVD was a short-lived standard and it was only a few Toshiba DVD-players that could playback.
These DVDs could be made in DVD-Studio Pro. But they don’t playback on any other standard DVD-Player.
Blu-Ray / BD can be coded onto DVDs but limited in time to - about 20-30 minutes and then need
_ Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl. BD-component
_ BD disks and burner if full length movies are to be stored
_ BD-Player or PlayStation3 - to be able to playback
The BD-encoded DVDs can be play-backed IF Mac also have Roxio DVD-player tool. Not on any standard Mac or DVD-player
Full BD-disks needs a BD-player (in Mac) as they need blue-laser to be read. No red-laser can do this.
• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx. 25Gb.
less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.
• How it was recorded - Tripod vs Handheld Camera. A stable picture will give a much higher quality
• Audio is most often more critical than picture. Bad audio and with dropouts usually results in a non-viewed movie.
• Use of Video-editor. iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not the tools for DVD-production. They discard every second line resulting in a close to VHS-tape quality.
iMovie 1 to HD6 and FinalCut any version delivers same quality as Camera record in = 100% to iDVD
• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.
other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first
Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit
strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc
Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project
• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.
(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JES_Deinterlacer_3.2.2 do the conversion)
(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project
(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU
(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US
UNLESS. They are play-backed by a Mac - then You need not to care
• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)
• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09
Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choice before Pro Quality)
1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)
2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.
Region codes.
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere
DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.
1 = US
2 = EU
unclemano wrote
What it turned out to be was the "quality" settings in iDVD. The total clip time was NOT over 2 hours or 4.7GB, yet iDVD created massive visual artifacts on the "professional quality" setting.
I switched the settings to "high quality" which solved the problem. According iDVD help, "high quality" determines the best bit rate for the clips you have.
I have NEVER seen iDVD do this before, especially when I was under the 2 hour and 4.7GB limits.
For anyone else, there seem to be 2 places in iDVD to set quality settings, the first is under "preferences" and the second under "project info." They do NOT seem to be linked (i.e. if you change one, the other is NOT changed). take care, Mario
to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
Try to break the process up into two stages
• Save as a DiskImage (calculating part)
• Burn from this .img file (burning stage)
To isolate where the problem starts.
Another thing is - Playing it onto a Blu-Ray Player. My PlayStation3 can play BD-disks but not all of my home made DVDs so to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
TO GET IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk
• No other programs running in BackGround e.g. Energy-Saver
• Don’t let HD spin down or be turned off (in Energy-Save)
• Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - To be disconnected/turned off
• Goto Spotlight and set the rest of them under Integrity (not to be scanned)
• Set screen-saver to a folder without any photo - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set
pointer to this - turns on screen saver - to show that it has nothing to show
• No File Vault on - Important
• NO - TimeMachine - during iMovie/iDVD work either ! IMPORTANT
• Lot's of icons on DeskTop/Finder also slows down the Mac noticeably
• Start a new User-Account and log into this and iMovie get's faster too - if a project is in a hurry
• And let Mac run on Mains - not just on battery
Yours Bengt W

External DVD Burners ?

My first post so please be patient!!! I have an Imac with ComboDrive and am looking to buy an external DVD drive to burn a couple of projects I'm working on in IMovie. Could anyone please offer any recommendations ? Also will I still be able to burn from IDVD using an external DVD writer or is there a way to upgrade my existing drive to Super drive ? Probably silly questions but I'm new at this!!!
Thanks.

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
You can upgrade to a Superdrive, but simply adding an external drive is much easier, and probably less expensive (no labor). You also don't have to be without the computer till 'they get to it' and you avoid the worry of packing up & transporting the computer.
Garyjr is right, there are many drives that will do fine with the iMac; I got the LaCie d2 for actually a bit less than the cost of an internal Superdrive (without even counting labor), and have been happy with it.
The only really silly question is the one not asked which would have saved unnecessary trouble/expense/unhappiness, just for the asking!
Vicki

Bus powered external DVD burners risky?

I am thinking of putting a second HD in my 1.83 MBP with the Maxupgrades kit , and getting an external DVD writer.
Years ago I had a firewire bus powered Formac DVD writer, which took too much current out of my Ti powerbook and burnt the internal firewire bus.
Are the modern generation of portable bus powered (USB2 and FW) such safe in this respect?
I see that offering includes an internal battery. Why would they do that if the no-battery ones are OK?
Thanks for any input.

so the battery is not there to prevent overload of the USB port,
I doubt it, though having a functioning battery may do so
but so that the device can be used independently (from computer)
Perhaps the drive could power headphones so you could listen to music, but the battery is there to provide additional life when you aren't plugged in. If your MBP normally gets 4 hours of life from a full charge, add that bus powered burner and it will drop - bigtime I'd expect. The extra battery in the device gives you a bit longer life.

Any external DVD Burners out there for Dual G4 450?

Hey, I have a Dual G4 450 Gigabit Ethernet with 10.2.8 w/ firewire 1 and a meh USB2.0 from CompUSA. I've checked a couple of places for an external DVD burner but most are listing a 500mhz as a requirement. The OWC drive they're selling isn't listing a speed as a requirement, so I'm worried about ordering their drive. Does anyone have their drive and would know if it works with my speed, and is there still a drive out there that can work with my computer? Thanks for your answers.

Went ahead with another burner.

Alternating external DVD burners

In theory, could I hook up 2 Lacie external DVD burns to the USB ports on my keyboard and alternate between the two of them while burning DVDs? I would like to do this since the internal burner is too slow and I know you're supposed to let a burner cool down after so many burns.

I still would not use the keyboard ports; they do not have enough power for burning. I tried finding any kb article on the power issue, but could not directly - the only one I found is this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3932
I don't know if the reason for this has to do with the power or not, but thought I'd link to it.
The best test might be to possibly "waste" a DVD and try it - you may wind up with a coaster but you'd know - try this at your own risk. I wouldn't do it.

Any cheaper external dvd burners out there???

Now that i've found out that my wonderfully expensive apple doesnt have a dvd burner, i have to buy an external dvd burner. I was recommended Lacie but that's too expensive. Anyone know of any cheaper ones that work fine as well??
also, do i need all of that touch8 stuff? can i just get the dvd writer without all of the extra programs?

That's the beauty of it. No drivers required when you make your own. The OS already has everything you need. There is nothing required in terms of additional downloads to make your burner work via Firewire when you install a Pioneer S-Drive into a standard 400 0r 800 firewire enclosure. It works right out of the box!
At one point in time, I too thought that whatever I build in terms of computer hardware was bound to fail. Now it turns out that the items I built, actually last the longest!
Now there is one exception to the above that comes to minds, Lacie (pre configured) ext. FW HD's may rerquire additional 3rd party drivers at times.
Don't ask me why. You'd have to check their web site for this type of support.

External DVD Burners.... Suggestions Needed

I am looking to buy an external DVD r for my Mini. Can anyone tell me which is the best to purchase? I would perfer something that would compliment the Mini, but I do not want to compromise performance for looks. Any suggestions?

I have an LG 5163D DVD drive and it works fine with the Mini. It comes in white and complements the Mini nicely. It doesn't, however, come with any software for the Mac, but it works fine with Patchburn and OS 10.4's built in burn capabilities (i.e., disk utility, finder, and probably iTunes, iPhoto and iDVD), and Toast.
I bought it because I don't live in the US and I don't have many options for Mac compatible hardware, and the LG drive was the cheapest DVD drive I could get. It's a very quiet drive (a nice change after my noisy EZQuest CD/RW drive), but it's not a "plug and play" drive - you have to plug it in before turning on the computer. You can use it with either Firewire 400 or USB 2.0. Company support (by e-mail) is reasonably good, especially from the UK division.

How do I install an amazon external dvd drive to replace a broken internal one in my old macbook?

My old macbook has a broken optical drive inside it. The one that came with it has quit working and the genius at the genius bar said it needed to be replaced. The genius said to get an external one online so I bought the Amazon basics external dvd drive. I can't figure out how to install it and get it to work.

Nothing will show up on the desktop until you put a CD/DVD in it.
Plug it into the FireWire or USB port and turn it on. Put a CD/DVD in it and it should show up on the desktop.

Why are the iPhone/Apple TV export presets better quality than QT h.264

I've been exporting a lot of content to the web lately and we use Compressor to batch encode most of it, but one thing has always puzzled/frustrated me! If you export using one of the Apple device presets, then the quality of output is pretty **** good, and these presets are all H.264 based. But if you export as a QT file with the H.264 codec, with all the same settings the quality is noticeably worse!
Does Apple have some special H.264 encoder hidden way for use in theIr presets?
Its really starting to frustrate us as we want to get that some quality but have a bit more flexibility with the data rate and resolutions.
Any ideas?

That's why I find this so puzzling. The extra blockiness is VERY apparent when watching the video played back. The main difference I see from the Media Info analysis is that F4V says "CABAC/3 ref frames" instead of just "2 ref frames". I suppose my main question is whether or not its possible to get the same quality in an mp4 file.

External DVD burners once and for all!

I did not buy my mini with a dvd burner on purpose because I wanted to use Lacie light scrib. So, does it work? Can you use other external burners with iLife 5 and iDvd 5 as advertised when it came out? Or am I wasting my time?

Edward,
iDVD5 will let you "save as disk image" and then burn the image with Toast or Disk Utility. on external drives.
Also there are some other helper apps and maybe even drivers from LaCie that will let 'em burn directly from iDVD, but I prefer the image route in any case....
John

Are external DVD burners better quality than an internal on a laptop?

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