DVD Burners – What Are Your Options?

Shopping for a DVD burner? Which one is the best? You have come to the right place. Read on.

Hi. I am Marty Holthaus. For over ten years of my life I worked as a visual effects coordinator for feature length Hollywood movies but now I write about technology that can be used to transfer old home movies and videos to digital formats. If you are a home video maker you certainly will need a DVD burner of some kind, at some point. You will need it if you are converting from VHS to DVD or from a digital video camera to a DVD. The DVD burner, also known as a DVD writer, is the device that will record your video and audio data to disc so that you can show it to your family and friends on a television display screen in the comfort of your living room at home. The DVD player will just need to be able to read the video and audio from your DVD format.

If you are transferring from VHS to DVD, you are basically looking at one of two types of DVD burners. You will need either an internal type of DVD burner or an external one. Which is the best? Let’s take a look.

Internal DVD Burner

An internal DVD disc burner is probably the better of the two types of DVD disc burners and it is usually less expensive as well. They are installed inside of a computer so that you can burn (record) videos to DVD without having to use an additional device. Your computer will usually come with an internal DVD burner installed inside already. Some computers are only built with an internal DVD player, though, and not a device that can burn DVD discs as well. You can replace an internal DVD player (or a broken internal DVD burner) with a new internal DVD burner if you have the money to hire a computer shop to install one or if you have the time and patience and resourcefulness to teach yourself how to install it yourself.

External DVD Burner

An external DVD disc burner, on the other hand, is not quite as good as an internal DVD disc burner and it is more expensive. However, the benefits include the fact that it stands separately from your computer and will connect to it via a data cable of some kind. These features of the internal DVD burner allow it to be more flexible to someone who needs to be mobile or who needs to work on more than one computer. The external DVD burner can just be disconnected from one computer and connected to another in just a few minutes. Also, an external DVD burner can save you the time and headache of installing an internal burner into your computer. I, personally, would prefer to buy an external burner or pay someone else to install an internal one. Whatever choice you make, however, it is wise to do a little research in advance in order to compare quality and price among these devices before you actually buy one.

Thank you for reading and good luck on your DVD VHS transfers and other endeavors that require the use of DVD burners!