Need Firewire to burn DVDs?

[glomedia]

Is it possible to get an external DVD burner and burn DVDs in Windows 98 with USB 1.1? Or do you need Firewire to burn DVDs?

What about playing DVDs on an external DVD drive in W98 with USB 1.1? Can it be done?

Thanks everyone.

[ski]

Playing DVD's on USB 1.1 will be no problem, but burning time will be longer(possibly by a lot) than with USB 2.0

You can install a PCI controller card(USB 2.0 or firewire) to get faster burning times.

[Johnny Canuck]

A salesperson in a national electronics outlet in Florida and I were discussing my purchase of an external harddrive, specifically for preparing and transferring camcorder movies to a DVD burner. His card indicated that his "real" profession was operating a DVD burning business. USB 1.1 is not really an option. At the least you need USB 2 which means 98SE - not 98FE. His main point was that USB 2 is fine for burning CDR's and RW's but for movies on DVD you really need firewire. I heeded his advice and for a few dollars more I bought the firewire version and have not regretted that decision. I also had to buy a card that had 3 firewire inputs and 4 more USB 2 inputs, also a purchase I have never regretted. Just my 2 cents worth. JC

[ski]

Thanks for the heads up on USB 2.0 and Windows 98 FE, Johnny.
I forgot about that.

And I should have also qualified my comment about playing DVD movies with an external DVD drive on USB 1.1 by noting that no other device should be connected to the same USB hub with the DVD drive.

However, playing movies with an external DVD drive on USB 2.0 should work as well, if not better, than firewire since the former's transfer rate is 480 Mbs, while the latter's is 400 Mbs.

[DrMDJ]

Just so you can see the math of things...

USB 1.1 can transfer at a maximum rate of about 12 megabits/second. A DVD drive speed at 1X (reading or writing) needs to move data at about 11.08 megabits/second. This means that even just watching a dvd movie (which is always read at 1X) over a usb 1.1 connection is pretty much taxing the limits. USB 2.0 can handle up to (though you won't ever get that much on a device) 480 megabits/second. With a dvd drive at 16X the data rate is a little over 177 megabits/second.