what are the pros and cons with useing a double layer burner? does it have better pic.? does it cost more? is it worth the cost? is it more difficult to use? do they last longer? do you need differ. programs to use it?
Here's some pros: °No compression needed °Better quality °Most burning programs have gotten much much at dual layer burning Some cons: °Does cost more - depending on where you are say roughly $2 per disc - unlike single layer which is roughly 30¢ per disc. °DVD players esp older ones may not play them or have playback problems. If you drive is capable of booktyping - booktype the discs to DVD-Rom (+R media only)to increase capability. °Since it's newer media not all manufacturers make them well. Stick with Verbatim. °Takes longer since using a lower burn speed and more data to burn but getting a 1:1 copy. Is it worth the cost well that depends on you. I only do movies that I really like so I don't do a whole heck of alot of them Most programs will handle burning them. My preferred method is Ripit4Me - setting to do an iso. When decrypter is done ripping and ran thru FixVTS I then use ImgBurn to burn. (all free) Make sure the firmware is up to date on the drive too.
The effects of compression are largely subjective, but here are a couple observations I've made based on fast transcoders like CloneDVD2 (probahly applies to DVDShrink/Recode as well.) Compressing anything about 10%, you probably won't notice except on a really large screen. I do believe that compressed DVD's have slightly poorer/darker color rendition, but that may just be me. Compressing 20% or more will likely be noticeable, even on a fairly small (< 30") TV. Use of a re-encoder like DVD-Rebuilder with CCE will give you a somewhat better picture and allow maybe 10% more compression for the same amount of degradation. In other words, if you use DVD-RB/CCE, add 10% to the numbers stated above. Compression is especially noticeable on animated material, however. You will see a lot of artifacting- material which briefly stays on screen from a previous scene, which occurs during motion or a scene change. If I did backups, I'd probably either use DL discs - the better quality is worth it IMO - or, for episodic material like TV shows, I'd split each DVD-9 across two DVD-5s. (Of course, this implies there is anything on TV worth backing up! )
