Internal or External DVD Burner for PB?

[Steven1621]

The internal DVD burner on the PB is only 2X, rather slow in my opinion.

Would it be better to just get the combo drive and put the money saved to a 4X or 8X external? By getting the combo drive, it saves you about $180 (edu).

Is this worth it?

Those of you with the internal DVD, is it worth the money?

[laserbeahm]

I heard that iDVD doesn't work with external drives.

[D0ct0rteeth]

need more info brah..

how much DVD burning are you doing?
How much are you traveling with your powerbook?
Wil you be sitting on the couch.. at a desk.. moving all over the place..

Personally I am buring several DVDs a day and the 2x Superdrive is tollerable, but that is mostly because I am not willing to make that trade for portability sake. It is not worth the hassle to have to carry around a firewire burner and always have to be near a outlet so I can plug everything in.

I work out of several locations and hotels all the time and lugging around a Laptop, firewire burner, firewire harddrive and firewire hub (only 1 firewire port on my powerbook) and possibly a powerstrip defeats the whole purpose of a laptop.

Waaay to much headache.

But its a decision for you to make bro.. just my 2 pesos.

- Doc

[gemio17]

I just ordered the 15" 1.25ghz with 5400rpm and the combo drive- after the $180 savings (actually after bumping up to the better hd it's about $68 savings) but, regardless you can get a much cheaper, much faster external drive. Didn't seem worth it to me to get a slow sd with my hot new pb....

[numediaman]

Originally posted by laserbeahm
I heard that iDVD doesn't work with external drives.

I've heard some people claim that iDVD will work with an external drive -- but I doubt it.

I assume that a new DVD drive will come with its own burning software -- probably Toast. In any case, I would buy Toast because of its reliability.

I like external burners, in general, especially since I absolutely hate slot loading drives . . . (mine has died several times, and they seem awfully tempermental).

Are there FW800 DVD burners out there?

[CmdrLaForge]

Originally posted by laserbeahm
I heard that iDVD doesn't work with external drives.

Yes, thats true. It doesn't work. And thats really something to consider and think about. But anyway. He already ordered.

[advres]

get the internal and down the road get a FW burner if you really need speed. I use DVD Studio Pro all the time with my internal burner. I don't find it to be too much of a hassle to build the DVD and then burn it with Toast while i sleep. If you are doing video work than you need to spend the extra money on a 7200 RPM firewire drive.

So all in all I would get the PB with the burner in it and go to OWC (http://www.owcomputing.com) for a good, cheap 7200 RPM drive.

[Macnasien]

I never regret my choice to buy the 12" PB with internal SuperDrive. I have an external Firewirecase with a Yamaha CD-Burner for fast CD-R/RW with an 160 GB Harddrive for Backup and Multimedia. I think there are 3 points which make me buy an internal:
1) Burn DVDs anywhere
2) If you want to sell your PB later ...
3) eas of use of iDVD,which won't work with any external DVD-Burner.

Hope it'll help you a bit.

:D