External USB Slim DVD±RW w/ Lightscribe

[milenkod]

Thinking of adding an external slim line DVD±RW that has Lightscribe.

Are all Lightscribes created equal and any issues with using the lightscribe feature under 10.4? I've read many people suggest LaCie but those seem to be older posts. I'm hoping that things have changes since now and LG or others would work.

I guess the other option would be under XP/VMWare as that's the environment/software that gets most of my use to "back-up" my DVD's.

 

[sickmacdoc]

Not really a fan of Lightscribe's limitation of only black images or the length of time it takes to burn the image so can't really comment on that (I much prefer just printing a high res color print directly onto the disk with one of my Epson printers that direct print to disks), but did want to mention that you might want to consider the decision to get a slim DVD burner.

The reason I say this is that all the externals I have seen in that category have two disadvantages when compared to traditional standard height burners-

1. The slim burners I have seen are limited to 8x burns rather than the 16x-20x (with quality media) burn rates of standards

2. Should there be a problem with the mechanism after the warranty is over (or even if you only desire to update the mechanism itself) a standard height burner is far cheaper than the slim drives, probably just due to the much larger quantities being produced. A "latest" revision Pioneer full height raw drive is less than $30 at newegg.com or other suppliers for instance, while most slim raw drives run more along the lines of $99- and still with the burn speed limitations.

Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the differences. Slim drives are certainly more convenient to handle, but there are downsides to picking one too. Good luck with whatever you pick up!

 

[milenkod]

Not really a fan of Lightscribe's limitation of only black images or the length of time it takes to burn the image so can't really comment on that (I much prefer just printing a high res color print directly onto the disk with one of my Epson printers that direct print to disks), but did want to mention that you might want to consider the decision to get a slim DVD burner.

The reason I say this is that all the externals I have seen in that category have two disadvantages when compared to traditional standard height burners-

1. The slim burners I have seen are limited to 8x burns rather than the 16x-20x (with quality media) burn rates of standards

2. Should there be a problem with the mechanism after the warranty is over (or even if you only desire to update the mechanism itself) a standard height burner is far cheaper than the slim drives, probably just due to the much larger quantities being produced. A "latest" revision Pioneer full height raw drive is less than $30 at newegg.com or other suppliers for instance, while most slim raw drives run more along the lines of $99- and still with the burn speed limitations.

Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the differences. Slim drives are certainly more convenient to handle, but there are downsides to picking one too. Good luck with whatever you pick up!

yea, 8x is probably enough but for the price, a full height at 16 X makes more sense $-wise. The slim-line burner I was looking at was on eBay, so it wasn't all that much.