John V. Moore wrote:
I am going to purchase a new computer
and want to also get a DVD writer. I
still have many hours of tapes from Belize
and N. California which I have not
digitized...I am wondering if anyone
has a recommendation as to which format
of DVD I should be using and what
kind of writer I should purchase.
[caution: long rambling reply follows]
The process of moving your recordings from audio tape to DVD storage
has three steps: digitizing the audio, editing and saving the cuts
to your hard disc, and copying ("burning") the resulting files onto
DVD. You didn't specify if you were interested in PC or Mac
platform, but good solutions exist for both.
Getting the audio into the PC or Mac is easy if you use a USB audio
interface rather than the built-in audio section of the computer,
which is often of inferior quality, and inconveniently located on the
back of the computer. The Edirol UA-3 is a popular USB audio
interface, with two analog in and out ports (for your tape machine),
two S/PDIF in/out ports (for your DAT or MD), plus a mic in port. The
UA-3 has been replaced by the UA-3D, which adds support for 5.1
channel surround sound playback. Street price is about $190 for the
UA-3D. It works with either PC or Mac.
A limitation of the UA-3D is its digitized output of 16 bit
resolution, 44,100 samples per second (in other words, CD quality).=20
If you want to digitize at higher rates, the Edirol UA-5 digitizes at
44.1, 48 and 96Khz, using 16, 20 or 24 bit resolution. Street price
of the Edirol UA-5 is about $280. The UA-5 is a bigger, heavier box
that requires its own power supply. Most people are satisfied with
the UA-3.
The stream of digitized audio into the computer is received by an
audio editing program. Sound Forge and Cool Edit are two of several
popular audio editor for PCs. SoundStudio and Spark are two popular
Mac audio editors.
Once the audio cut is digitized and received by the editing program,
it can be saved as a computer file. I recommend that you use the
editing program to save your file in WAV (on the PC) or AIFF (on the
Mac) format. WAV and AIFF files don't compress the audio data like
MP3 does. The only disadvantage to WAV or AIFF is that file size can
become very large:
CD quality =3D 44,100 samples/second, 16 bit resolution
=3D 705,600 bits of data per second
=3D 88,200 bytes/second
=3D 5.2 MB per minute for a monaural recording (1024K bytes per MB)
A standard 74 minute CD-R can hold approximately 650 MB of data, or
about an hour's worth of stereo WAV or AIFF files (two hours for
monaural). Recordable DVD formats increase this to 4.7GB of data, or
about seven times as much as a CD-R. So you can expect to store
about seven hours' worth of stereo WAV files on one DVD.
There are several competing formats of recordable DVDs. I recommend
using DVD-R today to make archival copies of your work. The
competing DVD+R has the potential to record faster in the future, but
DVD-R is more likely to create a disc that you can read in other
computers, and more likely to create DVD-Audio discs that can be
played back in a standard DVD player. Re-writable DVDs are also
available (called DVD-RW and DVD+RW in the competing formats), but
the discs cost more, and take an hour to prepare for use. When
you're creating an archival copy of your recordings, DVD-R is the way
to go today.
As to which model of DVD-R drive to purchase, I recommend the Pioneer
DVR-A04 drive. It's the unit Apple chose to incorporate in their
latest iMac and Power Mac models, and it's available for PCs for
about $275.
If you want to take full advantage of the Pioneer DVR-A04's ability
to write at two times normal speed, you should limit your purchase of
DVD-R discs to those companies Pioneer recommends. Today, that list
includes Mitsui, Verbatim, TDK, Maxell, Taiyo-Yuden, Panasonic and
Pioneer Brand DVDs. Note that you want the "dvd-r for general
purpose" (not "for authoring"). You can purchase DVD-R blanks in
individual jewel cases, or in bulk cylinder packs, just like CDRs.=20=20
A Pioneer branded 2x dvd-r w jewel case costs ~$8 each. Other brands
on the supported list cost around $5. Generic 2x dvd-r in a bulk
pack of 25 cost ~$2.50 each, so it may be worth buying generics and
experimenting to see if they work ok with the Pioneer drive. But for
archival copies, stick with the recommended brands.
OK, you've digitized your audio, selected the cuts you want in WAV or
AIFF format, saved them to your computer's hard disc, and organized
them into folders so you can find them easily. Now it's time to
write the files to DVD. Here's where a double speed ("2X") drive
like the Pioneer DVR-A04 comes in handy: It will take roughly half
the time to record the data to DVD. But writing to DVD is a time-
consuming process at the best of times because of the vast amount of
data. You'll probably find it best to start the recording process,
then go away and do something else for a long while. The DVR-A04
has "buffer underrun" protection, which helps keep the recording
process going smoothly. But be advised that occasionally even the
best CD and DVD drives will fail to record properly. It's
frustrating when you're writing a $0.75 CD, and downright upsetting
when you waste a $5 DVD and two hours of your time.
Most DVD recording (or "burning") software can write a single session
only, meaning once you select files and burn them, no more files can
be added to that DVD. Since a DVD can hold fourteen hours of mono
recordings, it's often very convenient to write additional files to
the same DVD at a later date. To do this you need a DVD burner
with "multisession" capability. One such program for PCs is the
popular Nero Burning software. Roxio Toast Titanium is a similar
product for Macs. Be sure to purchase the most recent version of the
software, and check the company website regularly for software
updates. Note that some early computer DVD players may have
difficulty reading multisession DVD-Rs, so if there's another
computer that you want to use your DVDs with, check to make sure it
can read them properly.
The process of recording DVDs sounds more complicated than it is in
practice. Once you've got your machine set up, you just grab a DVD,
stick it in the drive, and go. You'll spend far more time with the
sound editing program selecting cuts from the digitized audio than
you will in the DVD archiving process.
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