Freecom Classic DVD+/-RW Double Layer

...an external CD writer by Freecom which had been extremely reliable, I opted for the High Speed (USB2) Classic DVD+/-RW Double Layer model. It was the most expensive at just over £120 at the time (much cheaper now, see below), but the best available.

The Hardware:
In the box was a black DVD RW which was slim and lightweight (it was also available in white), the USB connector cable, the power transformer/cable (PSU- power supply ...
...system. A quick phone-call to Freecom (the phone no. at the time was 01423 704715) solved the problem. Roxio would only work on Windows 2000 or Windows XP and they would send me a disk with Nero 6 on which would work every bit as good as Roxio on my system. The company was true to their word - the program landed on my doormat the very next day. So it looked like Freecom had excellent customer service also.

Since then I have upgraded ... more

I had just recently purchased and fitted a fire-wire card (i-Link) so I could transfer my videos on to my computer at greater speed than USB, edit them, add titles and music and burn them on to CD in S-VCD format which could be viewed on my domestic DVD player. The problem was, that I was limited to a maximum of 45 minutes on each CD and the finished movies didn't have chapters as they would on proper DVD disks. If I was to impress my friends and family (or should I say bore them), with my video works of art, then S-VCD would not do the trick. What I needed was a DVD recorder and with another birthday coming up, it was off to PC World.

***Jargon Buster: (S-VCD means Super Video Compact disk - there is also VCD which means Video Compact Disk - these are video movies that can be burned onto an ordinary CD and created on a standard CD Rewriter that most computers have these days).***

With both drive bays taken up on my PC, I decided on an external DVD Writer drive. Although more expensive than internal drive, it could easily be connected to my lap top should I wish to take my masterpieces and inflict them on people who didn't own DVD players. I jest of course!

In PC world, there were several external DVD drives on the shelves, but having had an external CD writer by Freecom which had been extremely reliable, I opted for the High Speed (USB2) Classic DVD+/-RW Double Layer model. It was the most expensive at just over £120 at the time (much cheaper now, see below), but the best available.

The Hardware:
In the box was a black DVD RW which was slim and lightweight (it was also available in white), the USB connector cable, the power transformer/cable (PSU- power supply unit) and two adapters if you needed to use the unit whilst overseas.

The Software:
There was a disk with the necessary driver on it, together with a users manual, and video creating software called Roxio Easy Media Creator and Viewer. This program allowed you to create and/or watch DVDs on your computer. Added to this, a blank DVD-R was included to get you started. Full esay-to-follow tutorials on using the software are also included on the disks.

Installing it:
The installation of the driver was easy, but I had a bit of problem installing the Roxio Media Creator/Viewer on my (then) Windows Me system. A quick phone-call to Freecom (the phone no. at the time was 01423 704715) solved the problem. Roxio would only work on Windows 2000 or Windows XP and they would send me a disk with Nero 6 on which would work every bit as good as Roxio on my system. The company was true to their word - the program landed on my doormat the very next day. So it looked like Freecom had excellent customer service also.

Since then I have upgraded my system to Windows XP and now have a choice to use Roxio or Nero. There are slight differences between the two programs - each have their pros and cons.

What does it do?
An additional facility that impressed me with this player was that it would also be used to back up 4.7GB of any computer files on a standard DVD disk or up to 8.5GBs on a duel layer DVD disk. So even if I never used it for creating videos, I would have a massive back-up facility for my hard drive. In fact, the first thing I used it for was to back up the entirety of My Documents on two DVD+RW standard disks.

As mentioned earlier, using Nero or Roxio, it can create DVD movies complete with titles, chapters and a menu (just like the "real" thing).

The DVD writer works well via the USB2 port that I have recently fitted to my computer, but it is also backward compatible to USB1 - which when I tried it, was a little slower but quite acceptable. A friend of mine has a computer about a year old with a built in DVD writer and I found my Freecom to be much faster in burning disks than his.

Making the movies on my hard drive is slower, but I only have a 1GHZ processor. To make it better I added 256 Megs of RAM to the 128Megs I already had. The highest level of RAM and most powerful processor you can afford is a must really if you want to be working with video editing on a PC and not be waiting several hours for your results.

I have not used the Double-layer disks, as they tended to be on the expensive side at the time of purchase. And there again, I don't think there would be many in my family who would sit watching too many hours of my home movies!

To summarise:
The Freecom Classic is capable of creating, MP3, Video CDs, Photo/images and will back-up other files and you can connect it and disconnect it to your computer, via the USB port without the need for a re-start. It is compatible with Windows 98SE, 2000, Me and XP.

Some technical stuff dealing with speed of burning to DVD & CD
If can create fully-fledged, *double layer DVDs at a speed of 2.4X
DVD+R (write to once but can be added to later) at 8X speed
DVD +RW (write to over and over capable of over-writing/deleting old files etc) at 4X speed
DVD -R (Write to once only and that's it) at 8X speed
CD-R (Write any computer files once only) at 32X speed
CD-RW (Write/overwrite computer files over and over to CDs) at 16X speed
CD ROM (Playback only) at 40X speed
DVD ROM (DVD playback only) at 12X speed.

*("Double Layer" - you may have watched some films that break for a few seconds in the middle as it changes layers - these disks hold nearly twice as much as standard ones).

Although mine cost me around £120, a search on Google.com brought one up for as little as £50. Well worth it even if you only want to back up your files…

Thanks for reading.

 

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