
Learn about the types of computer DVD and media drives used to build a custom PC in this free instructional video.
All Videos In The Series, "How to Build a Custom PC Computer"
"Hi, I'm Allen and welcome to expert village. Today, I'm going to show you how to build your very own personal computer. The other component is your DVD drive right here. Most of the systems now run with DVD or DVD recordable drives, best option. If you want to go really really over the top you can go like blue ray or HDTV, a little bit expensive, but depending on your applications or what you're running you can always do that. Definitely a good option to have. Now a lot of these DVD recorders are probably all made by the same company in Taiwan or China so it really doesn't matter. This one is a Ben Q. I don't know where I got it; I think probably New Egg or one of those places, probably only like $20 or something. I don't think there's a real necessity on a Sony DVD drive just because it has Sony's name on it. They all do the same thing. They all come with the OEM software and they all seem to be pretty nice. Now, when you purchase the DVD recordable drive make sure it sports a lot of the formats, -r, r, RW, all those ones. The new ones are like the double layer drive so if you get something like that you have options for all your various media and also make sure that it has a pretty decent buffer size probably 8 megabytes and up. That way it just stops errors from occurring and things like that. The buffer is when it's copying software and things like that. It builds a buffer and refers to that. It's pretty much a memory module within the DVD itself. For the most part nowadays you don't need any video decoders or anything like that. The software that comes with it, even the OEM drives most likely will have the DVD player or windows media should play DVD's and things like that. Go on New Egg or PriceWatch, look at different recorders. This one's a 16X; you can go higher than that. Just a word of the wise, if you're burning a lot of videos, I wouldn't burn above 4X if you have control over it. Keep it stable. Data, burn as high as you want. These ones are great. They sport DVD recorders and CD recordable media. It's definitely a plus so check it out."
Expert Village: Allen Gottfried
Video Series: Computers
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