windows cd burning wizard? or other burning software for my archived photos

[Sossity Corby]

Am getting ready to burn backup my photo & video clip collection, tried burning my movie clips to blank DVD-Rs & photos, but found that windows XP service pack 2, ( what I am currently using ) does not recognize a blank DVD disc. When my pioneer DVD-RW drive has no disc , windows sees it, but when a blank DVD is in it sees it as a blank CD, & will not burn data files; ( photos or movie clips) The only way I can get a DVD disc to be seen is through a video editor or if the disc is a DVD formatted video.

I researched this on forums & found this to be common with XP, has trouble/limits  with data DVDs or any DVD, it is mostly for CD-R. As far as I know, my DVD drive is up to date as well as my PC. I want my archived photos & video clips to be universal & readable with all or most PCs & Macs, if this is possible. Can Macs read data discs that were burned using windows XP CD burning/ writing CD wizard?

It seems for now I will stick with good quality CD-Rs for my data; to be sure they can be read by windows XP PCs as well as the newer ones with Windows Vista. Does it matter what type/brand of drive I use for this? so far I have used the CD burner that came with my Dell Dimension 2400 PC.

Sossity

[danaltick]

Sossity,

It shouldn't matter what burner you use, but for DVD's, you will either Roxio's or Nero's DVD burning software.  I use Nero Burning ROM.

Dan

[Sossity Corby]

If one uses windows CD wrting wizard, will my data CD-Rs & DVD-Rs be universally readable? ie; Macs as well as PCs? is Roxio or nero better than windows for this purpose? I tried using creator classic in Roxio to burn the movie file & this seemed to work. I read that windows XP cannot  write data DVDs & that it needs 3rd party software. For best readability with as many PCs & Macs would CD-Rs be better as some older PCs only came with CD drives, or go with the newer technology of DVDs as I see alot of newer PCs come with DVD drives now. Thank you for the suggestions/help. I remember once trying to burn an mpg 2 movie burned as a windows media player file, & using Roxio to burn this to a blank DVD, only the sound was not there, when I tried to play back the disc. For this instace of a movie file, Roxio seemed to work, will try disc in my DVD players.

Sossity

[danaltick]

Sossity,

If you intend to follow the DAM workflow, then your bucket sizes would be DVD sized (i.e. ~4.5GB) and therefore you would use DVD's.  If your DVD burning software burns ISO level 1, ISO 9660 character set, then your image should be compatible with most any O/S.

Dan

[ralphpaonessa]

Is anyone here using Archive Creator? It is designed to archive your photos (or any other files) to DVD in Windows. You can read more and download a trial version at http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/archive_creator/index.html; good for 15 days, then you can purchase for $60.

I tried it awhile back and it seemed reasonable. One thing I liked was the ability to copy large archives to multiple DVDs; it will keep prompting you to put in the next DVD as needed. I may purchase the current version, because I have 250 GB I'd like backed up to DVD. It will optionally create various indexes for you on one or multiple DVDs.

I will be getting a new system with Windows Vista Ultimate. I know it can burn data DVDs. Does anyone know if it will let you burn a data set that is too large for one DVD, and prompt you for additional disks?

I got Nero 7, which was highly rated, with my DVD burner. However, it seems like a fairly intrusive program; I think it wants to compete with Windows Media Player and Real Player, and tries to make itself the default app for playing for many media file types. I unselected all those at install. However, I began having problems burning DVDs with other programs (e.g., Photodex ProSow Gold) which used to work fine before I installed Nero. After I uninstalled Nero 7 the problems went away, so I don't want it back.