DVD burners

ABH_3

Ianna wrote: »

Thanks so much for letting me know! Having googled licence key I now know that it is important and secret, thanks for the heads up! Should I panic that I shared it with the world?

Ok, so going on what I remember, the picture was probably up for around 20 minutes or so before I cottoned on that it might be a good idea to get it removed, in that time I'd imagine no more than about 20 people saw it, one may have taken a copy of the image and may use the code. But you have one thing they don't. That's the 'Certificate of Authenticity' so if they are challenged or even YOU are challenged by Microsoft, you will be asked to produce the 'COA' to them by post or more likely to send them a picture of it. It's unlikely to happen, but should it. At least you know you're the rightful owner.

As to where to find this 'COA' it will be in all likelihood stuck to one of the disks you received with you computer, and when I say 'stuck', I mean literally stuck to the back of one of the cases. Or it maybe a small sticker to be found on the baseunit and will look like this: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/piracy/images/coa/coa.jpg

Now as to your problem. Going by what you posted regarding your dvd drive, it looks to be a DVD rom (rom = read only memory so it can read dvd's) cdrw (compact disc read\writer) so it can write to cds as Donnie rightly said in his reply. To make sure of this, you could run a program called: Belarc Advisor (it's free) http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html it will then profile your pc for you, it will then open a browser window with the specification of your pc in it. You should then be able to go to File\Save As... in your browser, and save this profile to your harddrive. I sugest your desktop as it will then be easier to find it again, should you need to do so. It will list all your software and their associated license keys, which can be useful should you suffer a loss or corrupted program at a later date, so you may wish to keep that file.

However, for the time being, you need to highlight the information under 'Drives' specifically any that relates to your cd\dvd\rw but if you are unsure, just copy everything under 'Drives' and paste it into a reply here. To give you some idea of the section you need to look at. This is my own harddrive profile http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=harddrivesqm7.jpg just highlight that text, right click on the highlighted blue area, then paste it into your reply here. Once someone has that information, they will able to determine what your drive actually is.

I don't want to overload you with information at this stage, but to give you some ideas, you could as others have said purchase your own dvd\rw drive and install it yourself.

You will need to crack open the computer case and you will be faced with this: http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/how-to-install-a-hard-drive-137179.php I know it lists it as installing a harddrive, but you should look through that and think 'Could I install a harddrive like that?' As the connections on the back of a dvdrw are similar. If you think not, then you will need to take your PC to someone who can, be that person a family friend or a local PC Repair Shop, it should cost around £40 - £50 including labour to install it and get it working as one would expect. Though it isn't the most difficult of jobs, you could conceivably just remove your existing DVDRom drive and simply plug in your new DVDRW drive, put the case back together and save yourself some money

As regards suitable models, there was some debate about Lite-On drives being worse than others, the fact is Lite-On has been producing the insides of drives for the likes of NEC, Philips, Sony and other companies for years. It is only the firmware (think of operating system for the device) which is branded with a particular name. They make cheap and affordable technology however, so if you goto a shop and the person only has a Lite-On drive, don't snub it for a Sony or Philips as they restrict what you (the end user) can do with their drives. I've personally got a Pioneer and so you should too http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=2147&prepg=2 this is a good drive and Pioneer untill recently made their own drive technology to an extremely high standard. Even Lite-On has borrowed some of their innovation. SVP are a highly reputable company to deal with and have fantastic customer services. As for which disks (a likely next question) you should purchase, quite simply ANY DVD-R disks as the '-' disk offers greater compatability accross all dvd players. So any from this page: http://svp.co.uk/products-list.php?cid=118

Finally (yes there is and end to this, it's almost in sight). Donnie though well meaning is wrong, you can with Nero create VCD\SVCD's and burn to cd for playing back in dvd players. However, if whoever you're sending the resulting files too doesn't have this facility, then they will have to buy a player that supports this, or use a PC to view the content. Nero will create and burn DVD's and that is the standard you should be aiming for, as vcd\svcd were only popular and an accepted format in Japan\China etc. Some 'big brand' players over here as well as smaller brands sold through Tesco\Asda etc simply don't support this format and simply eject the disk.

There we are, the end ... at last

Donnie

ABH

My solution is meant to help the OP to share her videos immediately, before the need to purchase or install anything.
Once she has purchased her internal/external DVD writer, she can revert to DVDs and DVD Video.

Playable on most standalone DVD players and PCs/Laptops

Plus, the person to whom she is sending was intending to view on PC anyway.

You should know by now, that I am almost never wrong.

Ianna

This is going to take me a bit of time to get through, just wanted to say how awesome you all are Hurrah for you!

ABH_3

Donnie wrote: »

ABH

My solution is meant to help the OP to share her videos immediately, before the need to purchase or install anything.
Once she has purchased her internal/external DVD writer, she can revert to DVDs and DVD Video.


Plus, the person to whom she is sending was intending to view on PC anyway.

You should know by now, that I am almost never wrong.

I'd never sugest you were, however you can draw your own conclusion as to how right you were when you consider, looking back at the original post:

Well gosh darn it do I feel silly. Turns out that you need a DVD burner to copy avi files onto disk so I can't send mom my home movies just yet.

I know absolutely nothing about DVD burners. Which one should I get? How much are we talking here?

I admit, I should have looked at the first post too. Obviously we need to confirm the OP has a burner of some fashion built into her dvdrom drive.

Once that's established, you could sugest that she uses some simple freeware to accomplish the task. It sounds to me that she needs a file splitter such as HJSplit http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/ and a burning program to burn data cd\dvd's (the latter assuming she buys a dvd drive) something like: http://www.deepburner.com/?r=products&pr=deepburner&prr=features which will burn 'data' files to cd. If she gets the dvd burner she could use this program: http://www.protectedsoft.com/products.php which is quite intuitive to convert her .avi files to full blown dvd's.

Once burnt on dvd-r media, she'll then be able to share them amongst not only those with the capability to play .avi files, but whoever has a dvd player under the tv.

I would not sugest you alone were wrong Donnie, no I'd say we were both wrong

Donnie

I've already confirmed that she has a CD writer on board.

No need for file splitters at this stage. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible.

I've also already covered both the Data burning and the DVD Video options with the trial version of Nero 7.

Trying to keep it simple.

I'm not wrong at all.

Ianna

Belarc Advisor (it's free) http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

However, for the time being, you need to highlight the information under 'Drives' specifically any that relates to your cd\dvd\rw but if you are unsure, just copy everything under 'Drives' and paste it into a reply here. To give you some idea of the section you need to look at. This is my own harddrive profile http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=harddrivesqm7.jpg just highlight that text, right click on the highlighted blue area, then paste it into your reply here. Once someone has that information, they will able to determine what your drive actually is.

OK under drives we have:

75.75 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
3.23 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

CD-ROM Drive
H + H DVD-ROM DVD-41SD SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
H + H DVD-ROM DVD-41SD SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8483B [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8162B [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

SAMSUNG SV0802N [Hard drive] (80.06 GB) -- drive 0, s/n S019J10W750319, rev TP100-23, SMART Status: Healthy

You will need to crack open the computer case and you will be faced with this: http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/how-to-install-a-hard-drive-137179.php I know it lists it as installing a harddrive, but you should look through that and think 'Could I install a harddrive like that?'

I think so.....I can't see that I'd wreck anything so it's worth a go.

Have downloaded Nero 7 but not file splitters because I don't know what they are. ENORMOUS thanks for the step by step instructions, once I'd sat down and gone through it all properly it really wasn't so hard :T

Donnie

You don't have enough free space on your Hard Disc Drive.

Have you been able to create VCD/SVCD discs?

When did you download and install Nreo 7?

Ianna

Have you been able to create VCD/SVCD discs?

I don't know what this question means. I've never successfully put anything onto a CD not even word files.

When did you download and install Nreo 7?

The same day I posted so a few days ago. Also I've been on a deleting and cleaning mission, my computer's running faster so I guess I have more space. I followed the instructions on the stickies here so I know I did the right thing

ETA this is my new belaric (oh my spelling!) thingie wotsist:

75.75 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
16.62 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

CD-ROM Drive
H + H DVD-ROM DVD-41SD SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
H + H DVD-ROM DVD-41SD SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8483B [CD-ROM drive]
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8162B [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

SAMSUNG SV0802N [Hard drive] (80.06 GB) -- drive 0, s/n S019J10W750319, rev TP100-23, SMART Status: Healthy

Donnie

Ianna

Check your Private Messages for instruction.

Ianna

Done. And nothing's broken!