[MacDV] Formac Devideon DVD burner

[David Thrasher]

I've bought a Formac Devideon because it was the only external DVD option I could find where I wouldn't have to spend more money for authoring software. One thing I found out about it after a bit a difficulty in the beginning is that you cannot use DVD+R media (only DVD-R). (I haven't tried any of the RW formats.) This was not due to the Pioneer drive inside the case being unable to burn DVD+R media but rather a limitation in the Macintosh OS at the present time. Here's a quick chart showing what I found out:

                           DVD-R                  DVD+R
                      Write        Read      Write        Read
Mac OS 9           yes           yes         no           no
Mac OS 10.1.5     yes           yes         no           no
Mac OS 10.2        yes           yes         no           no*
Mac OS 10.3        yes           yes         no          yes

(* this might possibly be the version where you could begin to read DVD+R)

I've unfortunately have been a little too busy to put the included authoring software through it's paces yet but I have looked at the manual. The onscreen menus you create look very limited and I'm not sure if you can have more than level (that is, I don't know if you could, for example, have a link on the screen to take you to another screen for Special Features). It does look like you have some options as far as setting bitrates and such so that you could fit more on a DVD than iDVD.

What I've used the burner for so far has been to make copies of the DVD of my original short film which has worked quite well once I knew to use DVD-R media instead of DVD+R DVDs. I've made a disk image of my original DVD using Toast and then have used that to make the copies. 

Once I've actually done a project using the included authoring software, I should be able to give an opinion of it. Because of its apparent limitations (from looking at the manual) I'm considering trying to find a copy of DVD Studio on eBay to use instead.

Hope that helps.

-Dave

>I have a PB G4 Ti/400 with OS 9.2.2. I am contemplating to buy an
>external DVD burner. Reviews in U.S. and U.K. magazines seem to
>indicate that Formac Devideon might be a good choice. What are the
>experiences of this burner? Is the bundled Formac software adequate
>or should I buy Roxio Toast Titanium?
>
>Mikael