Better value--CDs or DVDs?

[Joshua B]

I used to buy lots of CDs. Now I buy more DVDs than CDs because to me, DVDs are a better value. I'd much rather pay $20 for a movie that cost millions to make, has lots of extra features, and a multi-channel Dolby Digital soundtrack that rocks my livingroom walls. These days, most CDs are mastered poorly because the artist or label wants to bump up the volume level so high that they overcompress the hell out of everything. Go ahead, pop in your latest CD purchase and open up one of the tracks in a .WAV editor and see for yourself.

 

[riverc0il]

i think the value of CD's is terrible compared to what you actually pay. most CD's have one or two good songs only that you've already heard on the radio. and IMHO, any song on the radio should be considered public domain and readily available for free. that thought essentially reduces the value of a CD to zero for me. i'm anxiously awaiting a new format, new media, new distribution, and ultimately the death of the RIAA that will put the power of distribution and money making back into the hands of the artists. probably get more higher quality CD's that way too since bands won't feel preassured to record crap music just cause they signed a contract for XX number of albums.

i only value DVDs if i know i'm going to watch them at least 5 times. i can rent DVD's for $1... so owning is strictly a matter of convenience for the movies i love the most as i have to watch them 15-20 times to break even. at least with DVD's you get extras and special scenes and commentary and stuff. and the CD/computer stuff is just lame, imo. not a selling point.

essentially, they are both over priced, but DVD's are at least worth their price on occasion.

 

[skijay]

I have not purchased a CD since July of 03. I gave up buying a $14 CD new or searching used for something that I like only 1 or 2 tracks on it.

I decided to go XM for my music.

As for DVDs I have been expanding my collection buy purchasing used.

I would rather make a new or used DVD purchase over a CD, new or used.

 

[severine]

Sorry... I answered the poll without reading your posts. I thought you were asking which was a better value as in (blank) CDs or DVDs, like for storing media and such. If that were your question, without a doubt CDs are still the better value. Blank DVDs cost a small fortune right now, despite their data capacity. They're also still working out some of the bugs on the burners, and DVD burners are much slower than CD burners that are available right now, thereby taking much longer to store the data.
As for pre-made CDs (music) and DVDs (movies), I don't buy rerecorded CDs. I don't even have a CD player in my car, so I wouldn't have a chance to listen to them. But we do buy DVDs all the time. And of course, DVDs are a far better value than VHS (more of an apples to apples comparison) because of the picture and sound quality and the durability. A DVD, if properly cared for, will far outlast a VHS tape.

 

[Greg]

Sorry... I answered the poll without reading your posts. I thought you were asking which was a better value as in (blank) CDs or DVDs, like for storing media and such. If that were your question, without a doubt CDs are still the better value. Blank DVDs cost a small fortune right now, despite their data capacity. They're also still working out some of the bugs on the burners, and DVD burners are much slower than CD burners that are available right now, thereby taking much longer to store the data.

Disagreed. With almost 4,500 digital images filling almost one DVD-R, I think DVD-R is a better value at least in terms of ease of storage - 1 DVD-R to 7 CD-Rs. I'll happily pay the "premium" to have less backup media to store. In addition, we've made some cool DVDs - A wedding DVD for my sister in law from the video I took on my Sony Digital 8 camera and a slideshow of pictures (with music) of my daughter's first year that we played at her 1 year birthday party. Everybody seem to love it!

Initially, based just on the subject, I thought this was a CD-R/DVD-R debate as well.

 

[Joshua B]

As soon as I step up to DVD burning, I will post a new poll for recordable CDs vs recordable DVDs. 8)

 

[severine]

Let's put it this way... I made a really cool DVD of our video from our trip to Montana a few years ago. After I edited it, it took about 7 hours for it to encode and get burned onto the DVD (the movie was about 1.5 hours long). Yes, the DVD held more data than a CD can, but it wasted a lot of my time when I needed to be using the computer for other things and couldn't...wasted time should factor into the equation. Once faster burners come out, I will change my vote. But a 2X DVD burner takes darn near forever to put that data onto the DVD.

(**I will add that the 7 hours was from burning to a DVD+R... when I burned the same movie to a DVD-R, which is less reliable, it took about an hour--but the movie also ended up with errors in it. Why the difference in time, I don't know--I'm not a computer expert. But if you're going to take the time to put it on DVD, you should at least use the more reliable media, which takes longer....**)

 

[Greg]

Let's put it this way... I made a really cool DVD of our video from our trip to Montana a few years ago. After I edited it, it took about 7 hours for it to encode and get burned onto the DVD (the movie was about 1.5 hours long). Yes, the DVD held more data than a CD can, but it wasted a lot of my time when I needed to be using the computer for other things and couldn't...wasted time should factor into the equation. Once faster burners come out, I will change my vote. But a 2X DVD burner takes darn near forever to put that data onto the DVD.

(**I will add that the 7 hours was from burning to a DVD+R... when I burned the same movie to a DVD-R, which is less reliable, it took about an hour--but the movie also ended up with errors in it. Why the difference in time, I don't know--I'm not a computer expert. But if you're going to take the time to put it on DVD, you should at least use the more reliable media, which takes longer....**)

I would guess the encoding process is more of a function of processing power/memory than it is the write speed of the drive. I've found the encoding process on my PC takes about as long as the video is. Writing a 90 minute video takes ~90 minutes to encode and maybe another 30 minutes to burn. I can't see how the DVD format makes a difference in terms of speed. I've found them to take about the same time. However, DVD-R work in our DVD player, DVD+R do not. Either way, start it before bed and see what you have in the morning... Still in its infant stage I guess, but really cool technology. We created a pretty decent wedding DVD. The price they would've paid a professional is probably 2 or 3X what we paid for the DVD burner and Digital video camera...

 

[severine]

There must be some difference in encoding for DVD-R versus DVD+R, otherwise there wouldn't have been such a drastic difference in the time it took to do such. The movie was edited and coded on a brand new (purchased December 2003) ibook G4, with a 1GHz G4 processor and 640mb memory, not a sluggish pig of a computer by any means. Once encoded, it was burned using a LaCie (Pioneer) d2 external drive (2X) that can be used on both PCs and Macs. Once encoded, it took about a thirty minutes to burn the DVD+R/twenty minutes for the DVD-R. However, I will give credit to the fact that I was dealing with a file that's approximately 920 kb, so it's not a small amount of data...
Using that plus (being able to store larger files and more of them), there is a downside. Since RW versions of CDs and DVDs aren't very reliable, you're better off using DVD-R or DVD+R (+ is becoming more of the standard these days, from what I've seen). But since you can only burn once to these, you need to have all of your data ready. The plus with CDs is that it isn't a huge loss in money if you use a disc to hold only a few files--CDs are pretty cheap. But at $4-$5 per DVD, it's a bigger loss if you don't fully utilize the storage capabilities every time you burn to one. While DVDs have that potential to be a better value if you fully utilized every DVD you use, with typical use, most people don't fully utilize that disc/dvd every time they burn one. That's where the losses come in.

 

[Greg]

There must be some difference in encoding for DVD-R versus DVD+R, otherwise there wouldn't have been such a drastic difference in the time it took to do such.

I don't believe the encoding process takes into account the type of media. Again, I've seen no difference between the formats in terms of encoding time. Have you noticed this discrepancy on multiple occasions, or did it only happen onces? If the latter, I'm betting is was some anomaly that occurred just that time. I'm certainly no DV expert though.

The movie was edited and coded on a brand new (purchased December 2003) ibook G4, with a 1GHz G4 processor and 640mb memory, not a sluggish pig of a computer by any means. Once encoded, it was burned using a LaCie (Pioneer) d2 external drive (2X) that can be used on both PCs and Macs.

What's the interface here? I presume Firewire?

But at $4-$5 per DVD, it's a bigger loss if you don't fully utilize the storage capabilities every time you burn to one.

Find a new place to buy your DVDs. CDW has TDKs for just over per $1.60 a disk when you buy 15:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=510591
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=447735

I'm sure places like BJs or Costco have similar pricing on "bulk" DVDs. For large data backup, DVD-R simply has it over it CD-R, hands down. I back up my images to DVD and just leave the session open and add the new images as needed.