The other day I bought a DVD writer for my computer. It was only $59, so I figured I’d just get it. It is a Lite-On 411s model, and while not the fastest (4X), it is popular, which means that should I ever run into trouble, I would probably be able to find plenty of help. At any rate, it installed with ease and I have not had any problems so far. It is compatible with all four standards, can play any region DVD (using a hack) and burns CD-R’s at some ridiculously fast speed. It also rips CD’s much quicker than my old drive. Plus, it replaced my internal DVD-RAM drive and my external CD-RW drive.

Last night I converted one of our Mini-DV tapes to a DVD-R disc. It works great in our DVD player. I was just using the program that came bundled with the drive: Sonic MyDVD 4.5. It seems to do a great job of painlessly converting the tape to disc, and can build the title menu automatically, insert chapter stops every X minutes, or you can insert chapter stops manually.

The DVD I made last night was of Bay’s birth. I was planning on just starting the recording process, and then going to bed, but I ended up watching the entire tape. Bay gives a riveting performance in his reality-show debut. 🙂