John O'Brien wrote:

> Anyhow, I keep getting these wonderfully informative ads telling me I
> can write DVD disks
> on my CD-RW drive.  Can I?  If so, is there a linux version available
> that works?
>
> John

I have gotten the ads as well and under closer inspection it is somewhat
misleading.  You can make a copy of a dvd movie burned to a cd that will
play in your (most) home dvd player.  If it plays CD-R's.  There is a
quality degradation much like the loss of picture quality when copying
tape -to- tape.  You also lose all of the OTHER features included with
most DVD's like the extra footage, optional endings, second/third
language, Director's notes, etc.... There just isn't room on an ordinary
CD to put All of that info.  But you do get a copy of the movie. I have
opted to wait for the price of DVR -R/RW to drop a bit before i spend
the time to set up such an option, only to become disallusioned at the
time vs. quality issue and then turn around and buy the DVD- R/RW
anyway.  They are now getting below the $300 mark.  I figure by the time
i invest in a computer upgrade (hopefully later this year) they will be
at a price where adding it to the total cost of the package will seem
negligable!!