DVD burners are used to install software from CD or DVD, back up data, play audio CDs and DVD movies, copy CDs and DVDs, create discs to share files or software between computers, record music or other audio CDs and record home movies. They do everything that CD burners and CD-ROM drives do, so you don't need to have two optical drives installed in your computer. All models will burn to dual-layer DVD discs, which have an 8.5 GB capacity, as well as standard single-layer DVDs, which are less expensive and hold 4.7 GB of data.
Some people are beginning to recommend Blu-ray drives for your computer, but they have many reservations. Compatibility problems are common, and prices remain high, although they are dropping. Choices include combo Blu-ray Disc reader/DVD burners, which will read Blu-ray Discs, but not write to them. Blu-ray Disc burners that can record to writable Blu-ray Discs are also available, and those offer support for most other media types. However, Blu-ray Disc burners remain relatively expensive -- costing as much as 10 times more than a standard DVD burner.
If you want to play Blu-ray movies on your computer by installing an internal drive, system requirements remain a major hurdle. Computers and monitors need to meet very specific requirements to work with Blu-ray movies. Also, Blu-ray drives are frequently slower than standard DVD burners when writing to conventional media.
Blu-ray Discs can hold up to 25 GB of data on one disc, or 50 GB in the case of dual-layer discs. That could be an advantage if you need to archive tons of data, or have a high-definition camcorder and want to burn your footage to a Blu-ray Disc. However, because of the laundry list of system requirements, high prices and compatibility problems, "most users have no need to burn Blu-ray Discs today," says reviewer Loyd Case of ExtremeTech.com. That should change in coming years as the price of both the hardware and the media come down, Case says, and as component Blu-ray players for home entertainment systems become more commonplace.
