Just bought myself a great holiday gift, and it works very well so I thought I'd share.

I went to newegg.com and picked up the Plextor 708A which has been getting great reviews. It's one of the very few DVD+R/-R burners that burns up to 8X (+R) while still burning regular CDs up to 40X. Plus the Plextor name's reputation speaks for itself.

Here's a review:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1864&p=1

While I was there I also picked up an external Firewire case (I personally don't care much for USB 2 so I didn't get the combo). I got it the other day, took about 4 or 5 minutes to slap the drive into the case, and minutes later I was burning DVDs and CDs using the Roxio 6 software provided.

All told, it was $253 plus shipping, for a wonderfully portable, fast and reliable external firewire DVD Burner. Can't beat that with a stick.

Imran,
What enclosure you use? Brand...

Hi,

I'm also interested in enclosure brands, but I'd rather go for
a 5.25"/3.5" case with both USB2.0 and Firewire connections.
My local store used to carry such a unit, but no longer.

Over time I've bought three different brands of enclosures from newegg.com, and never had any compatibility problems with any of them. One was for 3.5" drives USB 2/Firewire, one was a 5.25" USB 2/Firewire with a cooling fan, and then this one which is Firewire only for 5.25" and a cooling fan.

The one I am using for my DVD burner is on this page, under the category of "Generic". With enclosures, it all depends on the chip. All the newer ones are very compatible on multiple platforms.

http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactory.asp?catalog=92&DEPA=1

HI Imran,

Thanks for the information on the enclosures. Here's another source I just found:

http://www.meritline.com/firusben.html

You can get an excellent USB2 + 1394 enclosure for a lot less than NewEgg can offer. Check the link below, it's the exact same thing, only NCIX brands it under it's own name (nGear). $76 CDN vs $102 USD at NewEgg. Can't beat that.

www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=10574

This is where I do all of my computer shopping, both for the wide selection and price matching.

I do have a rather silly question since we're on the subject of external enclosures... Could I hook up a hard drive with an enclosure up to my XL1's DV out port and it would record on it?

I'm not sure if the camera is capable of writing to an external source. I would imagine it wouldn't without the external source handeling the reads/writes (like a FireStore or a PC would). The camera would have to be able to send file information (stops, starts, new file name, etc....) to the hard drive and I don't think that's possible with such an inexpensive solution.

Andrew, perhaps you were looking at the wrong site? That case is only 49.99 USD at Newegg, which I think is only $67 Canadian, which is cheaper than the site you mentioned. Not sure where you got $102 from...

It's usually very difficult to find a better legitimate(!) deal on computer hardware over Newegg. And if you look at their resellerratings.com rating, it's phenomenal. I daresay that their rating is higher than anyone on the net.

Also, no, you can't hook a case such as this directly up to your cam. You have to get something like a Firestore for something like that, or at the cheapest, Pyro (ADS Tech?) makes something like it around the 500-600 range for just a 30Gigger.

The low price of this enclosures is phenomenal!

Cheapest I can get here is about 85 USD for the plastic and 100 for aluminum case - Ratoc has good reputation as maker.

What's worse is Japanese online shops keep the price unganged while the Yen/$ rate changed drastically.

<<<-- Originally posted by Imran Zaidi : Andrew, perhaps you were looking at the wrong site? That case is only 49.99 USD at Newegg, which I think is only $67 Canadian, which is cheaper than the site you mentioned. Not sure where you got $102 from... -->>>

I got the $102 from NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-332&catalog=92&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1


This is the same one offered at NCIX, only NCIX is rebranded and cheaper. The cheaper NewEgg one you mention is a different model number altogether (5 series vs the 7 series I linked), while this one supports both FireWire and USB2. Personally I'd opt for the dual combo since not all computers have FireWire ports.

Actually it does have both USB2 and Firewire.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-316&catalog=92&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

This one I mentioned is made for 5.25 drives as well as 3.5 internal drives. Looks like the more expensive one is more just for 3.5 drives and things that have an external face like Zip drives. And no cooling fan. Plus on Newegg it's rebranded under Bytecc, so pricing is probably the brand's doing, not Newegg. Such is the nature of rebranded OEMs.

For the purposes of this thread, externalizing a 5.25 DVD burner, I'd definitely go with the cheaper one at the link above.