Philips External DVD Writer

2982 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Glorusty, Oct 27, 2007

Rob777

Discussion Starter · Aug 7, 2007

There is a Philips external DVD writer at Best Buy for $69.99. It has USB connection. It doesn't say Mac compatible on the box and I called Philips to check on compatibility and they referred me to some other company (SPD) that actually makes the burner. They told me that they did not support Mac.

My question is that if I have Toast, then does it really matter if the company says it is Mac compatible. Isn't it the software that makes it work, not the hardware. Also I am wondering that if the company doesn't support Mac, do I want to support them.

There is a LaCie burner available elsewhere which is less than $20 more, and it does say Mac compatible with Toast being the recommended software for Mac.

One more question: Does USB or FireWire connection make that much difference. I will be burning a few DVD's from my video camera and backing up some data. No heavy usage or professional applications.

Thanks.

Save

1 - 3 of 3 Posts

eMacMan

· #2 · Aug 7, 2007

Assuming you have USB2 connection there may not be a big difference. For whatever reason I have found FireWire to be a more reliable way to connect to external HDs. Whether this will carry over to optical drives I don't know.

Personally for $20 I'd go with the supported drive.

Save

Glorusty

· #3 · Oct 27, 2007

Mac Compatible FW DVD Hardware or Software?

Rob777 said:
My question is that if I have Toast, then does it really matter if the company says it is Mac compatible. Isn't it the software that makes it work, not the hardware.

I am wondering the same about an External FireWire DVD burner.

Thanks for all inputs.

Save

1 - 3 of 3 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month