Producing your own DVD movies always required a high performance system with plenty of fast storage and a deep pocket. Pioneer's early DVD writers would set you back a couple of grand on top of the cost of a decent SCSI system. However, the performance and capacity of modern computers can comfortably handle the workload and we are starting to see a wide range of realistically priced DVD burners suitable for creating home movies or for massive data storage.

AOpen has recently introduced its DVRW-2412 PRO burner, capable of storing up to 4.7GB of data or three hours of video on one disc. It is a direct replacement for existing CD drives and will connect using the standard E-IDE internal bus. As the drive is fully compatible with earlier CD formats it will write CD-R at up to 12-speed and CD-RW at 10-speed, though in common with most other manufacturers it fails to live up to the claimed 32-speed read spec.

When it comes to the DVD specification, the DVRW-2412 PRO will play back all standard DVD media at up to 8-speed and record to both DVD+R and DVD+RW at 2.4-speed. AOpen has opted for the DVD+R/RW format over the competing DVD-R/RW. Though the media is marginally more expensive than DVD-R/RW, performance, especially in RW mode, is improved and broader compatibility with earlier DVD players is claimed. If you're planning to produce DVD video for playback on a domestic DVD player, then it may be advisable to check out the compatibility first.

Along with the drive, AOpen supplies connection cables and fixings with a useful selection of software. Nero 5 burning software, one of the best general purpose CD/DVD writing packages, is supplied. This includes the InCD software that enables you to set up a UDF file format on a DVD+RW disk and use it read, write and erase files just like a hard drive.

Also included is a selection of DVD authoring and playback tools. Cyberlink's PowerDVD will enable you to view both commercial and personal DVD creations on your PC. Video Studio version 6 is a capable entry level video editing package that will allow you to grab video for editing from both analogue and digital sources, include graphics images and soundtracks and build the whole project with wipes and special transitions, for burning to DVD.

Rendering your DVD is not the fastest job in the world and you can expect it to take about 1 minute to prepare each minute of final video. If you're looking to simply transfer video from camera directly to the burner, then neoDVDstandard is also included and can produce DV, DVD or VCD (VideoCD) with audio overlay.

The DVRW-2412 PRO burner is a competent DVD+R/RW drive with a good cross section of software. Media is marginally more expensive than DVD-R/RW but DVD+RW should give you reasonable backward compatibility with earlier domestic DVD players. If you're looking for compatibility across both formats, then new dual media drives are starting to appear. However at the current state of DVD writing, this is about as good as it gets.