Which Mod for DVD-R
 

I'm about to but a complete system from stem to stern and need some advice. It looks like the No solder mod is the easiest choice but I want to be sure on compatibility. Will be buying brand new PS2, looking at the Pioneer AO4 burner, and (http://www.modchipinc.com/pages/nosolder.htm) this chip. I am experienced with all aspects of PS1, but have never done PS2. Have DVD to Divx experience as well. I would rather burn the entire DVD without downsampling. I read somewhere about dual layer DVDs and inability to copy. Any advice would be helpful... I have done a lot of reading, but this appears to be a moderately new chip and it looks like a lot of folks are downsampling to write to CDR vs. the DVDs. Media consideration helpful as well... will the low budget discs work?

Many questions in my first post... any help appreciated.

Newbie

PS2 newbie, here's some good advise: Buy a PS2 premodded with a messiah or a magic 2 chip.You can find them for a reasonable price. By the time you buy the console, a AR2 or GS2, a copy of devil may cry (or demo if you can find) and the no solder mod you will be spent enought to purchase a premodded console.Also, I have found ripping games to be time consuming and just down right hard. Buying a dvd burner is the best way to go, it will save alot of headaches. A tutorial for prassi primo dvd can be found at www.psxcopyworld.co.uk

Which ps2 version board did u have?
Agree with nightstalker messiah is your best option.Not sure about the magic 2.Beside not sure whather is out in the market.

Appreciate the help. I assume the copy of Devil may cry is for the double swap method? This site says single swap works. Would be interested to hear from anyone who is using this.

Do the DVD titles burn straight across without the need for patches still, and are verbatim discs still important or can the cheapies work?

Thanks again.

I got my premodded PS2 from Liksang last week and so far I am pretty impress that it can play all games i have copied. This is the NTSC version of the PS2 and it uses the Apple chip.

For DVD-rom base games I am using a Pioneer A03 and Primo Prassi sw. It is just a simple straight backup ( create global image -> burn global image). I have so far copied 4 dvd-rom based games including "Devil May Cry" (US version) with great success. Use a quality dvd-r disc such as Verbatims. I personally use Apple discs. I used a Memorex DVD-R media to back up State Of Emergency and it failed.

I have a V5 with the Magic 2 chip. All my backups work great. Using Memorex and Verbatim DVD-RW's. Had some cheapie DVD-R's that came with my A04, they won't work at all.