need dvd burner what kind should i get

[Gurm]

I'd be careful there.

Every combo burner out there ... is a bit touchy.

I don't know if they're all using some underlying bizarro engine, but they are NOT the same as their single-media counterparts.

I use the NEC ND-1100A, which is a +R/+RW 4x burner.

The ND-1300A, which also burns -R/-RW, has SERIOUS media compatibility problems. Some of them are being sorted out via firmware updates, some of them are NOT.

The Sony mixed-media burner has had NUMEROUS issues, and each successive firmware fixes some and breaks others.

I'd wait until some more people have tested the A06.

A good place to get VERY precise information on burners is at Firmware Flash (formerly known as Firmware Page):

http://www.firmware-flash.com

- Gurm

P.S. To answer the original poster's question:

ALL DVD burners to date (with the possible exception of the ones inside MACs) are IDE. Even the external ones are just IDE burners with firewire or USB chassis.

Now the question is which... USB or FireWire? Well, if you mean USB1.x, there's no question. A USB DVD burner will limit you to 1x speed MAXIMUM. There just isn't enough throughput on the USB bus. You can TRY to burn at 2.4x but it'll never happen reliably.

If you mean USB2.x, that's another story - it still sucks, and I still prefer firewire, but for largely technical reasons. It'll handle the drive just fine.

It really matters what you have for plugs on your system.

- Gurm