I've got to get a DVD drive

[PoorOldSpike]

Getting a DVD drive is the only way i'll be able to Play FlightSim X, Civilisation 4, Silent Hunter etc which are only apparently available on DVD.
Shall I get a read-only one?
Or shall I spend a bit more and get a dual one that reads and writes (burns)?
Are duals more hassle to install and set up than read-only's?
The only reason I can think of for getting a read-and-writer is so I can save screenshots and pics from my hard drive onto CD's, will it be able to do that?
I see some DVD drives say '16X DVD read speed' on the box, is that fast enough or shall I get a faster one?
Are DVD drives easy to fit? I just unscrew the old CD-Rom drive and screw in the DVD drive in its place, right?

[Steel God]

I'm about as technical as you are Mick, so perhaps you'll find it comforting to know that I have swapped out CD and DVD drives dozens of times on my PCs.

Yes, it's as simple as opening the case, unpluging the old and plugging in the new, might have to loosen 2 screws along the way. I've heard there are some that are not plug and play, but in my experience if you're buying from any reputable source you've no worries it will recognize the new drive when you're boot up and then you're good to go.

As for what to get, a read only or read-write, if you're not planning on burning DVDs I would suggest the read only. Unless I'm wrong, which I could easily be (see first sentence of post ;) ) what you're talking about doing (saving pictures) you'd do with a CD burner not a DVD burner. I think they're different.

In my house the PC I use has a CD burner, and the missus has teh DVD burner, so I honestly don't think you can do both with a DVD burner.

[PoorOldSpike]

Okay I whipped out the CD-Rom drive and fitted the DVD drive in its place and it works fine, I'm getting quite good at messing with hardware; it only takes me 45 minutes to wrestle the PC case off nowadays..
Am now psyching myself up to have a shot at burning at a later date..

[Weasel]

Buy the RW DVD burner (I use the Sony SH-S203N) and am very happy with it. No problems and very fast. I am not sure about where you live, but the price of a read only as opposed to a RW is minimal and I have learned a long time ago that if you go cheap now you kick yourself a month down the road.

And yes you can go cd to dvd, it isn't the drive but the software that lets them read each other, so you can put a music cd in the drive and use Nero to copy it to a dvd or another cd in the dvd drive. On my system I have a sony read only dvd drive, pioneer rw drive, and my newest sony RW +-R.