external DVD burner

long time lurker here that actually needs some advice...

so I have an Intel MacBook that doesn't have the DVD burner option, but now I really want to be able to burn DVDs. It seems that the only way I can do that without having the CD drive replaced is to buy an external DVD burner. Are there any good ones for around $100 (money is sort of an issue)?

and more importantly, I have a ton of .avi files that I would like to burn onto DVDs so that I can watch them on any DVD player. How do I do this and what would I need?

I'm not very technologically savvy so please keep that in mind...

thanks!

what about something like this?

mental octopus said:

what about something like this?

Click to expand...

Check that chipset detail. It's Prolific, which is okay, but the gurus would recommend the Oxford chipset as being better suited to the Mac. Of course you will pay more.

If you could come up with the extra $$, see this: OWC Mercury Pro FireWire/USB2 SuperDrive up... (MRFWUSD20X) at OWC
That would be my preferred option, as it has both the Oxford 911, and a Pioneer 116D drive, the latter having very good Mac compatibility.

As for burning movies to a dvd for viewing on a separate player, it takes a long time, and Handbrake is probably your best option. It has tutorials with it.