Need a New DVD Drive

[Junk Parts]

Morning People!
My second Sony DRU 800 A DVD unit is about dead! When I bought it I thought it was a LiteOn unit packaged up for Sony. Who knows! I was just looking at new drives, and man things have changed it that Market since 2005! I don't have a clue as to who makes what for whom now. I do want to try something other than a Sony drive this time. Thinking NEC, Panasonic, or Plextor would be good choices I went looking. Well I found "Sony-NEC" drives, and a few Panasonic drives. Did Sony buy NEC now? I also found a Plextor drive but its model number puts fear in my heart. It just may be a rebadged Sony drive. My Sony is the DRU-800-A. The Plextor's number is PL-800-A! If anyone knows of a good drive for $80.00 or less let me know. I'm on the East Coast of the USA.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I ordered a Plextor PX-810SA

Have not received it yet but I think that's their latest drive anyway... It's SATA btw...

I really wanted a new Slot-In drive but I can't find any (well plextor makes one but it looks like crap)

I've got an old Pioneer Slot in DVD ROM, it is really the best DVD drive I have ever owned...

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Thanks for the reply Mr. Hansson,
I don't even think this old Dell has an SATA connection or controller onboard. My old VL6 with badcaps that I gave to Kc8adu did...LOL I gave it to him before it died, but man she was sick! I only learned how sick she was after I joined this forum. I have to say that my Abit VL6 was heads above the flock of junk out there today. Now I've got the irons, and skills, and this time around I would have recapped her. I can walk a cap out of a board with a 30 watt iron and hurt nothing. I got off topic here Mate.
What I need is a good solid DVD burner that can accept the same ATA133x80 pin connector that my Hard Drive takes. I do have USB, but I dont know what revision of USB that I have is. I'd rather just "Keep It Simple. Stupid" if you know what I mean. Please give me some Plextor choices that will fit my needs. When "Per" speaks, people Listen. You are just like "E.F. Hutton," Mate!

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Haha, thnx for the nice compliments

I'll tell you what drive to not buy, the LG GSA-4167. First I thought it was good when I got it but after a while it started to have issues reading CD's. And Willa bought one on my recommendation, a shame...

But anyway, Plextor and Pioneer are pretty much the top brands, though I don't think Pioneer makes too many drives anymore

If you check out www.plextor.be they have a small comparsion there of some of their later models, you will notice some say "premium drive" or whatever, those are the good ones. The other are just your averge LG drive with a Plextor sticker on it... I'm actually not sure if that Plextor I ordered is a premium drive or not, but nvm that :P

But as long as you go with one of those drives you ought the be more than fine...

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I like plextor also. I have a PX-716 in the office which is running great, also a PX-708a (old one) still working at home. Plextor did rebadge a NEC drive once though.

i only see px-750, px-760 on offer here at the moment, not the new ones.

plextor are usually quite a bit more expensive than the rest though. occasionally they make a lemon also....

i usually check http://www.cdfreaks.com for reviews and the forum opinions when i am going to buy a new drive. problem is that when you start to analyse stuff so deeply as they do most drives end up looking bad.

for cheapie drives i would probably choose NEC.....AD7173 bulk at 21 euros....jeez hehehe
I wasnt too impressed with LG or Liteon although i have both still working here. Although samsung made joint venture with toshiba i wasnt impressed with a samsung cdr athough it wasnt a POS.

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Willa bought one on my recommendation, a shame...

thats not correct, you were just one additional recommendation, all the reviews were good. anyway i still have it here and it burns taiyo yuden 8x (my latest 100 batch) fine.

thats another factor actually though. i only trust archive material and backups to taiyo yuden manufactured media. the rest of the media now is crap. you may be lucky to get mitsubishi chemicals otherwise but probably not. I have the very first cd backup from the office and still working...yep taiyo yuden......unlike the whole batch of mitsui sg which we had go bad. mitsui gold was actually one of the highly recommended media in the past. a few years back they sold the name and now the new company just rebrands crap. If a drive is offered very good quality media then the burns are probably going to be good unless the drive is a total POS. it gives a perspective to some of the various forum "opinions".......

[gastorgrab]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

you may be lucky to get mitsubishi chemicals otherwise but probably not.

Huh? The Verbatim i buy from Rima is always MCC media.

http://www.rima.com/Merchant2/mercha...y_Code=DMRVRTM

I like the MCC for Video and the TY for data.
.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Hmm, one of the first posts on their forum "PX-810SA, don`t buy it !!"

Just great

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=223008

It is not REAL plextor. Whith the 800er series Plextor stopped the production of own optical DVD burners.

The newer real plextor drives are: PX-716, 755 and 760. But it is very hard to find this three drives today in shops.

In spring 2007 plextor announced to stop the own production of DVD burners.

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Huh? The Verbatim i buy from Rima is always MCC media.

huh well that is a good supplier. lots of verbatim crap from various oem here.

In spring 2007 plextor announced to stop the own production of DVD burners.

any confirmation of that?

[kikkoman]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

From what I've used so far, I wouldn't recommend LG, either, but the NECs have always been great. 3d party firmware support is pretty good, and my current drive, a ND4550, works with the 4551 firmware, which adds Labelflash. There are not too many LF blanks however... Lightscribe is more widely supported, but writing on the data side only does the job, too.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I have a LG GSA 4163 in use, paired with an 20€ external USB 2.0 case.
I have had absolutely no issues with it, and it is very very fast with all medias i feed it.

Sure, LG DVD burners are cheap, but i have recommended them many times and have had no problems with it.

Well, i have to admit, that i do not burn that much DVD`s, and i do not consider DVD`s as an valid backup media for seriouse stuff for a long time).
I use either TDK scratchproof DVD +RW for my system setup disks (mostly customized OS installs or other tools, and sure system backups) or some cheap Medion or Tevion disks.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Thanks Mr. Hansson!
With your post number 8 you answered the question I was asking! As you stated with the "800" series they are not true plextor drives. As "Per" you the real deals are Px-716, 755, and 760. Now another way of saying that for newer Plextors would be "Premium Drives." Buyer Beware! My Latin is bad but I think it would be "Cabiot Emptor!" Can't spell that right ether! After I "educate" a little more I'll find one of the older plextors. If the drive that I find is from the wrong "region" is there some firmware updates to make the plextor "Region free?"...LOL No I'm not a Pirate Mate! I just want what I pay for. I only copy them one time for me.... USA

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I had a Plextor PX-708a single layer which was good, but expensive. Ever since I've gone for the ~$30 NEC drives on Newegg. I have the older ND-3550a and I love it. Newer ones I think are joint NEC/Sony (Optiarc?)

[shadow]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I have always only seen good reviews for the various LG models around.
Pioneer always seem to make pretty good drives, and they are selling for great prices for some time now.
Plextor have been known to be a 'premium brand' for a long time, I have never actually used any however I did hear some very good things about them.

You can find lots of information about various burners, mainly whether they are an OEM version of another model here:
www.rpc1.org

Incidentally the website is dedicated to upgrading firmware on DVD drives as well as making the drives themselves Region Free. So what you do is find the firmware for the DVD Burner that you are interested in and it should say near the download links if it is an OEM of another burner.

[linuxguru]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

I've used 3 different LG GSA-H42N 18x burners, and they're the best I've ever seen. I've done about 200 DVD burns, without a single coaster using growisofs on Fedora 4/5/7. They can also read certain kinds of scratched DVDs and C-grade DVD-R media better than anything else. Also, when it falls back into a 'safe-mode' lower speed burn due to bad media or overheating, it still burns at ~8x.

OTOH, the Samsung Octoedge and the Sony DRU-830A have caused problems in the past, but those may be related to bad PSUs - not enough data to pin it down. The Samsung has a tendency to drop down to 1.8x burn speeds under certain situations - maybe heat or media-related.

The LG GSA-H42N likes certain kinds of media better than others - in particular, it coasts through at an average 12x speed (peak 16x) on 'Made in India' Moser-Baer Pro 16x DVD-Rs, as well as 'Made in India' Imation 16x (probably sourced from Moser-Baer India). These can also be read without problems on just about any standalone DVD player as well as any older DVD drive. OTOH, TDK 16x DVD-Rs (probably CMC Magnetics or Ritek), often drop back to 8x write on the LG GSA-H42N. The TDKs also have more problems when read back on Samsung or Sony Combo DVD/CDRW drives. Long-term reliability is unknown as of now - I'll get a handle on this after a few years.

For now, I'll recommend the Moser-Baer and Imation 16x DVD-Rs, on the LG drive - burns are smooth and flawless, and playback has wide compatibility.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

More stupid questions from me. If I change from region 1 to "region free" on the drive that burns the blank do I also have to change to "region free" on the other drive in the PC that reads the DVD? Will my stand alone region 1 DVD player on the TV read a region free disk that I made?

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Yes, your region X drive should read a region free DVD disc just fine

A region free DVD disc is like any other data DVD disc you can make (like a data backup of just files and stuff) it's simply not restricted...

[Per Hansson]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

In spring 2007 plextor announced to stop the own production of DVD burners.

any confirmation of that?

I certainly don't have, and after a google search it looks like that guy was way off:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=sv&c...G=S%C3%B6k&lr=

[willawake]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

Yes, your region X drive should read a region free DVD disc just fine

most porn is region free. a DVD player gotta be able to play porn

[Junk Parts]

Re: Need a New DVD Drive

So it looks like everyone is sleeping with everybody in the ODD markets. Thats bad news for idiots like me. I kind of expect for products to be made by the Company that put their names on them. This is kind of like my car you know. Its says Suzuki on it and it is a 100% Japanese built Suzuki car with a Suzuki engine. Some other people have bought Chevys that are rebadged suzuki cars, or are GM built cars with a Suzuki engine in them, and paid a lot more than I did for the same crap! My second DVD drive in this PC is a no name VOM-12E48X. When I look it up on the net it comes up being an Artec VOM-12E48X made by A-Open. I guess now when it comes to a DVD drive you just pick the one that looks nice to you and read the reviews on same. If it comes up clean buy it and use it until it takes a crap then go get another....Its just like cheap cars Mate.