New DVD drives

[Junk Parts]

I need to buy four new DVD burners for two different systems. One is A Dell Optiplex 1 Ghz PIII with 512 PC133 ram. The other is a Dell Demension with a 2.4 Ghz P4, and 512 DDR ram. Xp home is the OS on them. I don't need "Blu-Ray" as I only use these drives to copy regular DVD movies, and data...ect. I was thinking I would just grab 4 Sony drives from Tiger Direct. They have a Sony burner for $29.00 right now. I'm a cheap sucker so I want to keep costs down but I am willing to go about $50.00 each for the new drives if I have to. What would you recommend for replacement drives for this junk I have now? I hate Lightning! Oh by the way, the burning progies I use are Nero 7 Ultra, and DVDFab 5 Platinum.

[Scenic]

Re: New DVD drives

i'd recommend LG (as i always do )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%20ELECTRONICS

edit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136144

[willawake]

Re: New DVD drives

new drives are really shit thanks to the koreans fucking the market with low price.

my recent experience

samsung internal failed very early
samsung external still working
lg still working long time
liteon failed in moderate time

next drive i will get will be a pioneer after i saw their dvd players (for tv) were will all jap caps

[kc8adu]

Re: New DVD drives

the sonys were rebadged liteons last time i looked.

[kikkoman]

Re: New DVD drives

the sonys were rebadged liteons last time i looked.

sony or sony-nec? no.2 would be a shame since nec drives used to be rather decent imo.

[PM650]

Re: New DVD drives

Still using a perfectly good NEC ND3500A drive from 2004, as well as two ND3540's from 2005. Reviews at the time rated these as having the best media compatibility, not sure about how their quality is nowadays though.

[Wizard]

Re: New DVD drives

Can't base on past stuff that is older than 3 years, things changes too sudden. Go on by recent reputation. Go LG.

Cheers, Wizard

[Fatal0E]

Re: New DVD drives

I got a Lite-On sata burner when I rebuilt my computer a few months ago to replace a Lite-On parallel burner that I loved. The sata one sucked and would only burn most of my dual layer discs at 2.4x. I was steered toward the Samsung sh-s223f, I have been very pleased with it so far. Have no idea how long it will last but it always works and its always 8x on my cheapo dual layers.

[acstech]

Re: New DVD drives

I've been selling Samsung optical drives for years and never had one single problem with them.

[Junk Parts]

Re: New DVD drives

These DVD drives today are just like the blank media. The average person like me has no idea who made the thing even if it has a "Good" name on it like Sony. I just found out that the Sony DRU 800A I liked so much in the past is also the Lite-On SOHW1693S....This time I'm going to try LG. Since my old junk doesn't have SATA my choices are limited these days. The LG drives have to be better than my worn out junk. After ten or so tries I did get this old Sony/Lite-On the burn Batman Begins at its slowest possible speed. I think burnt it at 1 or 2X, and the drive is rated at 16X.

[Scenic]

Re: New DVD drives

my oldest LG DVD burner is a LG GSA-4081B (IDE) manufactured in June 2004.
still going strong without any problems..



reading:
32x (CD)
12x (DVD)

writing:
24x (CD)
3x (DVD-RAM)
4x (DVD-R)
8x (DVD+R)

rewriting:
16x (CD)
2x (DVD-RW)
4x (DVD+RW)
3x (DVD-RAM)

quite old (and rather slow) as you can see..
only thing that doesn't work with this model is double-layer media (short: DL .. like "DVD+R DL")
all my newer ones (including the GSA-4163B, which looks similar) support this (allthough the 4163B is only a few months younger ; December 2004)

gave it to my mum a while ago and she's using it for backups and stuff..

[i4004]

Re: New DVD drives

>I've been selling Samsung optical drives for years and never had one single problem with them.

see, that's precisely the thing when i say scenic either doesn't have big enough sample to put down samsungs, or samsungs are in majority there, so they also break down more.

still, as i have no samsung drive, i can only suggest lg.

the quality of all mfrs is probably simillar, but some people had bad experience with this, and others with that brand.
these days u just wouldn't count optical drive will last as few years ago.
they're so cheap one should be lucky if they pass the warranty period at all.
what saves optical drives is the fact that many people use them only ocassionally.

oh yeah, next time i'll get samsung just to see if they're as bad as scenic says...
<wink>

[willawake]

Re: New DVD drives

imho if we think we can get something good for 20-25 euro as per current prices its just a joke. where is the money for materials after profit.

[Junk Parts]

Re: New DVD drives

Found a progie here that came from Sony for testing the DRU800A drive. Its called Drive Check ver. 2.1.0.0. On the first run with a Maxell 16X DVD-R blank the test failed on the first write! With an Imation 16X DVD-R the drive passed all the tests. The next time I buy some blank media the first thing that I will do is run the drive test progie to see if the new media sucks! Now I need to educate myself so I don't buy anymore junk media. I'm still going to buy four new DVD burners because this old Sony is a pain in the arse, and the other three drives I have are pure junk.

[willawake]

Re: New DVD drives

i just go for the ones in the taiyo yuden type box. like the three on the left. its never failed so far...always taiyo yuden. see how the bottom bulges

last ones i got were the verbatim.



ones with the boxes like on the right are usually shit taiwan or india crap

[i4004]

Re: New DVD drives

>Now I need to educate myself so I don't buy anymore junk media.

you have tests on cdfreaks that show how particular media does with a particular burner:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Pion...rformance.html

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/LG-G...rformance.html

according to those, pioneer is somewhat better equlized burner, ie it's not as picky as lg, ie with almost any media it has excellent results.


http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/

[acstech]

Re: New DVD drives

I must say I've been impressed by Samsung products. There has been Samsung optical and hard drives in every computer I've built since I started building computers for customers in 2002. Like I said earlier, I've never seen one fail.

I have pulled many dead units over the years. If anyone's interested, I'll go take a picture of my dead optical drive pile. It might prove interesting. I have noticed that a lot of the dead drives were in systems that used sub-standard power supplies.

[Junk Parts]

Re: New DVD drives

Thanks for the info Willawake. Here is one to think about. I have a 50 pack of 16X Maxell DVD-R's here that are in that style TY plastic box. These Maxells are total trash. Maybe they are fakes. I don't know. I just wish there was still a PC store around here that sold some good media. I used to like Verbatum, Imation, and Sony blanks. I have never found any of the true TY blanks for sale around here. Mostly what I find now at the store are unknown store brands, maxell, and maybe some Sony. The funny part about the Maxells I have is that the Sony burner fails everytime burning them. The old 6X no name drive I have burns the maxells just fine.... The sony does have the latest firware update too. I think its KYO6 or something like that.

[kc8adu]

Re: New DVD drives

Found a progie here that came from Sony for testing the DRU800A drive. Its called Drive Check ver. 2.1.0.0. On the first run with a Maxell 16X DVD-R blank the test failed on the first write! With an Imation 16X DVD-R the drive passed all the tests. The next time I buy some blank media the first thing that I will do is run the drive test progie to see if the new media sucks! Now I need to educate myself so I don't buy anymore junk media. I'm still going to buy four new DVD burners because this old Sony is a pain in the arse, and the other three drives I have are pure junk.

try newer firmware if it is availible.
sounds like media incompatability.fresh firmware may fix that.

[Wizard]

Re: New DVD drives

Doubt it. A good burner is *supposed* to able to handle various brands of medias out there. I have burnt Maxwell (sick sounding noises), Sony, Taiyo Yudens, Generics if someone gave me one to burn it off, Verbatims etc.

When a drive starts to be selective about burning good burns on certain medias either is dying (laser getting weak yet can burn a media that doesn't need so as much power to write successfully) or drive is poorly made.

Cheers, Wizard