DVD-+RW time

[Marshmallowman]

My cd-rw is dieing so its time to upgrade to to a DVD burner.

Any recomendations..

I am looking for a good inexpensive drive, eg good compatabilty but speed is not that important...

I want at least DVD+-RW , DVD-RAM would be a bonus but not really necessary

Top of my list is

liteon LDW-411S

or the

Pioneer DVR-A06

I am kind of tempted by the pioneer because it bundles Videstudio 7 SE.

Are there any that bundle mediastudio 7 Se?

[DentyCracker]

LDW-411S is nice to use, and you can download a little utility that makes it region free. Can back up a 100 minute DVD on DVD+R in around 30 min. using CloneDVD, and is a 40X CD-R burner to boot

[DukeP]

The Nec 1300+ serie is also quite good.
I got the younger 1100 version. Its nice to, but the 1300 is dual format (+/-).

Oh, and as a bonus: These come with BLACK fronts.
~~DukeP~~

[rylan]

I've always liked plextor drives, check this one out

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/708A.html

[Gurm]

Plextor's 8x is good. I'm a little tired of only burning CD's at 16x with my Plextor 4x though.

Liteon makes good drives, plus it might not SUCK as a CD burner. My Plextor sucks as a cd burner. I have to swap in the Liteon burner every now and then.

- Gurm

[UtwigMU]

I still burn CD's on my 6x24 SCSI Teac CD-R, but I'll likely get a DVD-R and I'm not sure wether I'll get a separate CD only burner.

IMO 16x is enough, unless you burn 10s of CD's a day.

I'd get a plextor personally.

[rylan]

Wow I've never had good experienced with LiteOn drives.. at least the cd burners. Myself and some friends have tried a few (with an RMA).. they should've been called LiteUP because the noise sounded like they were going to explode.

[Tomasz]

Originally posted by rylan
Wow I've never had good experienced with LiteOn drives.. at least the cd burners. Myself and some friends have tried a few (with an RMA).. they should've been called LiteUP because the noise sounded like they were going to explode.

That's strange. I've used lite-on drives exclusively for the past 2 years, primarily because they have the most accurate 8 to 14 bit converters (They are also quite inexpensive). They are loud when burning, but so far, of the 3 drives that I have used, they are all still working fine.

[Gurm]

Yup. Loud as all getout, but reliable too.

Actually my 24x (24102B) was dead silent when burning, but hey.

- Gurm

[Ssin]

In the order of what would my choice be :
-1- plextor 708 > specially in Europe, it ships with a 2 year on site warranty, plus its the fastest on the market right now.
-2- lite on 411s > BEST price quality ratio
-3- nec 1300 > not too bad either, just a bit more expensive than Lite On
-4- pioneer a06 > do you really have to pay THAT price for the brand?
-5- Sony > well it's a sony, means it's random, either it work, either it doesn't.
-6- any other, doens't really matter at this point.

[UtwigMU]

I slapped empty CD in new Liteon 52/32/52CDRW and source data CD in Teac CDROM532E, both on the same channel and tried copy on the fly at full speed.

I don't know wether it was constant switch from drive to drive or that media was only 48x compliant, but the drive started grinding and finally Nero gave Laser calibration error.

Hence I'm no longer fond of Lite-ON.

I just saw a thread on Ars that 4x dual format drives fell to ~$100 USD due to Pioneer and Sony releasing 8x drives in November.

So I recommend to wait a few weeks untill the price cut hits the rest of the world.

Middle next year we're in for 16x drives and we can expect dual layer 8GB format 1-2 years.

[DentyCracker]

No problems with my LiteON 52246S burner here. What I wrote about the LDW-411S was what I actually did yesterday with my cousin's burner (which he bought last week on my recommendation). My flatmate is going the the US for 2 weeks starting Friday and has offered to buy me a DVD burner. Guess what I am asking for (and it isn't the PLextor). I'll settle for 4x burning until the 16X drives come out. I'll buy a 16X next Xmas when they are at a price my tightwad self will pay.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Personally, I am waiting for Dual Layer DVD-/+RW (either one) writer. Unless they go dirt cheap like ~100 dollars CDN, I am not upgrading.

[rylan]

I would tend to think dual layer recordable would be pretty expensive for a while, and somehow the motion picture industry might not like it :P
Are there even high end dual layer recorders? I thought it was all pressed discs.

[UtwigMU]

http://www.dvdrw.com/press/duallayer.htm

Philips will demonstrate its new dual-layer DVD recordable technology at the DVD+RW Alliance booth at the CEATEC* JAPAN 2003 exhibition in Makuhari (Chiba, Japan) from October 7 to 11. Developed by Philips Research in cooperation with MKM (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media)/Verbatim, the technology virtually doubles data storage capacity on DVD recordable discs from 4.7 Gbyte to 8.5 Gbyte while remaining compatible with existing DVD Video players and DVD-ROM drives.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1331956,00.asp

Supporters of the DVD-R/RW format, lead by Pioneer Corp. this week announced a 8.5GB disc at the CEATEC Japan 2003 expo in Makuhari Messe, Japan. Likewise, the DVD+RW Alliance, made up of seven companies including Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Corp., Royal Philips Electronics and Sony Corp., also demonstrated its dual-layer format, which is expected in end-user products sometime in 2004.