Advice on a payable DVD/CD-ROM...

[Jorden]

Jorden

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My CD-ROM player has died on me... snif

[traverso]

bonjour

this what i found on the site http://www.dvdutils.com


ATTENTION : A partir du 1er janvier 2000, TOUS les lecteurs de DVD-Rom seront bloqués sur une seule zone (les Studios ont forcé les manufacturiers à ne plus fabriquer de lecteurs multizones dans le futur). C'est pourquoi si vous comptez acheter ou renouveler votre lecteur de DVD-Rom, DEPECHEZ-VOUS !!! Nous vous rappelons que les modèles Pioneer 114 & 104S (lecteurs 10X/40X) sont bloqués sur une seule zone. L'ajout d'un cavalier RPC ne fonctionne pas, ni même une m.à.j de firmware. Après avoir inséré 5 disques de zones différentes, il se bloquera automatiquement sur la dernière zone que vous avez jouée.

this to say that on 01/01/2000 all dvdrom are blocked on a single zone (you can only change 5 times).
is it true in your differents countries ?

for the test

- Hitachi GD-2500 : Un lecteur maintenant rôdé ! Il rapide en mode DVD, un peu lent en mode CD (initialisation). Encore une fois ce lecteur est MULTIZONE. Un bon achat.

very fast with dvd and slow for cd. good price

- Toshiba SDM-1212 : Ce lecteur est MULTIZONE, et il est relativement silencieux. Un bon lecteur.

they are some noise and vibration.

[Jorden]

My French doesn't go so far... sorry... (know alot about French kissing though )

But I know that the 4th Generation DVDs does only do 'the 5 countries hop' and then it stays at the last country code... yes...

Got myself a brandnew 48x Aopen drive by now, and a crashing D:-drive... frantically backing it up now

Jorden.

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I have Win98, think it's a year old, so it must be good... but every 20 minutes I have a GPF. I have a 10.1Gb HDD, and a P3-450, but it always comes to me with its problems..

I bought a CD last week... it said 120 hours of fun on the box... I needed 120 hours to get the darn thing working !!

[Wombat]

I have my eyes on a Pioneer. The 103 is 6x, and the 113 is 10x. There are some DVD threads lurking here in the archives - this drive seems to have all the quality, and audio connections that I'm looking for.
(And dvdutils has the flashes that make them region-free).

[Vic]

Had the Pioneer 104S for about two weeks now.

..Love It ..the slot loading is excellent.

Cracked it to region free with no problems

Vic

[Jorden]

Went for the Asus 50x... Wow, it's fast and noisy, but the latter is because I installed it in the lower bay of my Midi tower. Let's try it a bay higher... Alot quieter

Jord.

[fds]

Wombat, I have a third generation Pioneer DVD, the 303 (6x, SCSI)

It never gave me any problems with any CDs, I love the slot loading, it's silent and region free by default (don't forget placing the RPC jumper on the drive before using it for the first time, or you'll have to crack it to get it back to RPC-1)

[Fourth gen. Pioneer DVDs are RPC2 and you need a crack to get it to RPC1.]

There IS a downside of the Pioneer 303 though, and probably the other third gen. drives as well (no experience with fourth gen.), regular CD reading speed leaves much to be desired. It's okay but sometimes I feel it's even slower than the 10x SCSI Pioneer CD-ROM which I replaced with the 303.

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primary sys: ASUS P2B-DS, Dual P3-500, 512 MB RAM, SB Live!, Pioneer 303, Yamaha 6416S, and of course a Matrox G400 MAX
secondary sys: Abit BE6, P3-500, 384 MB, SB Live! Value, Pioneer 303, and of course a Matrox G400 OEM SH 32 MB