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New guy here with a small question
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Divinus
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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7. December 2004 @ 21:10 |
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Hi, I've just recently started researching the DVD Burner market and trying to decide on which burner to buy. I'd like to thank all of you on the forums. I've learned so much just by reading through the many informative threads here.
I've come to the decision of getting a NEC 3500A Burner, I believe it's dual layer 16X. $67 on newegg with free shipping.
My question is, if any of you have this paticular burner, or another NEC for that matter, what media do you find the best to use with it? I bought some DVD Burner from wal-mart about 6 months ago (believe a lite-on) and bought some Memorex dics. I ended up taking it back because of errors but I still have the discs. After reading on these forums I can see that Memorex isn't exactly a preferred brand and that most of you prefer Ritek(sp?).
I plan to try out the memorex just to see what I can do with them; maybe just use them for file backup or something.
Thanks again in advance, guys.
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tomripley
Junior Member
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8. December 2004 @ 02:55 |
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The best place to start would probably be NEC's own list of recommended media, which can be found here ('Media List for 16x DVD Writer'):
http://www.de.nec.de/softwareoverview2.php/id/557
You should be fine with any decent quality media (Ritek, Verbatim, etc). I own one myself and knows from personal experience that it vorks very nicely with Verbatim media.
If you buy one make sure to update it with the latest firmware, which can be found here (both official and hacked versions):
http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tt.asp?forumid=88
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Divinus
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8. December 2004 @ 14:26 |
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Thanks, Tom.
What is the difference in the hacked version and the ordinary version of the firmware update? Does the hacked version allow you to burn some otherwise copyrighted DVD's or something like that? Or is the hacked version just a user tweaked version or something.
Thanks once again, Tom. I plan to go grab some Verbatim from wally-world as soon as it arrives.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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tomripley
Junior Member
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8. December 2004 @ 14:42 |
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Not all the hacked versions enable the same features, but in general they all make the drive region free and disables the riplock[1].
Some of them also enable bitsetting[2] and writing certain media faster than they're certified to.
For now I'd recommend you stick with one of the official firmwares, as you can always change to a hacked version once you've gotten to know the basics.
[1] A feature that means the drive will read CSS-protected movie-dvd's quite slowly
[2] A feature of dvd+r media that gives them the booktype dvd-rom, which is normally only used by prerecorded media, and in principle should increase compability with older players.
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kchev
Member
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8. December 2004 @ 15:20 |
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tomripley is right on. this is one of the best "quality" burners you can buy. they are not picky on their media as LiteOns are and will burn almost anything you can load in the tray. about the only drawback to these drives is that they are not very good readers
i am thinking of getting a new drive and if i do, this is going to be the one
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8. December 2004 @ 16:31 |
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Member
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8. December 2004 @ 16:40 |
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Another idea check the PC Hardware forum here (DVD+drive
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Divinus
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8. December 2004 @ 19:52 |
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All right guys, I know you're probably getting annoyed with the questions, but I have just a few more, lol.
Ok, I'm fairly savvy when it comes to PCs, not to say that I know everything, but I get by pretty well. I've flashed the bios on my NF7-S before, and flashed a few CD-ROM firmware before. I'm guessing this DVD thing won't be a problem at all...
My only question is :
I see on the site that Tom provided that there are different cracked firmware updates for different manufacturers, OEM. I bought mine OEM from Newegg.com. Does this possibly mean that I will end up with one of the TDK/Maddog drives and use the specific software for it? I think I've gotten the idea of how it works (NEC sells their drives to other manufacturers) but I'm not sure of the consequences (if there are any) of using the NEC firmware if say my burner comes in and is, in fact, TDK.
I understand completely what the cracked firmware does now, and I believe updating would be relatively easy. My only question is, if NEC does sell it's drives to other manufacturers, how can I tell? Or honestly, how does that system work?
Thanks again, everyone.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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AfterDawn Addict
6 product reviews
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8. December 2004 @ 21:01 |
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Divinus,
I'm going to say that there was probably nothing wrong with the Lite-on dvdrw you had, but the sub-standard memorex media you were useing instead. Lite-ons are a little pickier than some, but as long as you use good quality media they perform as good as most. They do seem to prefer dvd+r media. They can be flashed over and over w/o any ill effects and handle hacked f/w very well. The best budget media I have found to work well with mine is Ricohjpn R01's at about 34 cents a disc.
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tomripley
Junior Member
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9. December 2004 @ 03:52 |
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Quote:
I see on the site that Tom provided that there are different cracked firmware updates for different manufacturers, OEM. I bought mine OEM from Newegg.com. Does this possibly mean that I will end up with one of the TDK/Maddog drives and use the specific software for it? I think I've gotten the idea of how it works (NEC sells their drives to other manufacturers) but I'm not sure of the consequences (if there are any) of using the NEC firmware if say my burner comes in and is, in fact, TDK.
At least for NEC drives you can switch freely between the firmware from their different OEM partners. It might cause your drive to be renamed in Windows' device manager (ie. "TDK" instead of "NEC"), but that's really only a cosmetic detail.
Having said that I would suspect that "OEM" in your case simply means that the drive comes without any bundled software, not that it is from one of NEC's OEM clients. However, even if it is, it makes no difference, as the actual drive is the same and can be used with whatever firmware you please.
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Divinus
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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9. December 2004 @ 15:48 |
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Wow, thanks a lot Tom. You really hit the nail on the head with my question. I was afraid that I had worded it to badly and you wouldn't understand what I meant. Thanks a lot, though.
To clear up the Lite-On Drive... I can't remember what was wrong with it. There may have been nothing wrong with it. I was overclocking my system pretty heavily about the time I bought that, and to blame the drive is unfair, as I was getting a lot of errors toying with what my system could handle. I also ended up replacing the power supply, so there may have been nothing wrong with the drive at all.
Thanks again, everyone.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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Divinus
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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13. December 2004 @ 19:05 |
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I just wanted to update and say that my burner came in today. It's friggin' sweet! Thanks to reading your guides I burned LOTR ROTK and Scooby Doo 2 today, flawlessly.
I haven't updated the firmware on the writer yet. Plan to do that in a minute.
Basically, what I wanted to share is that I used 2 of those crappy Memorex DVD-Rs and they seemed to work fine. LOTR is pretty much indistinguishable from the DVD, and Scooby Doo 2 you can barely tell as it's a little more grainy than the DVD.
I popped them in my cheap Apex ($40 one from Wal-Mart) and it played perfect. I then tried them in my siser's older Emerson DVD Player and they both played flawlessly.
Should I expect this from the Memorex, or did I just get lucky?
Once again, thanks for the help guys.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. December 2004 @ 19:22 |
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You got lucky.. Trust me :-)
Count your blessings
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222333444
Junior Member
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13. December 2004 @ 19:54 |
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Download the DVD Identifier and find out the Manufacturer ID. I would bet it is Fujifilm which is a fairly good media.
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AfterDawn Addict
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13. December 2004 @ 19:59 |
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I don't belive FujiFilm manufactures Disks for Memorex?
Memorex - CMC, RICHOJPN, PRODISC, and INFO DISC
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AfterDawn Addict
6 product reviews
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13. December 2004 @ 20:14 |
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More than likely Ricohjpn or possibly prodisc if you're getting good burns on memorex. I agree with bbmayo, count your blessings.:-o
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Divinus
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13. December 2004 @ 20:55 |
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Ok, just downloaded it and checked it and they're Prodisc. I'm guessing I just got extremely lucky, lol.
I'll just take this, as you said, as a blessing and not buy those again.
I wish there was a way to check it on the box. I'd go digging through them to find these again.
Thanks everyone.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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tomripley
Junior Member
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14. December 2004 @ 03:32 |
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Quote:
I don't belive FujiFilm manufactures Disks for Memorex?
Memorex - CMC, RICHOJPN, PRODISC, and INFO DISC
Don't read too much into these codes - even the RICOHJPN media from Memorex is manufactured by Prodisc or CMC. They've just licensed the code, possibly along with some technology. Proof here:
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=916871
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 14. December 2004 @ 04:18
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AfterDawn Addict
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14. December 2004 @ 05:39 |
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Hey you all need to read the link tomripley provided above. Very interesting stuff hmmm ;-)
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AfterDawn Addict
6 product reviews
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14. December 2004 @ 06:47 |
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I don't buy that. Too many people have had good results with memorex media with the Ricohjpn MID code. Can't say the same for memorex media with the CMC MID code.
I still won't buy them cause it's too much of a gamble as to what your going to get.
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tomripley
Junior Member
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14. December 2004 @ 07:02 |
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Quote:
I don't buy that. Too many people have had good results with memorex media with the Ricohjpn MID code. Can't say the same for memorex media with the CMC MID code.
Nobody said anything bad about the RICOHJPN media. The mere fact that CMC or Prodisc manufactures something doesn't necessarily make it crap, as they produce plenty of high-quality stuff (like Verbatim).
My point was simply that a certain MID code does not mean that the media has indeed been manufactured by that company.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 14. December 2004 @ 07:31
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Divinus
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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14. December 2004 @ 09:23 |
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Very interesting read there, Tom.
My mom actually went out this morning and picked up some Memorex DVD+R 8x Discs. I immediately told her to bring them back, but now I'm wanting to open the case up and see how they'll work.
Also, another question...
When does the quality go down in DVD Shrink? For instance, after reading the guide I noticed that, if at all possible, you want to keep the compression as low as possible, so that means at best you'd want it to be at 100%, right? When I burned LOTR, I didn't have to do a thing, on automatic compression it was at 100%. With Scooby Doo 2, I toyed with it and it was at 75%. I burned Freaky Friday last night and I'm guessing because the movie is in widescreen and letterbox that it was bigger than usual. Anyhow, I was forced to set the compression somewhere around 50%. I was expecting the movie to come out quite grainy and ugly, albeit the movie looks just like the friggin DVD. I don't understand. At what % does the quality start being noticeable?
I don't have a super high quality HD-TV, but I have a newer Apex model that looks fantastic with DvDs and a Sharp in the living room that they also look great on.
It seems that at 100%, 75% and 50% they're undistinguishable. Or, maybe my tv just sucks and I can't tell, lol.
Athlon 4200+ X2 @ 2.2 GHz | Asus A8N | 1x250GB SATA WD | 7900GTX | 512x2 Corsair PC3200 3-3-3-8 | NEC3500A 2.18 |
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