OK so I'm looking to buy a new DVD burner because my old one keeps messing up and failing at like 99%. It's a Lite-On SOHW-832S. I love Lite-On because they are always giving Firmware Upgrades for their drives which means they are always updating and testing their products, which is good. However, I just came accross a pretty good deal on a Sony DVD Burner. It looks pretty good and seems better than the Lite-On. So I am here to ask your opinion. How good are Sony Drives? Better than Lite-On? Which do you think I should buy?
Try www.newegg.com for best deals. Specials can change daily. For burner swap you can get OEM and save even more. About $40 will get you choice of NEC, Pioneer, Liteon, BenQ. Remember Sony is not Sony. Each Sony burner is a rebadge of another manufacturer, depending upon the model. They have used Liteon extensively in the past. Certainly no reason to spend more on Sony name if it is really a Liteon or other brand underneath the Sony nameplate.
except i wouldn't be spending more, i'd actually be spending a few bucks less, and newegg's price was more expensive than zipzoomfly, i always check newegg first
The sony dru 700/710/and 800 are a few of the rebadged lite-ons. The dru 810 I believe is a rebadged benq 1640,just slightly modified firmware.
Quote: because my old one keeps messing up and failing at like 99%
Lite-ons are great drives. If it's only messing up at the 99% mark,it should be a simple fix and your drive will likely be ok. Sounds like you are burning the outer edge of the disc.
It may likely be media quality related issue:
What is the brand name/speed rate/and format of your blank media?
How fast do you burn them?
What programs do you use for the dvd backup process?
That backup target needs reduced. A standard blank dvd-5 (single layer) says it holds 4.7 gbs. In reality,it'll actually hold around 4.38 gbs.You lose .32 of a gb through the translation of the byte.Look at your hard drive specs,same translation of the byte occurs there also. A 200 gig hd = 189 of actual gigs.
You need to keep the backup target at 4.36 gbs max. Media quality is the usual culprit. Uneven dye on the outer edge of the disc is the culprit. Some of the crappy media may have to have a target of 4.3 gbs. Burn speed can also factor in. Again,media quality. The poor stuff usually has to be burned a lot slower.
Quote:Which do you think I should buy?
I'm a benq fan. I got 3 of them: 2- 1620s and a 1640. These are superb drives for the money. $38 for my 1640 at a newegg.com special.They are out of the 1620 and 1640s. I also recommend:
Lite-on
Lg
Plextor
Nec
Pioneer
Some sony-preferably the rebadged liteys and benqs.
Anything else,avoid. For higher success rate and stand alone compatability rate and a lot less issues:stick with the big boys that I listed.
Edit: Here's a link to some of the sony drives that are re-badged liteys:
I use Ritek G05 media. My Lite-On burner only supports up to 8x write speed and so do the G05's. I use Nero 7 to backup my dvd's then I use DVD Decrypter to burn the images because for some reason Nero takes a long longer than expected to burn a dvd. I tell DVD Decrypter to burn at the maximum it can, which should be 8x, but it only reaches 6x. The size of the images after the back up process are 4.35 GB.
Also, some of the DVD's I do burn, that say they burn successfully, skip after about 75% of the movie. Any reason for this? I'm thinking about doing a factory restore to my computer to see if that fixes the problem.
Quote:Also, some of the DVD's I do burn, that say they burn successfully, skip after about 75% of the movie. Any reason for this?
It all depends on which drive/s shows those issues: Is it a stand alone player or your lite-on drive that you see those issues show up while you play them?
That 75% skipping issue usually occurs on stand alone players. Watch one of those backups through your pc,using the litey drive to play it.
Verify them in other drives/stand alone players as well and see how they look at the end of your backups. That'll help narrow down the problem.
Media quality can do that as well.Pixellation/freezing/skipping/and no disc inserted errors.
Ritekg-05 use to be pretty good,but I've been seeing lots of negative posts about them.
I don't know much about nero7. I still have Nero 6.0.0.21b and it's a fine burn program.
OK, so i tried playing the backup movie in my lite-on dvd burner, and it still skipped at the end and after a few seconds of doing this, it said "unexpected DVD error" and stopped playing. Does this mean it's my computer, or my burner?
I have also tried to play the backup in my Xbox 360 and it played fine up until where it always starts to skip.
It sounds more like you have a problem with your media itself.Your burner and xbox confirms it.You may have gotten a hold of a bad batch of Ritek-g05 media.
Backup target needs reduced. Look at the disc and see if you can see if most of the dye has been burned,around that outer edge.
I don't know how you reduce the target for Nero recode,but should be a way.
