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best DVD burner?
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starwalt
Newbie
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23. February 2007 @ 13:10 |
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Hello to all.
I am new to the DVD burning world and have a few questions. If the answers to these questions could be found somewhere on the site I apologize in advance I was unable to find them. I was wanting to know what you all considered to be the best dvd burner out there? Is there a burner that will burn DVDs without the help of decrypter or shrink or are these programs or ones like them necessary? any help or insight into my new adventure is very much appreciated, and I thank you all in advance for your help!!
Jason Starwalt
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AfterDawn Addict
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23. February 2007 @ 16:31 |
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No burner will do the things that ripping/burning programs will do.
Asking what the best burner is like asking what the best flavor of ice cream is, lol.
I like this LiteOn because it is has litescribe and can booktype.
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aabbccdd
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23. February 2007 @ 21:43 |
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yeah you will have to software to remove the protection from the dvds
the best drive out there is the Plextor PX-716A its not being made anymore but you can still find them here and there like e-bay . there still making the PX-716SA sata drive and the PX-716AL slot load drive all are 8MB cache. BenQ makes some of the better drives on the market also but they pulled of the drive market also
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PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
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23. February 2007 @ 23:52 |
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The Plextor 716AL is the best burner I've owned or built with. Some people have mentioned a shorter life span for the slot loading system. I've not seen it and I've had hundreds of burns on my personal drive and many more in and out for playing. It booktypes, but no lightscribe. I've got an HP that reads better and has lightscribe. I've got all the bases covered with the dual burner setup except for DVD RAM (which I never use).
Plex, HP, Sony, Samsung, Benq, Lite-ON, and LG, all make decent drives. I'm sure there's probably some I left out. Pioneer used to make some good drives. My top picks are Plextor, HP, and Sony. But to tell the truth, I've not seen much trouble out of the others.
Computer burners are just optical drives, and burners do 2 things, read and write. The recording process depends on the PC and software to tell the burner what to write. The drives have a PROM chip containing the firmware for the drive. That has the read/write strategy used for media with the booktyping support (if the drive has that support). Some drives don't support all media (even in formats supported) and some software doesn't support some drives. So there's some interesting compatibility problems that can come up. The best bet is to use quality media with a known quality drive. In several years I've run into one problem with bad media when a brand changed manufacturers and I had no way of knowing till I bought the media. It was a brand name and till then had been top quality. Another lesson learned.
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AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 04:53 |
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Plextor PX-716A
Benq 1640A
Benq 1650A
All 3 are getting very hard to find-Ebay is a very good source to find them,just search-Buy/ Computers/Dvd-rw Drives/internal-external/and enter brand name.
Burners are not equal.There's huge differences between them. These differences can reflect the over stand alone compatability. That's why I only recommend Booktyping drives like the above. After booktyping the plus format to dvd-rom,those backups will play in a lot more drives. There's also fewer coasters,longevity,and timely firmware updates-to keep up with the newer media.
Lite-on and LG are also booktyping drives,just not sure what their top model #s are.
NEC and Pioneer make some very nice drives as well.
Quote:
Is there a burner that will burn DVDs without the help of decrypter or shrink
Yes,we call these stand alone tv recorders,which go on the TV,similar to a vcr. But when talking about encryptions,you'll still have to have something to pull it off.
A lot of drives come with software.They may be oem discs,but still very good. Benq usually throws in Nero6 and Power dvd-a software for playing. Nero6 may or may not have recode2 in it.It may even have Showtime on it to view your dvds on the pc. DVD Shrink can use Nero to do the autoburning,so no extra step to do your burning step.
Newer encryptions: Nero won't pull off encryption. DVD Shrink hasn't been updated in ages. I use AnyDVD by slysoft on the newer encryptions. It's a background ripper. It'll also work with recode2 and most other ripping programs,again-no extra step involved.
#1 issue for Dvd burning:
Media quality. Get quality media like Verbatim or Taiyo yuden. Not only trying to get them to burn,but stand alone players will have harder times reading backups that were burned on crap media like HP/Philips/TDK. The main issue,poor playback.
HP a1118x-b/athlon 64-3300+/BenQ 1650 BCDC/LG 8163B/Modded Wii/Epson-R300 and Ty Watershields!!! |
Senior Member
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24. February 2007 @ 10:36 |
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The NEC ND-3550a is top-notch if you modify it with the Liggy's 1.06bt (bitsetting) firmware, which is easy to do. Lite-Ons (as well as LGs) seem to have a very disproportionate share of complaints compared to what I think their market share to be, but quite a few of the experts here swear by them and I would take their advice very seriously. Pioneer 111s are also good but are best modified with the 111L firmware to achieve bitsetting as is the case with the NEC. The good Benqs (1640-1655) aren't being made anymore. In any case, here's my list:
NEC
Benq
Pioneer
Lite-On
Some here may change the order of the list, but any of those are good drives, especially with modified firmware.
-Do you believe you own your computer and shouldn't be told what you can run and do? Then say *NO* to Microsoft Vista!
-Since half the questions here involve media problems, here ya go: Only use Verbatim or Taiyo-Yuden discs (get your TYs from Rima.com, not Supermediastore or meritline). Forget the rest, no matter what "brand" they sell under. Always burn at 4x speed regardless of the speed rating of this discs or your drive. If you have burn problems with these then you have to update your drive's firmware. For double-layer discs, only use Verbatim DVD+R DL and burn them at 2.4x speed.
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PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 10:42 |
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Originally posted by Dunker:
The NEC ND-3550a is top-notch if you modify it with the Liggy's 1.06bt (bitsetting) firmware, which is easy to do. Lite-Ons (as well as LGs) seem to have a very disproportionate share of complaints compared to what I think their market share to be, but quite a few of the experts here swear by them and I would take their advice very seriously. Pioneer 111s are also good but are best modified with the 111L firmware to achieve bitsetting as is the case with the NEC. The good Benqs (1640-1655) aren't being made anymore. In any case, here's my list:
NEC
Benq
Pioneer
Lite-On
Some here may change the order of the list, but any of those are good drives, especially with modified firmware.
So Plextor doesn't even make your list?
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aabbccdd
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24. February 2007 @ 11:08 |
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Dunker
Plextor makes the best burner on the market and its not opinion its based on facts
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 24. February 2007 @ 11:16
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AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 11:36 |
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Plextor is using a lot of rebadged drives- Benq,Lite-on. That's why the PX-716 models are perhaps one of the finest drives ever made.It's an actual Plextor,built by Plextor.
8 mb buffer. You can set them to rip faster. Most drives are only 2 mb buffer.
The higher model #'s above the PX716 aren't made by plextor.
Then you got the PX-740A and higher model#'s,then they'll be the rebadged benqs,maybe even liteon?. Made by benq/liteon,but totally different fw. Many people have had to crossflash these drives to the the actual benq firmware for these models,just to get the best performance.
So with these rebadged plextors,you'll be buying a benq/lite-on,but paying a higher price for the word Plextor on them. Still very good drives.
Benq: Similar to Plextor. Their drives in the 1620,1640,1650,and ls 1655 are the only models I refer-some of the best drives for under $50 in their hayday. These models have the philips chip sets. Above 1650A,then you got the Dvd-ram drives and a different chip set.Decent,but not as good as the older models-IMHO and from many user feedback that I have researched.
That's why certain model #'s with be Very Hot,and others not.
HP a1118x-b/athlon 64-3300+/BenQ 1650 BCDC/LG 8163B/Modded Wii/Epson-R300 and Ty Watershields!!!
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PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 17:55 |
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That's why I got the hot Plextor, 716AL. It didn't hurt there was a big rebate at the time. I saved even more getting an OEM without the retail pack. It's the same drive and guarantee, minus the pricey retail packaging.
Thanks for bringing up the subject. I just noticed Newegg has a good sale on the drive. I may get one for another PC.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131352
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 24. February 2007 @ 18:00
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AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 19:05 |
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I think I have pretty much owned them all and in my opinion here is my list in order
1. Plextor PX-716A SATA
1. (tie) LiteOn LH-20A1S also a SATA drive
2. LiteOn LH-20A1H-186
3. Plextor PX-755SA SATA
4. NEC 7170A-01
5. Pioneer DVR-112D
I could keep going, but those are the drives that seem to work the best for me. Why do I give the LiteOn and Plextor a tie you may ask well it is simple really. They are both equally good drives, but the LiteOn is cheaper and if you like light scribe then you will need to get the LiteOn. The Plextor might be the more dependable drive, but only time will tell :-) Actually any DVD burner made now a days should work just fine as they have came a very long way in just a few years time. Just get one with the features you want and you should be good to go. I believe the more important drive is actually your DVD ROM drive and this is where most people go cheaper. This is the drive I use for ripping my movies to the hard drive and lets face it some drives just arent as good at this as others. I can always depend on my LiteOn SHD-16P1S for ripping threw any disc.
Cheers
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PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 20:17 |
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I've seen the same thing as bbmayo with some drives reading better than others. My HP 740 reads better than the Plex. I wasn't being cheap, I use a dual burner setup instead of the typical Burner and ROM. The HP reads better then the ROMs I've used. I pulled it from another PC for duty on my favorite. It also adds lightscribe, which comes in handy when I want to make a pretty DVD.
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aabbccdd
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24. February 2007 @ 21:37 |
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pretty good deal on the Plextor slot drive there Pacman777
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PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
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24. February 2007 @ 21:51 |
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That was about what I paid for mine. It felt like forever to get the rebate, but they eventually sent it. I make sure I can verify they received the forms when I send in rebates.
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