Just wondering if all DVD burners burn dvds the same way. I was wanting to buy a new one. Wondering what to look for. External will be ok.
What is/was your old one? Not happy with that brand perhaps? Apparently Plextor are the brand to get for quality. Personally, I like Pioneer. As for "do they all do the same job?" ... well yes they do, but it reverts back to the quality issue. Some brands are more stable with data transfer than others. Buy a real el-cheapo burner and you'll probably get less than perfect results....yes? Price can often be, but not always, your guide to better equipment. Speaking of external burners, you'd do better to keep the BURNER INTERNAL and the READ ONLY to EXTERNAL. There seems to be a distinct difference in data transfer in that configuration, it apparently has a good deal to do with system resources. To qualify what I've said, I have used external optical drives to burn projects, and had experienced many difficulties with that configuration. I'm sure that better rigs than I have, have had better results. Cheers
Plextors were the Mercedes of burners, now they are Pioneers with a NEC chipset( no longer true Plextors).Best are Pioneer and Liteon IMHO.
I have had absolutely no problems using an external burner and an internal reader. None what so ever. If one does, then they are doing something wrong.
USB or 1394? Does it have to be external? If not then there are plenty of drives for you to look at. Pioneer 112D, 212D, 115D (112D has better f/w support right now, I expect the 115D to have similar support but it'll be a few months I would think) Lite-On LH-20A1P, DH-20A3P, DH-20A4P Sony (preferably NEC chipset or rebadged Lite-Ons) LG (Renasas chipset) Samsung SH-S203B/N Are the ones that I would look at. Also if you wanna make an external drive you can. Just buy your favorite internal ODD and an external enclosure of your liking then thro them together and you have a similarly priced device that has the EXACT burner you want. Something to think about. ....gm
Hi, Ive used both Lite-ON (as a rebranded sony in the past) and a Plextor. I do heavy burning, and the first Lite-ON failed after a year, and the Plextor I now own it also starting to fail aproximately a year after I bought it. The both failed in the same way, slowly...(they stopped recognizing disc and giving bad quality burns until ) Although I have to say that both burners, when they worked perfectly, they gave excellent results (perfect burns given the media). But Ive also seen LG give excellent results with different kind of media, so dont worry much about it. At edit: Iluvendo(sorry Bilbo65 I confused the quote): you said You mean plextors are not worth it now? (although from my experience it seems like so), Ive always seen very good comments about that brand, im planning to replace my burner but it is worth it playing the surplus price (a difference of $35.00 USD from the lite-on burner) for a plextor in this moment, or their quality has decreased?
What is heavy burning? 1 DVD per day, 10 per week, 100 per month or what? Just curious? I think the RIGHT Plextor is worth it but don't think you'll get the Plextor Premium that you got in the past. Remember that Plextor is still gonna give a product that utilizes Plextools and a quality drive most of the time. The new Plextor PX-810SA I believe is a rebadged Pioneer 212D. Good drive btw but afaik it can't be cross-flashed either way so don't get all giddy and buy a Pioneer 212D and think you can flash it to a Plexy. lol. I personally like the Pioneer 112D@ Pioneer DVR-112L 8.21 and the LG GSA-H62N CL01. They both give great burns and the Pioneer has this knack with weird/strange DVD media. btw the Pioneer is an IDE drive and the LG is a SATA drive. ...gm
My understanding is that the last true Plextor was the 716 series. What I like about the Liteons are they can be booktyped using imgburn (I use it a lot) while Pioneers cannot.Pioneers are a very good burner, however pm'ing Lightening UK, no forseeable booktyping feature for Pioneers is forthcoming.
Well I just looked at CDFreaks and I found no Plextor in their top 5 Dvd burners, and as greensman said maybe its not worth it playing that surplus amount, Im using plextools right now but I dont use all of it features, so I dont find it so important. So I think Im going for a Liteon. Well I dont have a exact count of how much I burn, lets say 3 or 4 per day would an average, sometimes I rip from the burner, but no so often because I know that really wears it out. Thanx everyone for its help
Pioneers do have book-type capabilities!! You have to use the "unofficial" f/w but IT WILL BOOKTYPE. The Pioneer 112D I know for sure book-types and I think the 109, 110, and 111 had f/w that made them book-typable. Of course you have to use the 8.21 f/w for the 112D which makes it a Pioneer DVR-112L. NOW you're right about IMGBURN not having the ability to "force" book-typing on the Pioneer. I do have an old Pioneer DVR-106D with more than 1000 burns and it's still going strong BUT f/w support was dropped about 3 years ago. lol. Does well with all 4X media and most 8X media tho. .....gm
You are correct. With hacked firmware, the Pioneers will book type, but without hacked firmware, there is no software that will make it book type, with the official Pioneer firmware.
