I was always under the impression that Plextor made the best burners. I also know Ben-Q was decent, as was lite-on. Well I started searching for an external drive, and I came across the Plextor px-801uf. After a little research I found it was a rebranded LG POS. I found out they weren't even making their own burners anymore... Then I found out Ben-Q stopped making burners. I see several lite-on models that appear OK, but I worry that the reviewers have no idea what they are talking about, and they are SOOOO cheap... and I always believed the old adage that you get what you pay for. I want to spend no more than $150USD (less is better of course!!!), and I prefer an external. USB 2.0 for my desktop, and I can run USB 2.0 or Firewire to my lappy. If I have to go internal I don't mind too much, and it will be for the desktop ONLY if I am forced to go that route. My media of choice (the ONLY DVD media I EVER use) is Taiyo Yuden DVD-R 8X White inkjet printable (I have ~400 TYG02s right now), and the same for silver lacquers I use for home video test projects before final printing. So if you had to choose, and were forced to follow the constraints listed, what would your burner of choice be?
1. Pioneer 2. Lite-On 3. Samsung 4. NEC and yes the plextor drives aren't true plextor anymore i have two PX-810SA and there Pioneer drives with an NEC chipset
Thanks, ZoSo... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106053 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106098 Here are the 2 I come up with that seem to be OK. I couldn't find any external Pioneers (I seriously looked for them too, all my home gear is Pioneer Elite... I love Pioneer gear), Samsungs, or NECs. My preference is for the first drive, because I don't need lightscribe, and I don't want to add more things that can go wrong , but if it is a better drive, I am open for anything. What is your opinion on these drives?
I guess I should add that I don't care about the software either. I saw complaints about ez-dub and other stuff, but I use DVD-RB Pro and CCE-SP, with DVD Dercrypter to print my image, so that is of no real concern.
sandt38 yeah I'm with you to the first one is my pic also. if you don't need lightscribe ( i don't use it either) plus my thinking is why buy a 20x burner when your burning at 8x max so the 16x will be fine. and newegg is a great place to get it so i would pull the trigger and opt for that one!! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106053
Will do. Expected delivery date is this upcoming tuesday, and I have a few movies I need to lay down. Thanks for your input.
Zoso, I'm interested in a new external burner and i like 2 use imgburn. Imgburn does not support Pioneer burners in booktyping dvd+r dl, butis supported for liteon's. Whats your advice, pioneer or liteon for use with imgburn? Thanks and for making senior member
Pioneer drives don't support booktying with any program, you can use hacked (buffalo) firmware for the Pioneers to booktype but i don't recommend doing it. So that being said i would definitely choice the Lite-On.the link posted above should make you a good one
Yeah, I bought the LiteOn. It arrived yesterday, but I had too many things to do to play with it. I did, however, bring it to work with my lappy, and I have a few films on my external hard drive I need to burn. So I will run some today and let you know how it does.
I will write a review when i get more time with it, but I wanted to share my first burn results... So far I am extremely pleased with the unit. But it sure is bigger then i expected
