well im lookin to get a second dvd burner for my htpc. My current burner is a nec 3500. I have no major complaints other than it burns kinda slow (using ritek media) and it has errors once in a while. I wanted a top of the line burner, that i can throw any kinda media at it (both high quality for me and cheapo's for my friends lol). Most of the burns will be dl backups since i've upgraded my HT and have bought a lot of limited edition dvd's and my neices and newphews love cartoon dvd's. I basically want the best burner but it wouldnt hurt if it was quite as well. I've read a lot of posts bout the new plextors and benq's and nec's. However i've read quite a few reviews about the new slot loading plextors having problems. Are they the sour bunch reviews? (also book typing would be good however i dont know how to do it but it would be nice to bring dvd's to my aunts/uncles house and watch them so compatibility would be good). Thanks guys
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131357 This is the burner that I have. It's very quiet, it booktypes and I have had no problems with it yet.
while that Plextor that DakotaFan is currently using is a GREAT DRIVE, it IS in fact a rebadged Benq 1640, which is found here at newegg for about 1/2 the cost of the Plextor (brand name and "Plextor" retail packaging/bezel accounts for the price difference) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827101649 i have the Benq 1640 drive for only a few months now, but it works great and booktypes a charm, great drive...figure i would save you almost $40 for the SAME THING, minus the letters "P-L-E-X-T-O-R" on it~ docTY~ i personally use Pioneer drives/Liteon (Sony rebadged Liteons)/ and an older model NEC 3520a (on my 2nd computer)...but, they all work just fine...just stay away from the CRAP drives made by Optorite, i have had NOTHING but problems with their drives from the get-go...RMA'd twice and STILL would not work after about 3 months of "light" burning... good luck
I've got 1 benq 1640 and 2 benq 1620s and these babies are phenomenal. Booktyped dvd-roms that play virtually anywhere. 99+% success rate. Even the crappy media like cmags and aml-02 are turning out pretty good. Some of my stand alones do pick out the quality of those cmags and amls. Combine any of those benqs with my lite-on 167t and 100% on the fly backups! That's well over 300+ Dual layers, I've only done about 20,but all were near perfecto! If you want to play your backups in a lot of drives,definitely consider the benq 1640 and using the plus format so you can booktype them to dvd-rom.I play them in a lot of stand alones/game consoles/and pc drives so my stand alone compatability for the booktyped backups is 95% and about 50% with the dash format. That's why I don't bother with the dash anymore.Well worth the $38 I spent at newegg.com last month. For the benq 1640, you need the program called q-suite to do the booktyping.It also controls the burn speed so you don't overburn the higher speed media above its rating.
hmmmm im tryin to decide between the plextor or the benq...... 1. are there any benefits to using the plextor over the benq other than the packaging (which i dont care about i always buy bare drives) and the p-l-e-x-t-o-r badge? 2. also can i use the q-suite on the plextor? 3. is the plexto 740 better than the 716? 4. I also forgot to mention that i would prefer a black face plate
#3) I believe the plextor 740 is a rebadged benq 1640. The q-suite should work for that drive. That's plextor's budget drive.The q-suite won't work for any other plextors,unless they are re-badged benqs.There's probably a $20 difference just between those 2 model#s. The 1640 should come in black/beige/and gray bezels. Newegg.com sometimes sells out quickly of certain colors.I've got the black,but color is unimportant to me because the front of my drives are hidden behind a flip front cover. Edit: I didn't see any black bezel 1640s at newegg,only the 1620 and 1625. Here's the plextor 740 and there is a special: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131354
This is an interesting site with review of most if not all the drives mentioned here. http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/search/B/
