Anyone have any recomendations on a good dvd-rw drive that rips at decent speeds? I am going to buy a drive tomorrow morning and ripping speeds are the most important thing to me. I was thinking about getting a pioneer-108 but I read a review that says it only rips at 4x. Now I'm thinking NEC 3500. Anyone have any advice or know of any drives that get up into the 8x range? I was thinking any DVD-Rom 16x reader would rip at at least 8x, but apparently this isn't the case.
Most every burner comes from the factory locked to a 2X read speed for encrypted DVDs. The one notable exceptions are the Plextor line of burners that have a SpeedRead function right out of the box. There are plenty of hacked firmwares availble for most any burner but there are two things to consider before installing one - you lose your warranty the second you flash a hacked firmware and you'll also put alot of wear and tear on your burner using it for your ripping chores. if those things don't bother you then go for it. My recommendation is to use an inexpensive DVD-ROM for your ripping. The Lite-On 166S/167T is about as good as it gets and goes for around $30. ROMs have no speed lock and can be easily made region free as well. Here's a link to some speed tests I did with my Plextor PX-708A versus my Lite-On 166S http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2/107206 P.S. Nice choice for RAM. I run a GB of Mushkin black too
