The Best of the Best - DVDRW Drive

Look'in for a great DVDRW dirve to Bckup my DVD's I use Shirnkit to put'em on my HD and Nero to put in on +R TY media. I had or should I say have a NEC 4551a that did DL and single layers but after 2 or 3 re-falshes it totally stop doing DL and now only does single layerd DVD's. Now I'm out on the hunt for another DVDRW drive. And look'in for some of U Guz point of view on what the latest and Greatest is out there.

"Side note" - I always bookset by DVD+R to DVD ROM so it needs to beable to do that.

Any help would be appreciated

 

So Nec is not a good choice
and I though Plextor were overpriced DVDRW.

 

If you can find them, Benq 1640A and the 1650A.Very scarce. Lite-on bought out Benq,so no more Phenomenal booktyping benq drives. Lots of Benq 1620's around,they are also very sweet and very hard to kill them.

Some of the plextor are rebadges-using a lot of rebadged benqs-but costing a lot more than a benq. If you can locate the PX-716A it's one of the best.

Lite-on and LG are also some fine booktyping drives,just I don't know what the hottest model #'s are. With all these drives going to dvd-ram capability, they use totally different chip settings.

 

Pioneer 111D is a great drive. Although you can't booktype out of the box. Just get the Buffalo firmware and it will automatically booktype DVD+R to DVD-ROM. Plus Pioneer is one of the best selling DVDRW drivers on newegg.com.

 

Isn't that the only type you can booktype

 

You can booktype +R,+RW,and +RDL media-depending on the drive and the firmware.

Some drive can booktype +RDL media like the NEC 3500 series.They also have hacked firmware to booktype-usually NEC and Pioneer drives.

 

Oh but all those are +R media, I thought you were talking about booktypeing -R

My bad ....

 

The best out there as of now (Or at one of the most expensive $130) is the HP DVD 840E Lightscribe burner (external). I have one and it works beautifully, ive burned over 300 DVDs with it since Christmas and haven't had a single coaster. I usually burn at 16x and it burns one within 3 minutes.

 

HP for dvd burners?

LMFAO!

Most of them won't even booktype. Good luck on firmware updates.

 

How about the LG GSA-H22N

 

I recently move to the U.S. and had to leave my BenQ 1650 at back in Canada I am now looking for a new drive and see that it is impossible to find the 1650! So liteOn bought out BenQ? Maybe its worth looking into the LiteOn drives. Also what do you guys think of the "new" (I don't know how new they are really) SATA drives?

 

I don't know much about sata drives,but they cost a lot more and not many manufacturers make them. The Plextor px716SA would be the top dog for them. Usually they run around $200,but I saw some almost new ones on ebay for around $85 including shipping-very cheap!!!!

Same goes for the Plextor 716A. There were a bunch of them also on sale there-barely used-running under $75 including shipping.

I did pick up a slightly used Benq 1650 for $53 there,including 100 verbatim and ritek blanks. That's the only place to find benq drives,and usually used.

Lite-on did buy them up,so I don't know what the top (hot) model numbers would be for them. I am well stocked up on benq drives: 2-1650s,1640,and 2 -1620s and all are very sweet drives.

 

shoot, oh well. I guess I'll get a LiteOn since I do use the booktyping and it seems that these drives have that. Would any of you now what would be the best quality burner for LiteOns? I liked the 1650 for its 97%+ burns under nero, sigh, I hope I find a replacement. they have a couple of 20x burners now. and yep the SATA drives are expensive. Just thinking of getting one since the ide connection is dying.

 

Why are Plextor drive so expensive all the other drives max out in price around $80 bucks but the Plextor rounds it out around 100 so whats up.

 

May I suggest the Samsung SE-S184 (SH-S182). My old drives (BenQ DW1640 Lite-ON SOHW1633S)wore out and the extended warranty gave me the option of picking up a couple of these drives a few weeks ago from Best Buy. They do a great job, giving me an average of 98% of quality using Nero CD/DVD-Speed. Both are pretty quiet, Lightscribe capable, and booktype +R media to ROM, but are a bit bulky as they are external drives.

@Saugmon
I know what you mean about HP, I had one for two weeks and talk about bad burns off these things...never again...

 

@haza12d

Well, i'll have to disagree with you about samsung 182. I had the
drive and I just hate it. It was one of the worst burner I ever had. I got it as gift from somebody and i used it for less then 50 burns. I am totally hooked on px-716a they are really the best burner i have. I think they even out perform the legendary benq 1640.

 

@Yujenh

I see, how very unfortunate for you. Any specific issues why you dislike the drive? Recording/Playback problems? Media incompatibilities? The only issues I have with this drive is that at times the 16x MCC-04 I have can't burn at 18x, plus the LED for reading/burning is the same color =) Let me know about the problems that you've had and maybe I'll return these for something else next week...