what dvd burner to buy?

Ok you clearly don't know what you're talkinga about. Pioneer is low end junk in the grand scheme of audio equipment. You've failed to support any of your points and have just thrown out meaningless conjecture and bs opinions based on nothing. Pioneer is not a high end brand in any respect for anything in the grand scheme of things. It's middle of the road at best, period.

 

Ok - i dont know what im talking about. I didnt work in Rivher Sounds or anything. My mate isnt the manager in there or anything either.

Um...you wanna explain to me how you support your points? My point is supported by the fact that everyone recognises the Pioneer's as the best there is. Optorite isnt used by many poeple at all here.

Nice talking with you, but i dont think you know your head from your arse lol. < Im just kidding there. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, mine is stated, so we'll leave it at that, eh.

 

Oriphus, the "fact" that many people would prefer the pioneer a06 over the optorite doesn't make the pioneer better. It just makes it more popular and that's all you have been stating in this whole thread. Fine I will concede that the pioneer is a much, much more popular drive than my optorite. But this will be the last time I say this: the optorite is a faster ripper and burner than the A06.

I don't know how much clearer I can get than that. You of course are entitled to your opinion that the optorite is crap but I'll say again that my opinion is based on emperical fact not a majority opinion that you seem so adamant on using.

Fact(me: optorite is faster) vs. opinion(oriphus: pioneer is more popular). That is how I see this thread and in that light we are both correct.

 

I don’t own either one and, frankly, was planning to order one this week. The mentioning of the Optorite dd0203 has sent me plunging into dark recesses of the web looking for test and satisfaction results. For, you see, I want to make one purchase. I don’t have the money, time or desire to buy one model and give it a test “drive” only to exchange it for another. Initially, I had been watching the Sony. Then I was watching people squirm with the Sony; searching for problem resolutions. Firmware and newer models were released and then I found the Pioneer. Though some had difficulties with the Pioneer, complaints and problems did not seem as prevalent. I found “my burner”. I chill, however, went down my spine when someone wrote earlier to “avoid the 106”.

Now along comes the Optorite dd0203. Claims are made that it is a faster CD-R burner and faster DVD reader. I grant that the 24x vs 16x for CD-R’s is significant, however, I guess I am missing something about the DVD read, which appears to both be 12X. Personally, I am not too concerned about the CD-R speed as I would guess that most people getting into DVD+/- already have a CD-RW.

Time will surely tell, Imadern, about the ongoing satisfaction , performance and reliability of the Optorite. It is quite possible that 3 months from now, people like you will continue to sing its praises. I hope it happens for as long as competitive brands/models exist, prices tend to fall and we all benefit.

One last note to point out is that I am not a computer guru. I relied heavily on this site and others for gathering information and opinions on the Sony and Pioneer drives. It is my pessimistic side that tells me that I will run into a snag or two, either with the drive, drivers, firmware, software compatibility, media or a combination of the above. As such, it will be a blessing to rely on the ingenuity of others to solve some of the problems and I have a tendency to think that a more popular model will result in more timely solutions.

 

Ok .all im getting here is my ford is better then your chevy.
Im a pioneer man got a AO4 and love it.
i got mine to make dvd and games.PX2
and i have a plexor cdr recorder..
you might ask why i didnt keep the sanyo
or soney that came with my Dell.
the crap couldnt read the raw data needed
to copy PX1 back-ups.i went to this www.page
to get the info. www.cdrinfo.com
U SHOULD ALSO LOOK AT THE PLEXTOR DVD.
RECORDERS ALSO.

 

Here's the advantages:

1.) The CDR is definitely faster. True alot of people have another CDR (I did) but it's nice to be able to scrap it and free up another drive bay (atleast for me it was). 24x burns a 700 meg in aprox 3 minutes - it's great and very fast.

2.) It has this new HD burn capability which allows you to put 1.4 gigs on a CDR. Nice feature I'd say.

3.) It has an 8 meg cache which is about as large as they come (as far as I know) and that is integral in preventing buffer under-runs and endless "coasters" especially if you like to perhaps browse the web while burner rather than be afraid to touch your computer while it creates a disc (I'm burning a dvd right now actually).

This nonsense about sticking to "brand names" is just that, nonsense - ESPECIALLY in computer electronics.

Optorite is indeed a noname "garbage" brand but it's simply a brand name, they don't build the drives sanyo does.

I can't say for sure because I haven't researched it but it's very possible that sony and/or pioneer don't actually manufacture their drives and/or there are some "noname" rebadged drives out there that are the same as the sony and pioneer units. I know for a fact one of the sony dual format drives is out there under rebadged as a noname brand called "Liteon" if I remember correctly. Not positive on the name but I am POSITIVE one of the sony dual format drives is rebadged by one of the nonamers.

Computer disc drives are hardly the only area where this sort of thing takes place. In the past and perhaps still currently the vast VAST majority of consumer television sets (be they sony, pioneer, phillips or whatever) were actually manufactured by a french company you proably never heard of called Thompson.

The: this drive is good because it's popular brand "A" and this is a good name brand and the most people out there bought is the dumbest, most idiotic and unsupported argument one could make. It's popular because "popular brand A" spends 10 times more money promoting their BRAND NAME than "noname brand B" and all those suckers out there that make "popular brand A" so popular are paying for all that advertising.

DON'T BUY IN TO IT. If you find a drive you do like that's a popular brand you can likely find the same drive rebadged for less, for example if you choose the Sony look for liteon.

I have the optorite DD0203 - I could care less what brand any of my computer equipment is as long as it works. My brothers computer is a dell and it sucks, mine is a assemblage of "no name" garbage, cost less, and performs MUCH better. The pioneer may be a great drive and it may not, no idea what so ever. Because it is a pioneer regardless of how good it is or isn't you're likely going to pay more than you otherwise should have to simply because it says pioneer on it. You get a pioneer and some of that money goes into the pioneer brand name, you get a no name brand like optorite and that money goes into a cache that's twice as big instead of paying for the brand name. That's just good old fashioned business and economics.

For the record on the performance side I've had the drive for a while now and it works great with a variety of cdr dvd-r and dvd+r media. I had a initial problem in that it didn't work with easy cd creator 5 (outdated software). Others claim it works great with easy cd creator 6 and I upgraded to Nero Ultra 6 and it has worked fine ever since. To date I've had one bad -R disc that was some really cheap budget media. Otherwise it's fine. Take it for what it's worth.

 

Um...drives dont become more popular for no reason. Its becaue they are proven. Optorite isnt a proven drive, and therefore uill never buy one. The pioneer IS better, its not just about speed, its about quality.

 

All right, I give up. There is just no way to have a rational debate with you Oriphus. There is just no debating with an unarmed man/woman < kidding.

We've already established that Pioneer has been around longer therefore they have a much larger customer base, therefore they are more popular. People buy what they are comfortable with or what mass media tells them to buy because they can't think for themselves (i.e. products from companies with higher marketing budgets). This fact still doesn't make them better products.

You go on believing that pioneer is better because "the Joneses" own one, while I'll continue to think my optorite is better because it performs better and is cheaper.

 

Thats what i want us to do. I firmly believe the Pioneer is better, no matter what the stats are on the sanyo. You firmly believe otherwise. Thats fine! However, it in no way reflects on my ability to have a rational debate with anyone. I think i can manage them just fine!

 

Yes that's exactly the point, non thinking public, bigger marketing budget etc. etc. etc.

I think what you're going to say is "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man" - certainly seems to be the case here.

And no you're not capable of a rational or logical debate.

You say because it's popular it must be good I like what's popular and good and even though speed and technology onboard is slower and inferior (or atleast less advanced and up to date) the quality is better even though I have no idea about the quality of the compeition.

Budwieser beer, McDonalds, and Britney Spears are all popular. They're also all shitty.

Nice argument.

 

I don’t know that I agree with the “popular” remark. If it were so, we’d all have Sonys. I agree that popular is not the only dimension in the purchase decision. Please advise how the “speed and technology onboard is slower and inferior (or at least less advanced….”, besides the slower CD-R burn speed. How is this drive SO materially better? What is the empirical proof?

 

The CDR burn speed is higher and it has a larger cache (8 megs). I'm not sure what the pioneer is, 2 or 4. It also has a new technology called HD burn that allows you to put 1.4 gb on a regular CDR. This may or may not be important to some. It's the only drive I know of that has that and I know for sure the pioneer doesn't. 8 megs is the largest cache i've seen.

 

The Pioneer has 2 megs. While having 8 is impressive, I don’t know how useful it will be if one has a faster machine. The HD burn did look interesting but made me wonder if this was a “direct CD” sort of thing where you could only use the disk on your machine or another only if some special software was loaded.

 

It's not a direct cd or special software thing at all. It's something that's implimented in the drive. It's something like the quasi-dvd format they used on the sega dreamcast (not a dvd but not a cd either, I think it had similar capacity). The drive must support it to read it so you can only read the disks in your burner or other newer drive that supports the technology but that's fine for backups I would think.

As for the cache, no matter how fast your machine it can always hiccup if you're doing something else while burning. 4x is 3,600 kb/sec so a 2 meg buffer is only around 1/2 sec. 8 megs gives you over 2 seconds of buffer, much better.

 

Don'y knock Oriphus hes helped loadsa ppl on this forum. If he says the Pioneer 106 is better (which it is) then it must be!!!!!

 

?

 

I'm not knocking Oriphus' advice at all. I'm simply stating the following:

1. I don't take people's word/opinion that something is better than something else simply because it is more popular.

2. On paper the Optorite has some nicer features.

3. In real world tests(done by me for me), the optorite performed better and the difference was quantifiable. The differences weren't huge for my uses but they existed and at the time I bought my optorite the A06 wasn't out yet, and the optorite was cheaper than any other dual format drive.

So just to reiterate, I'm not discounting Oriphus's advice at all, in fact I'm sure I've followed numerous suggestions by him on these boards in the past.

 

Heh, I have the PX-504A which is a +RW drive and it serves my burning needs (computer data only) quite well. No coasters and Plextools for those occasional troublesome copy protected cds + Plextor's very good support.

Also the new PX-708A (dual format) looks very attractive. Copy & paste from Plextor's page:

Writing DVD+R: 8x
DVD-R: 4x
CD-R: 40x
Rewriting DVD+RW: 4x
DVD-RW: 2x
CD-RW: 24x
Reading DVD-ROM: 12x
CD-ROM: 40x

Edit: see how the plus format speeds are a bit better than the minus speeds ? I wonder why that is... Plexy's no exception here.

Edit2: apparently there are some DVD-players which also play DVD-RAM but not many.

 

DVR-s, religion, and software. They can be subjective. I am a newby, looking to purchase a DVRW. This forum has been excellent. The new Plextor 8x looks attractive at $250 US. I suspect Optorite and Pioneer will have 8x devices by Christmas. Does anyone know why Yamaha is not in the DVR game? Keep up the good work.

 

Hi
Read this thread with interest.

Earlier this week I was looking at buying a DVD Writer.
I did my usual search of the net reading reviews on different products.
I made my decision based on user reviews.
The drive I bought I chose because 99% of the reviews I read said it was a good solid machine.
I had no idea at that time who was the market leader. I did not base my decision at all on brand names. I based it on price and reliablility.
I chose the Pioneer 106D for the pure fact that thousands of others out there thought it was the bees knees. It is not a flashy drive after all this version is OEM, it doesn't even have the Pioneer name written on it.
So the puprpose of my post was to say that we don't all buy products due to brand names. We buy them because we make an informed decision!!!!

I too am glad your Optorite drive does the job for you. And once their reputation grows others will follow your lead. But as another poster said I don't have money to burn (no pun intended haha). I made the safe choice and I'm very happy with the results.
I am burning 67p disks which work on all my friends standalones and Playstation2.

Fozzee