New Dvd Read Writer

[Gary A]

I'm going to buy a new DVD read/write from Thanni online. The selection is quite limited. They have Asus, LG and BenQ. They also have Liteon but I won't buy another one of those. Liteon is what I have now that just died. It lasted about a year. Maybe I shouldn't complain. Before that I had an expensive Sony and it too lasted about a year. Anyone have experience with LG, BenQ or Asus? They have only one model of BenQ.

[Guest Reimar]

I'm going to buy a new DVD read/write from Thanni online. The selection is quite limited. They have Asus, LG and BenQ. They also have Liteon but I won't buy another one of those. Liteon is what I have now that just died. It lasted about a year. Maybe I shouldn't complain. Before that I had an expensive Sony and it too lasted about a year. Anyone have experience with LG, BenQ or Asus? They have only one model of BenQ.

I would go for the LG ifn't there the option for Pioneer! With Asus I have some probs (Asus Multi SATA). LG work fine without problems and I've 2 of them 1 internal and 1 external. Never any probs!

[elkangorito]

I've got an LG dual layer burner...had it for a year or so. I didn't want to buy it at the time but as I was leaving Australia for Thailand, I capitulated & bought it (begrudgingly - LG anything is crap).

Since then, I have had some problems with my particular LG burner. It turned out to be "power supply" related. I solved the problem by installing a capacitor in parallel with the 5v supply on the internal power plug.

From all the reviews & opinions I have read/heard, I'd go for BenQ.

If you have plenty of time to read, try this site;

http://club.cdfreaks.com/

[sniffdog]

I use LG H55L in one computer, it's a 20X speed but due to my IDE cable I get no more than 4X out of it. My other computer has a ASUS (SATA) 1814. Get full speed out of Princo 16X .... very little errors. Until now satisfied.

Edited October 3, 2007 by sniffdog

[Gary A]

Just my luck. One Liteon model sold by Thanni is on the top five list. Maybe my old one was just a lemon. Sometimes I'm lucky (unlucky) that way.

[Firefoxx]

I've had bad luck with Liteon, Plextor and LG, and fairly good luck with Benq, NEC, and Pioneer. For Asus, it depends, since Asus doesn't make its own, and OEMs from the likes of Sony and Pioneer.

This is of course only my experience.

[cdnvic]

Although my Lite-on works fine, I've heard of a lot of reliability issues with them. On the other hand my Samsung burner just refuses to give me any trouble at all after a couple years.

[Bpraim1]

I also use a samsung. Not a problem yet, three years on.

[katana]

I've owned two Pioneer DVD burners which lasted well and worked almost flawlessly.

A Benq CD burner I had a few years back only lasted about 60 burns before it packed in.

Edited October 3, 2007 by katana

[zzdocxx]

I have had a few Lite-on optical drives.

Yes one of them crapped out on me once, but on the other hand they are so cheap now. . .

Edited October 4, 2007 by zzdocxx

[ballbreaker]

If you do a little research you will find that Lite-On makes drives for some of the big name companies. I currently have one and its been going for 2 years with no problems.

[ignis]

I have a LG DVD±RW/DVD-RAM Writer

I find this very good, I did have a problem with my old one, but that was the power supply, LG Thailand repaced in FREE that is will over 3 years ago.......... RAM reader/writer will read anything + copy anything

I also have an Asus which will not read some DVD's/Cd's

[cdnvic]

I've found Princos to be surprisingly good even for long term archiving. Haven't bought any recently though so it may have changed.

[Tywais]

I've found Princos to be surprisingly good even for long term archiving. Haven't bought any recently though so it may have changed.

Same here. I've burned hundreds of Princo DVDs/CDs with no issues. Of course there may be occasional batch problems, but have not run into it myself.

[Tywais]

Princos are rubbish. Failure rate at least 2 or 3 from a batch of 50.

Can't argue with the facts.

Just hasn't been my experience. Perhaps different drives they have different reliability. Though I've used HP, Lite-on, and now Asus drives and still have yet to encounter your stats. Did have a Sony drive where I had write reliability issues though.

[cdnvic]

Verbatim is my disk of choice, with Fiji and Kodak close behind.

[britmaveric]

Used Lite-On for years, works great and burns quickly.

[sniffdog]

Princo (I use 16X DVD-R) are cheap (290 baht for 50), and haven't found a faulty one yet after 200 burns ... Princo recommends the DVD burner (Asus 1814) I use.

Burn movies and data at 16X with no problems.

Edited October 5, 2007 by sniffdog

[Firefoxx]

You actually can't tell the quality of the media from the brand (at least, for the vast majority of brands). Major brands like Sony and Verbatim don't make their own discs, they put their brand (OEM) on discs from the major factories, like Ritek and CMC. The best factory (and also a brand) is Taiyo Yuden, which is in Japan. It's easy to tell if a disc from the likes of Maxell or Verbatim is made by Taiyo Yuden: You simply look for "made in Japan", instead of the usual "made in Taiwan". The Japanese brands (Fuji, Sony, etc) generally used TY-made discs in the beginning, but switched to Taiwanese discs a long time ago to stay competitive. Therefore TY-made discs are virtually impossible to find in Thailand (not able to sell as much), and if you do manage to find them, they cost way too much. In the US, they're priced competitively, but not here. I always use Taiyo Yuden discs for important archives, and they'll last for at least a decade (if stored properly).

Princo is a strange beast. Sometimes they have good batches, sometimes they have bad. Sometimes they're even imitated, name brand, packaging, the works, so you never really know if you're getting a real Princo. In other words, it's inconsistent. I'm going to stop using Princo for cheap jobs, but only because the printable discs smear the ink after a short period (about a week).

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

I'm using a LiteOn burner and as of recent have problems. Strangely the problems occured exactly when i changed the media too - i was always using Verbatim DVD+R 16x (CMC 004) media in 25-packs, and now i bought a 50-pack of the same. I have confirmed that they are genuine (CD Freaks is the best place for such info) but out of 15 i burned from that pack, 7 turned coasters, freezing the drive in the process. It started with disc #1 from that pack, right after i burned the four (!) last ones from the older 25-pack without problems.

So far i burned exactly 115 Verbatim 16x DVD's, of which i got 8 coasters - a single one from before (attempted to burn at 24x while the drive does only 16x) and 7 from the new pack, all of them 4x (my usual speed).

So it's either my LiteOn dying (coincidentally when i used a new pack of Verbatims) or the Verbatims themself have turned into crap now.

Best regards.....

Thanh

[Gary A]

After following the thread and looking at a lot of reviews I'm going to wait until I find a store with Pioneer drives. My laptop has a DVD burner so I'll use that until I can find a Pioneer for my desktop.

[Firefoxx]

No, I didn't miss it. I was just posting my own views, based on my own experience. Different people will have differing experiences, and guides are not the end-all of things, since they are fallible and may only be relevant for a certain time/locale. My statements were relevant to Thailand.