Better DVD burner?

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N-Guy

N-Guy

Posts: 105   +0
Lightscribe is a technology that enables you to burn an image on the label side of a disc instead of putting a label on it, but special discs are needed for lightscribe as normal discs won't work with it. More Info

What I find better may not be what you find better and I also don't have time to compare the specs for the two.
 
there are only about 3 co's in world that make dvd burners
the rest are licensed name brands to specific solutions
check around you will see that one co uses the firmware from another

I have had plexwriter supposed to one of the best did not last more than 4 month avr.
got some cheap nec's still burning away after 2 yrs
my friends very cheap dvd burner lasted for 2 yrs and burned about 1500 disc's
I do data recovery and ship about 30 dvd's a week out
lightscribe is useless tech marketing
not mentioned is tha area the label is burned to
where there is no data
 
I'm very happy with my Samsung 18x.

I personally don't put much stock in 'high quality' burners... Even the cheapest of burners will churn out acceptable discs.

The only benefit to buying something like a $150 Plextor over a $40 Lite-On is benchmarks, in my opinion. :)
 
Oh, lightscribe is interesting. It does only black, but it provides a pretty slick, low/med resolution label.

The downside is it takes 10-30 minutes to actually label your CD, depending on the picture and your drive. If you've got the patience and you're anal enough that you can't write it with a Sharpie and don't mind paying roughly twice as much for media, then Lightscribe is pretty cool .:)
 
O_O Okay thanks guys, I think I'll just go with the NON-Lightscribe LG version.

One more question, this one is for you Rick - how does the ink work for the burner? How do you refill it?
 
N-Guy said:
O_O Okay thanks guys, I think I'll just go with the NON-Lightscribe LG version.

One more question, this one is for you Rick - how does the ink work for the burner? How do you refill it?
Click to expand...

There is no ink. It is 'burned' onto the disc using a laser. All you have to do is flip the DVD media over and begin the label process. The result is simliar in appearence to what's commonly referred to as 'silk screening', which is often on professional CDs.
 
There is supposed to be a dye layer that the laser burns. It doesn't actually burn the top plastic layer, just to clarify a bit.
 
Rick said:
I'm very happy with my Samsung 18x.

I personally don't put much stock in 'high quality' burners... Even the cheapest of burners will churn out acceptable discs.
Click to expand...
But for how long? I've had 2 lite ons and 1 sony (rebaged lite on) quit on me in dramatic fashion. All 3 failed in some form involving noises that aren't supposed to come out of burners. 1 did it while burning and the other 2 died just spinning a disk. One completely died, another would work intermittently, and the other came back to life after sitting outside the computer for a week.

My plextor has never caused a problem, and is fairly quiet.
 
SNGX1275 said:
But for how long? I've had 2 lite ons and 1 sony (rebaged lite on) quit on me in dramatic fashion. All 3 failed in some form involving noises that aren't supposed to come out of burners. 1 did it while burning and the other 2 died just spinning a disk. One completely died, another would work intermittently, and the other came back to life after sitting outside the computer for a week.

My plextor has never caused a problem, and is fairly quiet.
Click to expand...

As a counter argument, I've see my share of dead Plextors. I've even owned a Plextor CD-RW that failed. But... On the other hand, I've owned other optical drives that have failed too. ;) I've certainly seen more OTHER brands fail than Plextor being 'in the field', but that's largely because not many people actually own a Plextor, I imagine.

But then again... I've also had my well over-used NEC 8x DVD burner for over a few years. It's still working just fine and I use it soooo much for customer backups and personal use. I'll sometimes burn a dozen discs in one sitting. I can't remember the last time I had a coaster. :)

I would like to think that Plextor makes a better quality drive that lasts longer, but since these drives won't always fail at the same time the same way, it makes it difficult to perform a meaninful emperical test.

But, I imagine companies that focus on manufacturing things for budget consumers (like Lite-On or NEC) cut corners, which in turn leads to shorter MTBFs. So it makes sense, but who is to say Plextor doesn't cut corners either? Maybe they just charge more so consumers feel confident. :slurp:

Just thinking out loud.
 
Check for DMA mode (as opposed to PIO). Also ensure you have (and it thinks you do) a full version of whatever you are trying to burn with.
 
SNGX1275 said:
Check for DMA mode (as opposed to PIO). Also ensure you have (and it thinks you do) a full version of whatever you are trying to burn with.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, but how do I do that?
 
SNGX1275 said:
Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Check whichever channel its on.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah it was on DMA.

It's sorta fixed now. I'm testing the burner on Sonic Record Now which reads 1x maxium speed but it's burning faster than it. More like... 16x ?
It shows higher speed on the Nero I installed from the software disc it came with, but odd it didn't with my previous Nero installation. The menu options look exactly the same. Ah well, I guess it works. It just doesn't display the proper burning speed on some software ^^

Thanks for the support.
 
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