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I'm finally entering the late twentieth century and buying myself a DVD drive. I figure it might as well be a writer as well as a reader so that I can back stuff up and burn the odd movie onto DVD. Since I ignore all things hardware until they directly affect me I have no idea who is good and who is bad, so I thought I'd pick your brains. I'd rather get a quality drive than some no-name piece of junk: Plextor? LG? Sony? Anyone else? I suppose I just want to know what everyone else has and whether it's created fires/coasters on a regular basis.
And, just to be yet more demanding, I want a silver one to match my case. That's sad, but true.
Edit:
The other thing is: what format do you guys use? These + and - signs give me a headache.
Cheers!
And, just to be yet more demanding, I want a silver one to match my case. That's sad, but true.
Edit:
The other thing is: what format do you guys use? These + and - signs give me a headache.
Cheers!
Miserableman wrote:
> Last I heard, the Pioneer drives were supposed to be the best.
I think they are aswell. The Sonys are good and LiteOn should be good considering there CD writers. Never seen the MSI so cant comment. A Pioneer 107 is £80 which is cheap, so depending on the price of the MSI I would recommend the 107.
Dual layer drives will be quite a lot when they are released. I can see £150 being pretty cheap for them. I got my Sony U10A for £170 back last June and now DVD writers have fallen in price. I will upgrade once there out as the dual layer discs will be very nice indeed :D
> Last I heard, the Pioneer drives were supposed to be the best.
I think they are aswell. The Sonys are good and LiteOn should be good considering there CD writers. Never seen the MSI so cant comment. A Pioneer 107 is £80 which is cheap, so depending on the price of the MSI I would recommend the 107.
Dual layer drives will be quite a lot when they are released. I can see £150 being pretty cheap for them. I got my Sony U10A for £170 back last June and now DVD writers have fallen in price. I will upgrade once there out as the dual layer discs will be very nice indeed :D
Last I heard, the Pioneer drives were supposed to be the best.
adrian wrote:
> Personally I would wait unless you really need one as Dual layer
> burners are coming out which means DOUBLE the space on a disc.
> The newish Phillips drives are suppose to have firmware to upgrade
> them, and Pioneer tested the 106 with a firmware update as well.
Ah cheers, didn't know about that. I had a quick look about and it seems like dual layer drives won't be out for a few months in the US.That's more than I wanted to spend really so I'll probably go for the MSI drive and cross my fingers over firmware updates.
My colour problem has been solved by Lian Li releasing silver stealth bezels that match their cases and work with every DVD drive. Cool.
Cheers guys, appreciate the help.
> Personally I would wait unless you really need one as Dual layer
> burners are coming out which means DOUBLE the space on a disc.
> The newish Phillips drives are suppose to have firmware to upgrade
> them, and Pioneer tested the 106 with a firmware update as well.
Ah cheers, didn't know about that. I had a quick look about and it seems like dual layer drives won't be out for a few months in the US.That's more than I wanted to spend really so I'll probably go for the MSI drive and cross my fingers over firmware updates.
My colour problem has been solved by Lian Li releasing silver stealth bezels that match their cases and work with every DVD drive. Cool.
Cheers guys, appreciate the help.
I've got a Pioneer 105 and it has been superb. Like Adrian says though, it's probably best to wait for the dual-layer drives.
I would agree with Adrian that it would be best to wait. But dual layer drives might be expensive. I don't know.
Certainly the one taka Q recommended is amazing, I have it. No problems at all. I've always had great experiences with MSI drives.
My old MSI CD burner would burn at 52x no matter what the media was rated at, totally error free. That was a pleasant accidental discovery.
Certainly the one taka Q recommended is amazing, I have it. No problems at all. I've always had great experiences with MSI drives.
My old MSI CD burner would burn at 52x no matter what the media was rated at, totally error free. That was a pleasant accidental discovery.
Pioneer do one of the best. Pioneer 107 is about £80 and is 8x, which basically means a DVD in 8 mins. Sony also do decent ones as well as Liteon.
Personally I would wait unless you really need one as Dual layer burners are coming out which means DOUBLE the space on a disc. The newish Phillips drives are suppose to have firmware to upgrade them, and Pioneer tested the 106 with a firmware update as well.
The + and - doesnt really matter. I use - because my Sony does 4x - and only 2x +. The discs I have done are 4x - and I have only had one fail out of 40+. Looking at the prices there are more - media for cheaper than +. I have bought 25 packs for £10 which is good. Now I see that in both + and - from [URL]http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/[/URL] that they come in at £7.99 for a 25 pack. - use to be cheaper and that was another reason for using -. I dont think theres much compatability issues either. I think that + media has more error checking which can affect some DVD players. Check on [URL]http://www.dvdrhelp.com/[/URL] as this will have lists of compatability etc.
Personally I would wait unless you really need one as Dual layer burners are coming out which means DOUBLE the space on a disc. The newish Phillips drives are suppose to have firmware to upgrade them, and Pioneer tested the 106 with a firmware update as well.
The + and - doesnt really matter. I use - because my Sony does 4x - and only 2x +. The discs I have done are 4x - and I have only had one fail out of 40+. Looking at the prices there are more - media for cheaper than +. I have bought 25 packs for £10 which is good. Now I see that in both + and - from [URL]http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/[/URL] that they come in at £7.99 for a 25 pack. - use to be cheaper and that was another reason for using -. I dont think theres much compatability issues either. I think that + media has more error checking which can affect some DVD players. Check on [URL]http://www.dvdrhelp.com/[/URL] as this will have lists of compatability etc.
Ive got a Sony DWU-18A. Out of one burn ive had no coasters, even though im using cheap £1 each dvd-r.
Get the MSI DR8-A 8x DVD±R/±RW, bes drive out there. Toms hardware review it well: http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/20040126/index.html
And ± means it can write both + and - formats.
S.A.
And ± means it can write both + and - formats.
S.A.
I'm finally entering the late twentieth century and buying myself a DVD drive. I figure it might as well be a writer as well as a reader so that I can back stuff up and burn the odd movie onto DVD. Since I ignore all things hardware until they directly affect me I have no idea who is good and who is bad, so I thought I'd pick your brains. I'd rather get a quality drive than some no-name piece of junk: Plextor? LG? Sony? Anyone else? I suppose I just want to know what everyone else has and whether it's created fires/coasters on a regular basis.
And, just to be yet more demanding, I want a silver one to match my case. That's sad, but true.
Edit:
The other thing is: what format do you guys use? These + and - signs give me a headache.
Cheers!
And, just to be yet more demanding, I want a silver one to match my case. That's sad, but true.
Edit:
The other thing is: what format do you guys use? These + and - signs give me a headache.
Cheers!