Acer DVD Drive

[bernse]

On kind of a whim I picked up an Acer DVD drive will in Costsco at lunch. It was $75 CDN (A pretty decent deal I thought). I is a 12x DVD and 40x CD. It comes with a software player as well (a retail box). I think it is model DVD-1240. Are ACERs decent players? Thoughts? I just want some input before I open it up and hook it up... that way I can take it back if the consensus is that it bites.

Thanks!

Eric

 

[HaVoC]

Acer is the same company as AOpen which makes some of the best DVD drives out there. Of course, alot of the AOpens are rebadged Pioneer drives.

EDIT: Just noticed your model number and I can confirm for sure that is an AOpen drive. I just ordered one with the same model number from Newegg. I paid $51 US including shipping. I don't know the exchange rate but that seems to compare well with your price. I got a retail drive.

Here is a link to the drive.

EDIT2: If you are willing to wait until Monday I can give you an idea of how good this drive is. My concern is DVD ripping speed so I'll let you know about that. It should work just fine for reading CDs and the digital audio extraction rate should be pretty quick.

 

[bernse]

Thats the one alright. I got the retail box too.

Thanks for the offer of getting back to me on Mon but don't worry about it. It sounds like a keeper anyhow. I haven't opened it yet (as you know.. I am at work now and its at home) but I think the software is RealPlayer, but I am not sure. Is that any decent? I am running a 1.2Ghz Tbird rig.

 

[HaVoC]

Dunno much about DVD software. I use a standalone player to watch movies. If it does indeed come with realplayer that sucks because I was hoping for something like PowerDVD. Real will probably have a million ads in their DVD player and it will be a crappy interface.

 

[bernse]

Update:

Comes with PowerDVD player.

I am quite happy with the drive. Its seems to spool up considerebly faster than my old 50x Acer. So far so good. The only concern I have is sometimes DVD lock up HARD and I have to reboot to get out. This doesn't happen on all of them, only a couple. Any ideas?

 

[eGAK]

I am using an Aopen 1240 on a KK266 I have not been able to run it with DMA,without getting lock ups. Have been using PIO4 with no problems, but would like to speed it up with DMA. Haven't been able to do so at standard clocking.

 

[HaVoC]

I have read about some of the issues on the AOpen message board with the UDMA setting not working. The lockups might be due to layer-change issues (where the player has to go to the second layer on the same DVD side to continue playing the movie) You might wanna try upgrading to the latest firmware if it isn't already so. The DVD-1240 ASH model comes with ver 22 which is the latest I think. Mine was already at the latest firmware out of the box.

 

[HaVoC]

I have read about some of the issues on the AOpen message board with the UDMA setting not working. The lockups might be due to layer-change issues (where the player has to go to the second layer on the same DVD side to continue playing the movie) You might wanna try upgrading to the latest firmware if it isn't already so. The DVD-1240 ASH model comes with ver 22 which is the latest I think. Mine was already at the latest firmware out of the box.

 

[eGAK]

A brief follow up. This drive is now @ ATA 33(DMA). Firmware flash to R06 from 5 & VIA Busmaster/Miniport drivers from VIA4in1 v4.32 did it. Gots the drive from same place & price as HaVoC but AMH version. Plays all media I have put in it, spins up quickly & is quiet. Enjoying Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, bought it to test the drive. My seven year old daughter is turning into a ninga, from selecting the first fight scene many times, great musical scene with the on board C-media sound