Best DVD Burner?

[mlahatte]

I noticed in the October 2006 High End Buyer's Guide that the NEC 16X ND-3550A (x2) was reccomended. Is there a better one to get now?

Thanks

 

[Slugbait]

In MaxPC's last few issues (up to February), the best is Plextor's PX-755SA. But if you want one, buy it now...Plextor is getting out of the optical drive business.

 

[mlahatte]

What about the NEC or LG for the money? Or both for 2 DVD burners to have better media coverage?

 

[jackschmittusa]

The Nec is a good drive. I put 2 burners in all of my home machines now that they are so cheap.

I currently use a BenQ with Lightscribe (which I am too lazy to use lol), and a Samsung that supports DVD-RAM (which my settop recorder can use).

If not for the extra features, 2 NECs would have been fine.

 

[Zepper]

First Pioneer then Plextor. Where are we gonna get a halfway decent drive anymore? I'm a Plextor fan and my 712A has been solid as a rock so far. I recently bought a couple of Samsung SH-S182D units and so far the one I'm using seems to work OK. But I've heard they may have the longevity of a fruit fly... 😉

Anyone know if the latest Panasonic/Teac is any good? The Plextor 750A that was either based on the same chipset or built for Plextor by them wasn't any good except for having DVD-RAM capability.

.bh.

 

[coolpurplefan]

cdrinfo has lots of reviews on DVD-RWs. I got a BenQ which only made mistakes on a couple of DVDs but this may be due to anything (lots of downloads on file sharing). The NEC I used to have I think almost never made writing errors.

 

[n7]

SATA 🙂

Why?

Nice neat cables, but no, that's not really why.

SATA runs each drive on its own channel, meaning copying files, burning files, etc, especially when doing a combination with multiple HDDs, is much faster.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: mlahatte
Best DVD Burner?

That's like asking... Prettiest girl?

 

[Tennoh]

Consensus from cdrlabs and cdfreaks is that the best current burner overall is the Pioneer 111. The LG 22N/L is also a good series.

 

[StopSign]

BenQ DW1650 is supposed to be one of the best burners but it's very hard to find one now.

 

[Aikouka]

3550A is a great drive and I still use it in my old PC. Actually I think I switched it out (for a NEC 7210 (I think)) and put it into a smaller PC I built for fun.

 

[Zepper]

I don't know where Tennoh gets his information but CDRLABS.com has never reviewed a Pioneer 111 and CDRInfo only gives it 8/10, and on LG, some of the 416x series got better scores than the xx series has. Benq 1600 series and Philips (probably come off the same production lines) have been the high scorers recently.
. Anyone know what's up with CDRInfo - they haven't done a burner review since June of '06???

Slugbait,
... Plextor leaving optical drive business...

Here is Plextor's statement:
"Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd., the parent company of Plextor, has announced today a plan to perform corporate reorganization and reduce Plextor's optical drive business operations, corresponding to the deterioration of its business environment.

Plextor responed to the various recent reports that indicated that Plextor would exit the market of consumer CD and DVD products:

"Although Plextor's optical drive operations will be reduced, our business itself will still continue," says Motoaki Kaneko, the president of Shinano Kenshi. "We do have a plan to release consumer drives while our engineering team will be engaged more in the development for business use equipment."

The company also says that there will be no change in the operations for Plextor-branded industrial equipment and DAISY-based audio recorder/reproducer for visually handicapped people.

Plextor entered into the optical disk drive market in early '90s and recorded highest revenue by introduction of 12x CD-R drive in 2000. However, its recent sales has been slow because of the increased competition from Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers."


IMO, Plextor should move production back to Japan or somewhere that quality can be more tightly controlled and get back to designing and building the best drives that the current technology allows. That would take care of the "business environment" problem... Since the 712 which got more 10/10 scores than any drive since, they have really dropped off both in design goals and production quality. If they want to also sell "consumer grade" drives (I guess the 740 which was basically a Benq/Phillips drive was the first and the failed 750A (Teac/Panasonic based) the next effort in that category), name them something other than Plextor so the brand doesn't get watered down.

.bh.

 

[ScottFern]

Originally posted by: StopSign
BenQ DW1650 is supposed to be one of the best burners but it's very hard to find one now.

This is what I use and consistently get burns with 96-97% error free disc quality using Nero.

 

[Tennoh]

Easy, go to the forums on cdrlabs and cdfreaks. More informative than the individual reviews. And from the forums, the consensus is the 111 is the current favorite of available drives. You can like all the LG 416x and Benq 16xx drives you want, they are not current and harder to find...

Originally posted by: Zepper
I don't know where Tennoh gets his information but CDRLABS.com has never reviewed a Pioneer 111 and CDRInfo only gives it 8/10, and on LG, some of the 416x series got better scores than the xx series has. Benq 1600 series and Philips (probably come off the same production lines) have been the high scorers recently.
. Anyone know what's up with CDRInfo - they haven't done a burner review since June of '06???