DVD +/- Burner with Bitsetting Reccomendation?

[TSDible]

Ok,

I'm ready to make the plunge and get a DVD +/- RW drive. Or, maybe I should say my wife is ready to let me do it. Or, perhaps she is out of the country for three months and I will have that long to come up with a good explanation. (The third choice is the most likely)

I've narrowed my search down to the following drives I think.

1. Lite-On 851S
2. Pioneer DVR-107
3. NEC 2500A

I have read through the forums, and read the good and bad about each drive. My concern is this, I have an older set-top DVD player, and I would like the drive that I get to support Bitsetting for compatability reasons. This is why the Lite-On is my number 1 choice right now. I would almost rather get the Pioneer, but I have found no mention of it supporting Bitsetting. Is the Lite-On the only drive that supports this?

Any help and reccomendations are appreciated.

TIA

 

[KristopherKubicki]

Yeah, I talked to Pioneer directly, the drive is capable of bit setting but they are almost certainly not going to release the utility. I forgot why exactly. I am pretty sure some daft programmer will figure it out sometime in the future. The NuTech DDW-081 is capable of bitsetting and it costs about the same as the LiteOn. I personally like that drive a little better than the Liteon.

Kristopher

 

[TSDible]

Thanks Kris... I trust your opinion. I will look into the NuTech Drive.

I know the NEC does not support Bitsetting at the current time either... any opinions on that? Cost really isn't an issue... as I said, the wife is away for 3 months, so I have plenty of time to think of a good story...

What about the plextor drive? I forget the designation. Does it support bitsetting?

If I burn -R does it even matter?

 

[AIWGuru]

edit: nevermind.

 

[Belzer]

Another option is the BenQ DW800A. It supports bitsetting, burns many 4x DVD+Rs @8x and have a very good burn quality. For $10 it will support DVD-R/RW with firmware upgrade too else there will be a another version, the DW822A, released soon that come shipped with support for DVD-R/RW. The DW822A is also rumoured to be upgradeable to support dual layer DVD+R but I'm not sure it's true. BenQ will however release a dual layer burner, DW830A, in April with similar specs.

 

[FrustratedUser]

What is bitsetting?

 

[KristopherKubicki]

Bitsetting is literally taking one bit of data on the DVD+R media so that a drive recognizes it as a DVDROM rather than DVD+R. Most readers dont care but some really old ones only anticipate the DVDROM bit so they get confused and panic when they see the DVD+R bit.

TSD: The plextor is the better drive out of all of them. it is built like a tank - the pickup is awesome. Like i said earlier though bitsetting will never be fully endorsed by Plextor though. If i have enough free time one day i will try to write one myself.

Kristopher

 

[MDE]

The BTC 1008 will do bitsetting (don't ask me how though ) A BTC firmware writer (Marco) posts at CD Freaks. I got mine during the first round of cheap 8x dual format drives at Office Max, and it's a solid unit, but I haven't burned any DVDs yet.

 

[TSDible]

I think that my player is compatable with -R browsing over at DVDRhelp.

Would it be smarter to get the NEC, Pioneer, or Plextor and just use -R media?

I think that the Plextor might be a little too pricey for me at this time.

the NEC looks great. Not as fast, but I've read it does quality burns.

Is the Pioneer the best midpoint between those two?

 

[KristopherKubicki]

I think the ND2500 would be a little bit better for you. It has a good price too

Kristopher