Will using these 2 DVD writers solve my problems?

[uncleB]

If you’ve read any of my earlier posts you’d see I’ve been having trouble Backing up my original DVD movies & I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that it’s my Writer (LiteOn-LDW-411S). I also use this same writer to burn my CD’s and while they have worked pretty good for me, my wife and some of my friends have had problems when playing them on their players. The most recent CD’s have been Verbatim’s and these are the ones that screwed up on others players. I know Verbatim’s are one of the better CD’s & when I went back & burned them on my CD Burner (ATAPI CD-RW52XS24X) instead of my DVD burner they played much better on those other CD players (again indicating to me that this burner has problems with CD’s & DVD’s as well). I’ve read a lot of posts here and on other forums and have decided to go with 2 DVD writers (NEC ND-3540A & Lite-On SOHW-1693S). One of them, the Lite-On SOHW-1693S my son has, & it has successfully backed up DVD’s that have played well on my player (Panasonic DVD-S29). The other model (NEC ND-3520A) I’m getting because of the positive results many of you have spoken of. I figure between the two of them I should be able to have a higher success rate backing up my DVD’s.
Here are my questions:
1. Can anyone tell me what type of quality and consistency they’ve had backing up write protected DVD’s with either one of these units & if so which media worked best for them. 2. What was the quality & playing ability of CD’s burned on either one of these units. 3. Do you think chucking my CD burner & going with these 2 DVD’s burners is a good idea? 3. Does the burning speed & the media used increase the success rate on DVD’s & CD’s Burned & if so How do I know what the optimal speed for reading and burning DVD’s & CD’s for that particular Writer is & what media is best for which Writer to insure the best results? If any of you have any comments or ideas, especially if you have either of these burners, on getting the best results I’d appreciate it. Sorry I’m so long winded but I’m tired of messing with this whole thing and want to purchase these units & get going (if you know who has the best deals on these units that would help as well).
Thanks ahead of time for all of your help
Uncle Bob

[budz]

check out the NEC & LITEON FORUMS at Cdfreaks.com. tons of information for the questions you have. i don't own the drives you're thinking of getting.

the BENQ 1650 will soon be available to USA. i suggest you consider it along with the NEC & LITEON drives. BENQ has frequent OFFICIAL FIRMWARE upgrades. NEC drives are known to be poor readers. LITEON favors DVD+R media than DVD-R. as i mentioned check out those forums at Cdfreaks.com. you'll get the information that you need from there.

[hech54]

I have had almost ZERO compatibility issues(DVD and CD) with my old LG4040B and my newer BenQ1620Pro burners....and that includes burning 90 minute CD-R's(audio compilations).
I only say this because I have a sneaking feeling that changing your burner MAY not solve your problems.....there are WAY too many variables involved.

[bmiller]

I have the 3540A with the modified 1.03bt firmware from
http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/3540/ and have no problems now.Everything works fine,so i'm not changing a thing.

[bevills1]

It could be media type. I have an older Toshiba DVD palyer that plays all DVD -R tried and and won't play any +R media which indicates that player is compatible with -R only. Have you tried the other media type on the players that won't play backups on media used for backups?

[bevills1]

If you do decide to go with 2 burners www.newegg.com/ consistently has very good prices and great service as well. Also check www.bensbargains.net/ where better prices than www.newegg.com/ by other vendors are sometimes found. However, from customer reviews I've seen I think I'd choose the Pioneer over Lite-On. Also I personally have NEC 3520A and an older Pioneer 107-D both of which have produced great DVD backup results. I did have a problem making more copies of a VHS to DVD copy created with Lite-On 5005 with the NEC 3520A that gave read error problem during ISO read with DVDDecrypter, but the old Pioneer 107-D completed ISO read and write with no errors. This is the main reason I'd choose Pioneer over Lite-On especially if you're already experiencing problems. Due to this NEC 3520A problem I'll also likely choose Pioneer when I need another drive even though I've had no NEC 3520A protected DVD backup problems.

[garryheather]

Interesting Pioneer wasn't mentioned before the last post - due to overall reliability and generally good performance (due in part to regular firmware updates from the manufacturer) I recommend these out of choice and personal experience.

To be fair, the newer models (eg the 110) use NEC chipsets and the differences then come down to optics and so on if comparing with the NEC models. However I have not had any problems reading when using my Pioneers - although I should say I advocate using a DVD-ROM drive for reading and leaving the writer to do what it does best. Nowadays there isn't a great deal of difference in cost between the two, but it does save on the wear and tear and the convenience aspect is worth it in itself IMHO.

Newer models of the 110 now support DVD-RAM and can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. My 110 seems to perform a bit better than the following review would suggest, but your mileage may vary - check out the following for more details and comparisons:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/243

[bevills1]

Not sure what garryheather means by, "I advocate using a DVD-ROM drive for reading and leaving the writer to do what it does best." A DVD writer must read from source in order to either copy or create ISO image such as is done with DVDDecrypter ISO read which creates ISO image on harddrive; DVDDecrypter ISO write then burns ISO image to blank DVD. Anyway it's interesting to learn Pioneer burners now have NEC chip set.

[budz]

What garryheather means is it's best to use a DVD-ROM to read and leave the DVD BURNERS to do the writing. I have to with him. I use my DVD-ROM's first before using a DVD BURNER to read.

[hech54]

I don't own a DVD-ROM anymore..

[bmiller]

I haven't had a dvd-rom for years.

[garryheather]

I wouldn't be without one - I frequently update discs (eg my photo collection) and it's handy to be able to put my last disc into a reader and a blank in the recorder and just drag and drop the files into a new compilation.

I also edit off of VR discs created by my standalone recorder, and it's often useful to have 2 drives at my disposal without having to copy everything onto a hard disc first.

I suppose it's each to his own, but ROM drives are so cheap these days it's hard for me to imagine anyone using 1 drive for everything if space in their PC allows. It just seems like an extra process that you don't need to make when performing even the simplest tasks... plus very few recorders are as fast as their read only counterparts when it comes to shifting data.

[hech54]

I have two drives too.
Two burners...both read as well as any straight
DVD-ROM I've ever owned....maybe not as fast though.

[Bjs]

The LiteOn-ldw-411S unit's were not the most reliable ... they were the worst for compatability issue's , even updating the bios dose not fix the issue's .

They also have issue's with reading disc's created using pioneer , sony , and some lg unit's .

After 6 month's of trying to resolve the issue with the company itself ... all were returned and exchanged for sony unit's .

We still recommend their cdrom's , dvdrom's and combo's ... but nolonger their dvd burning unit's after the fiasco we were put through the get them replaced ...