Recommendations for DVD Burner

[dqtus]

Hi, it's been a while since I've bought a DVD burner and I'm looking to upgrade or rather just get a new one since I think my current burners are dying on me and has been giving me several bad burns in recent months while it used to be pristine for a long while. I currently use a Pioneer DVR-107D and a NEC ND-3520A. Both of which I am damn proud of and have served me well but both are toward their end life. I have gone through thousands of burns on each (any way to find out how many?).

My main use out of them these days is copying DVDs, which means ripping the DVD, shrinking them, and burning onto a single layer DVD. Today, the NEC does both tasks as the Pioneer has died once and been RMAed. I'm looking to replace both of them and my plan is to get a good reader to replace one and a great burner for the other. Any suggestions? I'm not sure how much technology has changed but I'm still on single layer DVDs as they are most economical and I don't care for blu-ray either.

[INFRATOM]

Pioneer has the most accurate burn
reading suggestions
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f61/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/

[budz]

PIONEER 116 for burning and ripping. There's no riplock on read speeds. SAMSUNG is also a good burner and ripper. I've always liked LITEON drives for ripping as well. PIONEER will be coming out with the 117 model and hopefully release it into the USA.

[dqtus]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I think I'm going to go with the 116 but then I noticed pioneer also has a sata burner 216. Is that one any better? I figured the burn accuracy should be the same right? Any performance gain with sata here?

[budz]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I think I'm going to go with the 116 but then I noticed pioneer also has a sata burner 216. Is that one any better? I figured the burn accuracy should be the same right? Any performance gain with sata here?

If your mobo SATA chipset controller can support a SATA DVD burner then get the 216 model. It would depend on what SATA chipset controller you have on your mobo. Post your mobo make and model then I can tell whether or not your mobo will support a SATA DVD burner. Older mobo's that have SATA capabilitites were made for hard drives and not for optical drives. If you wanna play it safe to replace your PIONEER 107 drive then just get the 116 model that is a IDE DVD burner.

[dqtus]

I currently run a Asus P5WD2 Premium and am planning to upgrade in the next month to something in the Asus P45 or x48 chipset. I was hoping to maybe get the SATA burners earlier and run it off my current mobo, do you know if it will work?

Also the burning quality on the 116 and 216 should technically be exactly the same right?

[budz]

The SATA DVD burners should work on your Asus P5WD2 Premium mobo as long as you disable "RAID" within your mobo bios it will work fine. It has the Intel ICH7 chipset which is ok. As for getting a P45 or X48 mobo's those will be okay as well.

It's the mobo's sata controller chipset that makes a difference on whether or not a SATA DVD burner will work correctly. A mobo having a NVIDIA sata controller chipset would require the latest driver from the NVIDIA website in order for the SATA DVD burner to work correctly. Where as a mobo with a VIA chipset will have to use a PCI SATA CONTROLLER card in order for the SATA DVD burner to work correctly. Mobo's using INTEL ICH7/8/9/10 chipset's will render a SATA DVD burner to work correctly.

There should be no difference between a IDE vs SATA Dvd burners. Only difference I see is when the buffer levels while burning a dvd disc using a SATA dvd burner are solid. A IDE burner buffer levels go up and down at times. That's the only difference I visibly see but there's no difference as far as the burning process goes.

Also with SATA Dvd burners the cables provide better airflow in the computer case compared to a IDE ribbon cable. You can't go wrong with either the PIONEER 116 or 216 drive. Make sure you use a 80 wire ide cable with the PIONEER 116 drive. And disable RAID in the mobo bios and set SATA to IDE in the mobo's as well for SATA DVD burners.

[dqtus]

Awesome, thanks! I greatly appreciate the recommendation and the help. I just bought 2 DVR-216 yesterday. One more quick question, for the newer chipsets P45, X48, or even X58 would I also have to disable raid in the bios or should they already be configured to be able to work with SATA burners

[budz]

Awesome, thanks! I greatly appreciate the recommendation and the help. I just bought 2 DVR-216 yesterday. One more quick question, for the newer chipsets P45, X48, or even X58 would I also have to disable raid in the bios or should they already be configured to be able to work with SATA burners

Your welx! Yes you will have to disable raid in the bios with any mobo. It won't necessarily be disabled when bought brand new especially when raid is included in the mobo. And don't forget to set SATA to IDE in the mobo bios as well.

[marychat]

Im going to get a new desktop ,but would like to get a external dvd burner .this is very new to me I was looking into a dvd duplicator biut they are pretty steep,so a external it is ,is there a real good place I can look into I want something that dosn't take up to much memory