THE LIFE AND OF A BURNER!!

[F-ING HOSTILE]

Hi- Thanks to the guides and forum posts of this site, I have finally got this DVD backup game figured out. Now that I have a comfortable understanding of the software and techniques used to render these DVD, I have been pondering the future of my hobby. I have a Pioneer DVR-104 (DVD-RW drive), and written roughly 75 DVD's with this drive. I've been wondering lately how much longer I can expect to be using this drive. I'm actually looking forward to purchasing a new DVD rewritable drive, but figured I would question a few of you about the life of your drives. I'm sure many of you have been through one, if not several, and could offer some insight!


1. What brand and type of drive do you(or have you )used?

2. Roughly how many discs (mainly considering DVD backups, rather than quick data or audio CD writes) were you able to make with your DVD+/- drive?

3. When your rewritable drive expired, was there a noticeable (gradual) deterioration in the quality of your finished DVD's, or did it more or less all go out at once? This may be a dumb question , but what I'm trying to establish here is the manner in which a DVD+/- "goes out". If I was able to establish a noticeable quality loss in my backups, I would rather purchase a new drive and reserve the aging drive for audio cd's and data writing!

4. What drive (name and model) would you recommend as a replacement, and why? I am more than happy with my DVR-104, and the DVD-R format in general. I may consider purchasing a different drive (such as a dual format) if there was reason enough to do so!


Again, I understand that it's difficult to pinpoint an exact number, seeing as different write speeds and film lengths may inflict different amounts of wear on a RW drive, but rough guesses are fine!

Thanks in advance for all your help!!

[BJ_M]

pioneer 104's and 105's , burned 50 - 100 - or a more dvd's a week in them ...

the oldest has burned maybe 3000 dvd's ..

no problems ..

[F-ING HOSTILE]

WOW

Way more than I expected!!

[dafoe]

I've had my Panasononic LFD-311 1x DVD-R/RAM burner for around two years now.

It's hard to estimate how many discs I've gone through because I record mostly on my set-top recorder. But, I've burned at least 250 movies (2 discs each) and PS2 games on the PC.

My guess would be between 500-1000 and it's still going strong!

[vric]

remind me the First CD-RW I got by HP... the fist one burned about 100 CD in 1 year and died 1 month after the warenty was end...

The second HP I got burned over 1000 CD, and died 2 week after the end of the warenty

I'm concern to this problem too.. look like the life is always the same for some Burner, even if you make 10 copy or 10 000

anyway, I got my DVD-RW for 1 month, 25 burn.. not very interesting

[gcutler]

Vendors used to list "Mean Time Before Failure" in thousands of hours of use time. But then those that broke before the estimate was considered a "lemon", I rarely see vendors mention MTBF anymore. Now a days it is all anecdotal to find out lifetime.

[F-ING HOSTILE]

These times are FAR better than I had expected. I figured that the thing would catch fire around 100 DVD's, and was already planning on purchasing a new drive I would be happy to simply get a few hundred discs out of it (especially considering that the new drives are around a couple hundred dollars).

I'm still kind of curious as to what happens when the drive dies!

Thanks!!

[drewson99]

over 800 DVDs burned in my Pioneer A04, 250+ in my newer A05.

they are the sh*t.

[gcutler]

I'm still kind of curious as to what happens when the drive dies!

The drive problem would probably be like CD-RWs. I had an early generation 2x/1x CD-RW die on me and first it stopped writing RW media, that worked on CD-R for quite a while than stopped burning CD-Rs. Didn't need a CD only drive so tossed the CD-RW burner (around the time 40x CD-RWs became real cheap

[F-ING HOSTILE]

over 800 DVDs burned in my Pioneer A04, 250+ in my newer A05.

they are the sh*t.

SWEET

[nepnerd]

I have a Pioneer A-04 over 1,5 years. Burned more than 1000 DVD movies or PS2 dvd-rom games. And it still works perfectly.

[F-ING HOSTILE]

I have a Pioneer A-04 over 1,5 years. Burned more than 1000 DVD movies or PS2 dvd-rom games. And it still works perfectly.

AWESOME

[txpharoah]

>> 1. What brand and type of drive do you(or have you )used?

Pioneer 103 DVD-R since May 2001.
Pioneer 105 DVD-R (Cendyne) since January 2003.

>> 2. Roughly how many discs (mainly considering DVD backups, rather than quick data or audio CD writes) were you able to make with your DVD+/- drive?

On the 103, about 900 before it began to act up. It may be age, it may be dirt, or it may be that hacked firmware I added then took back off that damaged it. It no longer burns 2x on any media, and it will not read/write CD, and it will not read/write DVD-RW. Since the issues, I've burned about 300 more discs on it in 1x mode.

Also, the 103 and CD burning never got along. Just DVD.

On the 105, about 500 discs and still purring like kitten.

>> 3. When your rewritable drive expired, was there a noticeable (gradual) deterioration in the quality of your finished DVD's, or did it more or less all go out at once? This may be a dumb question , but what I'm trying to establish here is the manner in which a DVD+/- "goes out". If I was able to establish a noticeable quality loss in my backups, I would rather purchase a new drive and reserve the aging drive for audio cd's and data writing!

The 103 just quit one day. It pretty much gave me the finger. It had been acting up with 2x burns for about two weeks, but I just blame that on the Princo 2x discs not being wobble-free enough. Apples were fine still.

>> 4. What drive (name and model) would you recommend as a replacement, and why? I am more than happy with my DVR-104, and the DVD-R format in general. I may consider purchasing a different drive (such as a dual format) if there was reason enough to do so!

The 105 (Pioneer model released by Cendyne) has not made a single bad disc. The drive is great.

>> Again, I understand that it's difficult to pinpoint an exact number, seeing as different write speeds and film lengths may inflict different amounts of wear on a RW drive, but rough guesses are fine! Thanks in advance for all your help!!

No problem. Don't hack your drive, keep it in a clean room, and stick CDs in your CD drive. Leave the DVD alone for DVD. That's the best metod to keep it in top shape.

[BJ_M]

some drives are just brutes in how long they last - i got a plexor cdr duplicator with just 4 plextor 8 x scsi burners in it .. it prob. burned somewhere around 10,000 cd's total, 1 of them the fan is getting a bit noisy (they are never shut off) , but its a bearing fan and i will replace it soon .
.. those scsi plextors are built very well ..

[F-ING HOSTILE]

Thanks txpharoah, that's great news. I was really expecting to have to replace my drive soon, but should get several years of use out of it (assuming nothing catastrophic happens).

[BJ_M]

of course sometimes they die right away . or a week after the warrenty is up

[disturbed1]

of course sometimes they die right away . or a week after the warrenty is up

That happened to one of my Panasonic burners. 3 days after warranty, dead!

I pre-ordered my A03 ($802 shipped ) when it was first released, burned 1000's (never counted) of DVDs.

One of my Panasonics are about 11 month's old, the others are 2-4 months old.

All burners run constant 1 hour burns, 30 minute cool down, 1 hour burn.... ~12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I've never had anything but blank DVD-R's in the drives, well Ram discs in the Pani's. I couldn't even tell you if they read DVDs

[txpharoah]

I pre-ordered my A03 ($802 shipped ) when it was first released, burned 1000's (never counted) of DVDs.

How'd you manage that deal!
I paid just a few bucks under $1000.