Best Burner

[Mikey049]

Looking for a burner today. Either buy locally or order from NewEgg. I ahve been looking at the LiteOn 401s, the Pioneer DVR-105S. I am trying to keep the price to the 150-160 range. What is the best buy for the money?

[Metaluna]

If you're mainly interested in -R burning, the Pioneer should do a better job (especially with cheap media) than any combo drive. Otherwise, the Liteon (which I think is supposed to be the same drive as the Sony DRU500A, but with a smaller buffer) or one of the NEC 1300a-based drives are good.

[Mikey049]

I am new at this. So what would you say is cheap media? And will the LiteOn have real difficulty with burning these cheap DVDs? One reason I liked the LirOn is the CD burn speeds as well. But I don't really need the burn speed for that, because I have a LiteOn 52X already. I palced the order with NewEgg then cancelled. NewEgg only has the black bezeled Pioneer 105. Any other suggestions where to order?

[LanEvo7]

I think you should just fork out the extra $40 and get the Pioneer A06. You can burn both types of media with it. Retail stores like best buy and staples generally have more sales on +R media for some reason, but on average -R media is cheaper. So get a dual drive and get the best of both worlds.

[-jsl-]

If you're mainly interested in -R burning, the Pioneer should do a better job (especially with cheap media) than any combo drive.

True since the Lite-On LDW-401S is a DVD+R/RW writer

Otherwise, the Liteon (which I think is supposed to be the same drive as the Sony DRU500A, but with a smaller buffer) or one of the NEC 1300a-based drives are good.

Lite-On LDW-401S is made by Lite-On. It's the LDW-400D which is a Sony OEM drive.

Out of the LDW-401S and the DVR105 I would choose the former. The Pioneer has quite outdated specs now if you compare it with the Lite-On.

But get a dual format drive if you're worried about the so called format war or simply just want to be able to burn both DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW.

[phinsman]

I have the Sony 510 drive and am elated with it, aside from the software. The only thing I really like in the package is RecordNow, which I'm liking more and more every day.

This drive is very quiet, burns both media types at 4X, and CD-Rs at 24X. Plus it has an 8 MB buffer which is four times the buffer most other burners have.

Dale

[Mikey049]

Finally decided to get the LiteOn 401S. What's the best software for this burner, just to make backups of my DVDs?

[phinsman]

If all you want to do is make DVD backups, I don't see why you need anything more than DVD Decrypter (free) and one of the transcoders (DVD2One, DVD Shrink, CloneDVD, etc.) for DVD-9's.

Then you can use whatever burning software comes with your burner to finish the job.

This assuming you don't mind the hard-to-notice quality drop when you backup a DVD-9. If you want to maintain the quality you have to get DVDXCopy, as far as I know, and put those on 2 discs.

DVD Shrink is free too, so it's possible you won't have to spend a cent.

Dale

[fbreve]

To make buckups I use:
- DVD Shrink to rip, remove macrovision and RCE crap and shrink if needed
- Nero to burn

Of course you can replace Nero by any other recording software you want

[Gil T Pleasure]

Mikey049,

When you get your LiteOn drive, can you let us know if the drive is locked at 2x rip speed. Also, can you verify whether the drive supports bitsetting. I asked these questions before (don't remember which forum now), but can't recall if someone had answered them or not.

Thanks!

[Mikey049]

Will try these things you all mentioned, and will let you know the outcome.

[tompika]

can you verify whether the drive supports bitsetting.

It does not.


I just asked a guy who has one

[coastman49]

After using the helpful guides of DVDR help, I was able to encode two movie backups successfully using DVD Shrink 3.0 Beta 5. I really like my new LiteOn 401s. I know it's not dual format and all that stuff, but it does what I paid for it to do. After encoding, I was able to burn sucessfully using Nero 6.0. Thanks for all your help.

I still don't know it it is locked at 2x for ripping like someone asked. How do I find out?

[soundforbjt]

Heard this from an owner of the Lite-On from another forum. This drive is not locked at 2x ripping.

[StudeBarc]

Folks,

I have recently added the Lite-ON 401S as a USB2.0 device to my PC. This was mainly to see whether the time has come to move on from my Ricoh MP5125 2.4x unit. The observations I have made so far with the 401S are:

1) The unit is uncomplicated. Mine came with a copy of PowerDVD XP and Sonic MyDVD V4.0. I haven't installed either so make of the software what you will. It also came with 1 of 4x +R blank disc (RICOHJPNR01) and 1 of 4x +RW blank disc (RICOHJPNW11).

2) The 401S is currently unable to provide Bit-Setting options when burning, so +R/RW will remain as that. DVDinfoPro cannot gather Manufacturer information via the drive on blank media at this point (firmware Vers ES0E).

3) Data back-up burn speed via Nero6 using multi-session and ISO9660 defaults is fully as expected. 1.7gig in around 5 1/2 minutes. The data was then able to be read easily by the Lite-On and the Ricoh...no problems. Further multi-session checks for backing up continue.

4) DVD-Video burn via Record Now Max 4.5 to a non-descript (RICOHJPNR00) produced an interesting result. These discs are typically referred to as 2.4x write speed and in the 5125 take around the 24mins to burn a full disc. The Lite-On used a 4x burn strategy on this disc when left at MAX burn speed. Yep it burned in ~14 minutes. The end Result +R disc is accepted and plays fine in 3 of 4 players I can run +R type discs on. A freezing and less than acceptable playback was noted on 1 player. The same disc burned at 2.4x will play back faultlessly on 4 from 4.

5) Investigation of further on the blank and burned media reveals that ANY of the RICOHJPNR00 discs can be burned at 4x via write descriptor in DVDinfoPro. The below is output from a Blank RICOHJPNR00 +R disc being read by the 401S in DVDinfoPro:

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Manufacturer ID cannot be read
Format Capacity Blank
Free Blocks 405405696
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type Unknown
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed Unknown
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Linear Density Blank Disc
Track Density Unknown
Number of Layers 1


Available write descriptor represents the burn strategy available for that Media and the drive. A DVDinfoPro Media read of a Blank Verbatim +R (MCC 001) disc shows this:

Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Manufacturer ID cannot be read
Format Capacity Blank
Free Blocks 405405696
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type Unknown
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed Unknown
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Linear Density Blank Disc
Track Density Unknown
Number of Layers 1

I can only assume that Lite-On have set their firmware to allow the 4x write strategy to the previously 2.4x only discs which carry the RICOHJPNR00 media description. These include Ritek, Ricoh, TDK (some), Ridata and many other brands or bulk packs.

CONCLUSION: If you want to burn at 4x to +R and you find that the results are acceptable on YOUR players then the Lite-On 401S currently allows such to ONE previously accepted 2.4x media. I assume that labelled 4x +R media would perform as expected. Provided bit-setting is not required then burning at 2.4 or 4x with this unit will provide good results. The use of 4x +RW for backing up and other uses is a nice option if your burning usage extends to such. And as per usual Lite-On continues the tradition of competitive pricing on their products (at least here in Oz....Retail Price ~$288 Aust.).


Comments and further findings are most welcome.

Regards
Studebarc 8)

[coastman49]

Very good detailed post. Thanks for the info. Have used TDK 4X so far for DVD+R movie backups, and Nero burns in about 14 minutes. I paid $144 @ NewEgg(free shipping).

[handyguy]

Best on is a Panasonic Authoring dvd writer.

"This drive is very quiet, burns both media types at 4X, and CD-Rs at 24X."

Sony just made speed selector software for this 510, you can do dvdreading at 8x-12x ....its on Sony.com

here ya are have fun, you do have to do a short survey
http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/dru510adwn.htm

[Ziffelpig]

Even the best DVD-rewriter will be obsolete in a year, and probably 100 bucks cheaper too. I was looking for a capable yet inexpensive DVD-R writing solution, I ended up buying the LG GMA 4020B, it comes with Win DVD 4,two media, a DVD-RW disc, DVD-Ram disc, and some burning and authoring software. Not only has it done everything it promised on the box it also verified all positive comments in the DVD writers section.(Besides the price $149CDN, the great comments were the main reason I bought it)