Nec 1300A or Optorite

[powaking]

I'm narrowed the list down to 2 burners.

I like the NEC for the support of the different media types with the modified firmwares.

I like the Optorite for the HD-Burn feature. You don't know how many CDs I have stacked of burned "stuff" I have. Would be nice to trim that stack down a bit.

Price wise they are about both the same.

Can anyone give a good enough reason as to which drive I should go with? Additional Pro's and Con's for each one.

Thanks

[mikepaul]

I have both, each installed on a different machine.

I use DVD Complete 2.5, and until I got the GEAR driver update from ftp://downloads.gearsoftware.com/pub/updates/windows/win32/drivers/Driver_Installer.exe I couldn't use any 4x burner with it.

Now, I've managed to use the DD0203 a few times, but Prime 4x media burns at 1x speed. I'm still trying to get an answer on this.

Using DVD Complete 2.06 a little while back, the 1300A successfully burned 1x Princos at 2x, but that's because the NEC won't do just 1x. I'll probably put the 1300A on the machine I use for DVD authoring, and use the DD0203 on the other when I need to burn two disks at once.

If I had it to do over again, I'd still have gotten both, since the DD0203 will still make a good upgrade from a DVD-ROM drive. However, if one is all your budget can handle, I'd say try the 1300A...

[dap]

I’ve got the Optorite DD0203 and have no problems burning at 4x on TDK+R and TDK-R at 2x. This is my first DVD burner and I have not tried a lot of media, but I have two spindles of + and – TDK’s that I bought at Costco and no coasters yet. Have not used HD-Burn yet, but I too think this feature alone is one of the strongest selling points for this drive.
I like it and would buy it again. For a ± drive the price is really hard to beat.

[obeck]

I'm narrowed the list down to 2 burners.

I like the NEC for the support of the different media types with the modified firmwares.

I like the Optorite for the HD-Burn feature. You don't know how many CDs I have stacked of burned "stuff" I have. Would be nice to trim that stack down a bit.

Price wise they are about both the same.

Can anyone give a good enough reason as to which drive I should go with? Additional Pro's and Con's for each one.

Thanks

I recently (last week!) went with the Optorite. I have had good success with Ritek -R, Verbatim -R (CMC) and Memorex +R (Ricoh).

All disks play in every recent (less than two years old) standalone players that I have tried. I did note that the -R data disks have problems playing in PC DVD-ROM players, and others have noted this as well. +R discs are fine. I also have Philips +RW disks, but cannot get the drive to recognize them. Since other people in the forum have had success with these disks, I am not sure what the problem is.

In all, the Optorite seems to be a good drive, but only time and lots of burns will tell in the long run. I have had 100% successful burns with Nero, and discs seem compatible with most drives, so I am happy.

P.S. I have tried the disks in: Mintek, Philips, Mitsubishi standalone players. The only standalone that they will not work in is a 1998 Panasonic A120. If you have a particular player in mind, check the database.

[carlosn]

One reason i went with the 1300a is because of the hd-burn feature of the optorite. If the optorite breaks down what else can read hd-burn...? I figure i want to burn in a std format so reading wont be a prob in the future.

Remember Mt. Rainer is around the corner and is supported by a number of companies as the successor to UDF for easy writing to optical media. I figure hd-burn will be short lived. Anything can happen, these are only my thoughts...

[RabidDog]

Mt rainier is here and is only good on brand new RW disks the first time you format them,. Agree somewhat on HD-burn, this was supposed to get widespread support but this is not the case so, as you say, where will you read/ play your HD disks. Just burn your stuff to a std DVD and get 4.3Gb of storage! 8)
I was contemplating getting the optorite but am holding out till something else exciting comes along??