anyone own a dual layer burner

[monkijin]

hiya
i am thinking of upgrading my old nec1300a for one of these dual layer burners and just wondered what you guys are using,i could always upgrade to an 8x burner but i think i will invest in a dual layer.
are they worth upgrading to yet or is it a waiting game.
are the discs available yet or are they expensive.
just wan't some light shed on the it.
cheers
..............dave

[ricky1756]

you can get an 8x speed dual layer burner for 79.00 bucks, you might as well go for it

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=924345&Sku=M199-1008

this is made by nec

[dafoe]

Try the words dual layer, media and burner in the search box.

Before I would even consider buying a dual layer burner it would have to allow bitsetting.

But more importantly, the media has to drop significantly in price. I will not pay more than $2 for dual layer media. And given the cost of single layer media, there's no reason anybody should.

Last Thanksgiving I "upgraded" from my 3 year old 1x -R/Ram burner. I bought a 4x +/-/RW burner at Staples for $100 after rebate. The piece of shit lasted four months.

Now I am back to burning DVDs at 1x with my old burner. Not a big deal since I don't burn many DVDs. But I'm not all that anxious to spend $ on a another burner yet.

Actually, I bought a DVD Drive and an office phone at Staples. I even made the mistake of buying some Staples CD-Rs- all of it was junk.

Almost everything I've purchased at Staples was junk. At least I've finally learned my lesson. I avoid Staples like the plague.

[bigjimmpls]

I just bought a liteon dual layer off of newegg and I love it. It was $80 and there were no rebates to send in. Cost like 11 shipping so totalled $91.00. Best buy wanted $179.00 for the same burner. Just burned my dual layer with DVD Author and it worked wonderful. Might want to look at newegg for the liteon. I originally went to buy the Sony that best buy had for $139 after rebate but the guy as best buy or the geek squad told me that liteon does a better job of copying dvd's. says the sony was a hit or miss. Just what I heard. Good Luck

[monkijin]

the media is expensive and i have heard not all dvd drives can read what has been burnt.
is it worth waiting untill it gets a bit more understood
...................dave

[QuaiBoy]

the media is expensive and i have heard not all dvd drives can read what has been burnt.
is it worth waiting untill it gets a bit more understood
...................dave

Unless you have a specific need for 8.5GB of storage immediately, or the drive you are considering offers DL burning at little or no additional cost, I'd advise holding off. I wouldn't trust any important data to Gen1 DL discs, not to mention the fact that they cost more than I pay for 15 or more G04s and burn slower to boot. Even if the drive you purchase today offers DL burning, are you really going to want to wait 45mins to burn a disc?
If I were you, I'd keep the NEC (which is a capable burner) until DL matures. I'm keeping my Pio 106 until the price is right.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

[lenti_75]

same thoughts.....unless my NEC 110 dies.....no DL....

[chas0039]

If you do a lot of +R media the Liteon 812S is a great deal at Newegg, $68 free shipping, and the guys at http://codeguys.rpc1.org/index.html have a great firmware update to 832S dual layer. It works well with RICOHJPNR01 media and OK with Prodisc S03 -R. Also does bitsetting.

Not the greatest burner for -R but a LOT of firmware support.

[vandakeg]

I originally went to buy the Sony that best buy had for $139 after rebate but the guy as best buy or the geek squad told me that liteon does a better job of copying dvd's. says the sony was a hit or miss. Just what I heard. Good Luck

I normally find that it's in my best interest to do the exact opposite of what a Best Buy employee tells me!

[monkijin]

the media is expensive and i have heard not all dvd drives can read what has been burnt.
is it worth waiting untill it gets a bit more understood
...................dave

Unless you have a specific need for 8.5GB of storage immediately, or the drive you are considering offers DL burning at little or no additional cost, I'd advise holding off. I wouldn't trust any important data to Gen1 DL discs, not to mention the fact that they cost more than I pay for 15 or more G04s and burn slower to boot. Even if the drive you purchase today offers DL burning, are you really going to want to wait 45mins to burn a disc?
If I were you, I'd keep the NEC (which is a capable burner) until DL matures. I'm keeping my Pio 106 until the price is right.

Best of Luck,
-Evan-

i think i will hold off for a little while before i commit and see what burners filter through,the discs are rather expensive at the moment and seem to fluctuate in price a lot even the cheap ones.
i,ll stick with my old nec untill it starts to play up.
thanks for your input people appreciated.
..........................dave

[ccbadd]

I originally went to buy the Sony that best buy had for $139 after rebate but the guy as best buy or the geek squad told me that liteon does a better job of copying dvd's. says the sony was a hit or miss.

The Sony dual layer writer (700A) is a rebadged Liteon. I don't know which one was on sale at BB, but if it was the 700A, then the guy there has no idea what he is talking about.

[handyguy]

Get a pioneer 108, 16x dvd writes & 4 x dl writes, 8x media writes @16x & oh, 4x dl media comes in January (yes, january) Just $129 oem.

[ViRaL1]

Reports on 12x and 16x burning on the 108 aren't good. 108 burning at 16x is slower than 12x on some other writers. The NEC has the same specs. May or may not be any better. NEC and Pioneer both talk about writing 4x DL with 2.4 media, although it's probably about as hit or miss as writing at 8x with 4x SL media.

[-jsl-]

Reports on 12x and 16x burning on the 108 aren't good. 108 burning at 16x is slower than 12x on some other writers. The NEC has the same specs. May or may not be any better. NEC and Pioneer both talk about writing 4x DL with 2.4 media, although it's probably about as hit or miss as writing at 8x with 4x SL media.

Pioneer uses ZCLV for 12x and 16x burning while NEC uses (P)CAV so the ND-3500A should easily be faster than the A08.