Newbie - need advice on 1st DVD Writer

[stiltman]

BTC drives here have given me solid burns for ... I think it's been a year now on the oldest one. No complaints at all. Have three of them total now. The only complaint is Taiyo Yuden, and then I saw one drive commit suicide on a firmware update (1108IM). The 1108 is an old drive, 8x only. The new ones are the 1016IM drives..

I have the 1016im. I think it's crap compared to my Pioneer.

[lordsmurf]

I have the 1016im. I think it's crap compared to my Pioneer.

I'd agree with that. Same story here.

Pioneer is better than BTC by a bit.

[richdvd]

Bitsetting is one of those "nerd" things too.

I agree.
Use a DVD-R and you don't have to jack around with that Bitsetting crap.

[budz]

lordsmurf wrote

I try to give advice to the "common person". The layman. My people.

Hey! I am not one of your people. I'm not blue, I'm tanned!
It would be great if you did not give misleading information on the PIONEER 109 drive with regard to using the latest version of NERO BURN. Because others do not have any problems with using the latest version of NERO BURN with the 109 drive. I find it misleading to give information to others when you fail to mention that others don't have any problems with using NERO 6 & the 109 drive.

Bitsetting is one of those "nerd" things too.

So is bashing a drive when you haven't owned one or used one. I offered to help you with the BENQ 1620 drive and you brushed me off quite nicely. Then you locked that thread. Now I call that nerdy because apparently you did not want to go any further with that thread.

now back to this thread......get a BENQ 1620 drive and if you have any questions or problems check out the BENQ 1620 FORUM at cdfreaks.com. remember that a forum is mostly used by people when they have problems with their computer hardware or software......every freaking manufacturer of dvd burners will have their pros and cons.....there are many variables in dvd authoring and burning....there is no best brand to purchase....buy what you can afford that will fit your needs.....my 2 cents...

[lordsmurf]

Read my other thread about Nero 6 and the Pioneer 109.
Nothing is misleading. You just misread it.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=257576

[johns0]

Magically changing the booktype rarely helps. .

I disagree with that,any dvd player that didnt read dvd+r would read it after booktype setting it to dvd-rom.

[-jsl-]

Support for 16x media is really the only thing not working well yet. An update in the near future will surely fix that.

We'll see. Pioneer has not been very fast with adding support for new media in the past and the support for 16x media now is quite pathetic as can be seen here.

Bitsetting is one of those "nerd" things too. It's not often needed. Usually if the DVD player does not see DVD+R, it failed because of the hardware. Magically changing the booktype rarely helps.

It's not just a nerd thing. For example if you have a Xbox with Samsung drive it will only play DVD+R with DVD-ROM book type and the same goes for several DVD players from Panasonic, Toshiba and others that don't necessarely need to be very old. And fast search gave a few more comments from people experienced what a small change of a bit can do, see for example here, here, here, here and here.

PI/PO testings ... also a "nerd" thing. Nobody really messes with that. Most people want to burn a disc, and then watch it. If you want to scan it, run a surface test to be sure the burn is good. You don't need PI/PO or speed read tests as Joe Q. Consumer. Even Joe Q. Experienced rarely cares.

A passed "surface test" only tells you the disc is readable without CRC errors on the tested player. It says nothing about the burn quality or how other (maybe worse) readers will be able to handle it. But maybe you don't care about burn quality. After all you use a BTC burner so you probably don't want to know what kind of results it produces

The BENQ drive was not the fault of the system. Other burners worked great in it. The BENQ was just a piece of junk. A survey of 90 people is NOT an acceptable sample for a poll, NOR is a site like that (one concerned MOSTLY with scanning tools) an appropriate polling location.

90 people are at least more than 1 people (that is you)...

You sound like the kind of person that buys a car based on how well the floormats fit in, or the shade of window tint. Totally ignoring gas mileage, warranty, engine size, upkeep costs, etc.

I try to give advice to the "common person". The layman. My people. We are not concerned with the "nerd niche" when it comes to technology. It just needs to work, and decently at that. Obscure frills do not matter.

I think many people care about burn quality, speed, media compatibility and/or compatibility with DVD players for the burned discs. The BenQ is without doubt among the best in all these areas while the BTC pretty much sucks on all so you give bad recommendations to "your people" imo.

[OmahaVike]

hey brett,

not sure if you are still checking this thread. thought i'd update ya on my end.

had a disappointing encounter with that vendor (pcontime.net). shipped it WAY late even though i paid extra for "ship tomorrow" option.

got the drive and started playing with it immediately. after about the 4th burn, the drive died. just went down. after reading quite a bit out there in the great wide, i noticed that there are quite a few incidents of bad drives from benq, and that there are certain "batches" of drives that are just not working.

sent it back RMA and got my money back. although they credited my card immediately, there is absolutely NO communcation from that particular vendor. i had to wait until my cc statement hit my mailbox.

so i just ordered an NEC from newegg which will hopefully fare better.

hoping that you're doing better than i.