Optorite DD0203 vs Nec 1300a or others

[Suga-Sam]

I have actually just purchased an optorite dd0203. And am having problems with the Drive.
Will Not play a DVD, Is set to Region 2, And only occansionlly will even reconize a data disk. I have not bothered to try to burn anything, (cant even play one how can it burn 1 correctly)
Anyway I am trying to decide if I should return it for an exchange and hopefully work replacement or eat 25% and switch to the Nec 1300a or other model
Any insight u can offer would be helpful
Thanx

[Suga-Sam]

Does anyone have an opinion for me I need to decide soon.
Thx

[Suga-Sam]

Well thank you so much for all the help

[freestyler]

I love my 1300A, burns cheap 1x Princos at 2x without any patches, I've burned over 100 discs (data and movies) and hasn't given me any problems whatsoever. If you wanna use some off brand media, get one of Herries hacked firmwares and you'll be glad you did, his firmware ups the ripping speed and allows you to burn on cheaper discs. For some reason, Nero 5.5 doesn't like this burner for DVD-R discs, but if you use other software this burner is for you.

if you have any more in depth questions about this burner, just drop me a PM

[vance43211]

people had reported problems with that drive on this site and pinnacle's forum

[twodogs]

have a (long) read here:
http://forum.firmware-flash.com/viewtopic.php?t=13300

forget the early reviews and read on from about page 4-5, after the later firmwares had been tested/discussed.

looks like more success in recent times, although plenty of horror stories early on.

[Dubber]

I'm another happy user of NEC ND-1300A drive.

I use Memorex DVD-R v.2.0 and Verbatim DVD+RW 2.4x disks that work without a problem.
Software wise, the drive came with Nero Xpress 5.5.x.x and Nero Vision Xpress 1.0.4.x, I went to their site and got free updates for the proggies, they work perfectly for me.