Which one? Lite-on or NEC?

[LSchafroth]

I am looking at getting my first DVD burner.

I am looking at the following drives. They both offer Black face plates to match my case.

Lite-on LDW-411S

&

NEC ND1300A

I keep reading about bit settings and compatibility. I will be converting a lot of analog home movies and creating menus and etc for them. I will need good campatibilty with a wide range of DVD players. Lots of family member's tapes and etc.

Thanks!

LS

[RabidDog]

canvas your family members as to what players they have...

[Synergy]

Both burners do not support the bitsetting function, although the NEC ND-1300A could be flashed to a hacked version of the NEC ND-1100A firmware, which does have the bitsetting capability. If you are feeling adventurous enough, you can find the bitsetting hacked firmware 1iH0 7 (1.33) from the Firmware Page Forum:

http://etna.rpc1.org/nec/index.html

[Lobes]

Mate i have the Liteon 411s as my first burner and am a little disapointed with the compatibility of media and quality of burnt movies.

Xbox games work no worries but Im burning movies onto riteks that are still stuttering in one of my dvd players and wont play at all in the other 2.

My 2c is either wait until the firmware is updated or get the pioneer.

[LSchafroth]

Mate i have the Liteon 411s as my first burner and am a little disapointed with the compatibility of media and quality of burnt movies.

Xbox games work no worries but Im burning movies onto riteks that are still stuttering in one of my dvd players and wont play at all in the other 2.

My 2c is either wait until the firmware is updated or get the pioneer.

I see the Pioneer 06D (is that it??) is only $139 shipped. Will it allow bitsettings and is it more compatible then the Lite-On or NEC?

LS

[henry_nettles]

My understanding is that NONE of the dual format dvd writers are able to perform the compatibility bit setting on DVD+R disks.

[Dubber]

Do you REALLY need bit setting capability?????
Most players play DVD-Rs and -R blanks are in general slightly cheaper too.

Here is my 0.02 - I got the NEC 1300A and burn -Rs and +RWs and so far ALL play fine in my Panas RV32 and all the -Rs I burned, play fine in my friends' players... you know, I'd rather give a friend a backup copy to watch than the original :P

[FulciLives]

I recently upgraded from the PIONEER A04/104 to the NEC ND-1300A and I am very happy with it.

Basically I upgraded mostly for 4x burning but also to have DVD+R burning capability since the PIONEER I had once a -R/-RW only drive.

However I really only intend to ever do -R burning since that works well in all of my stand alone DVD players.

I haven't had my NEC for long but so far I've burned about 12 DVD-R discs at 4x with little to no problems. I say little to no because I did have a few discs that had read errors near the very end of the disc but that very well could be the media ... some of my discs had this ... 2 of the 12 I burned did have problems (READ ERRORS while testing the BURNED discs with DVDInfoPro). In both instances the READ ERRORS didn't start till about the 4.2 mark so I just try my best to make sure my content is just under the 4.2 mark and I just burned a DVD that was about 4.14GB with no READ ERRORS at all

I've been using the 1x-4x Certified BeAll DVD-R discs from MERITLINE.COM

My NEC came with FIRMWARE 1.05 which I have yet to upgrade. I'm waiting to see what new firmware might be comming if I don't see one in a bit then I might flash to the official 1.07 but so far no real problems so if it ain't broke don't fix it

BTW the NEC lists the 4x Optorite DVD-R discs as being on the compatible list ... anyone use those? I know RIMA.COM has them for dirt cheap ... cheaper than the BeAll discs I've been using anyway.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[karhooi]

I use NEC ND-1300A and there is no problem for me at all.

[Blaksvn]

The NEC 1300a is real cheap here

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=633726&Sku=N27-5800&Tab=0

[videobruce]

Watch out!

This is a OEM version, others have complained that NEC doesn't support OEM drives!!!

Try looking at the Pioneer 106 or the Optorite DDO 0203.

Do a search here first.

[Mrdogno8]

NEC appear to call drives 'bulk' what I would call OEM ie supplied without cables/software etc. The OEM drives they refer to are the rebadged drives found in eg Dell machines. I've had no problems flashing my 'bulk' drive with updated firmware.

[Sephirot]

I have the LiteOn LDW-411S, and so far it burns perfectly, both + and - (using Nashua +/-R discs and Platinum +RW discs). Quality is very satisfying so far.

A friend of mine has the NEC1300, and he says the same about his one, except for the fact that he's had some problems with Nashua +R/W media.

[RAAGAAman]

I would go with the NEC drive. It is a quality drive and it I see better write quality from NEC. Liteon also has thermal issues. If you plan on using the Liteon drive make sure you have it installed so it stays cool.


RG