LiteOn DVD Burners - Quality?

[SCDVD]

Does anyone have any insight about LiteOn's more recent drives? Their earlier drives weren't that good as far as recording quality goes. Are their more recent drives any better? Their most recent introduction is the SHW-16H5S. Has anyone had any hands on experience with this drive?

[lordsmurf]

I think they've long been good burners. Still are.

[budz]

@lordsmurf! sheesh i remember you once calling LITEON burners crappy..... :P

To SCDVD: Check out the LITEON FORUM at Cdfreaks.com for more information. From what I've read about the LITEON burners is that they tend to burn DVD+R media better than DVD-R media. I have one of their old dvd burners the 411@811 and yup it burned DVD-R media terribly but DVD+R media it burned well. SONY has been using rebadged LITEON dvd burners the last few years but the SONY 810A is a rebadged BENQ drive. I guess SONY didn't like LITEON quality.

[Alan69]

@lordsmurf! sheesh i remember you once calling LITEON burners crappy..... :P

To SCDVD: Check out the LITEON FORUM at Cdfreaks.com for more information. From what I've read about the LITEON burners is that they tend to burn DVD+R media better than DVD-R media. I have one of their old dvd burners the 411@811 and yup it burned DVD-R media terribly but DVD+R media it burned well. SONY has been using rebadged LITEON dvd burners the last few years but the SONY 810A is a rebadged BENQ drive. I guess SONY didn't like LITEON quality.

New Liteon's (1693S) seem to be fairly well liked. The new Plextor is arguably better, but also it's $80 vs $40 for the Liteon. Just got one myself and it seems quite good so far.

Alan

[lordsmurf]

I never had issue with a LITEON burning good media. It tended to choke on RITEK and some of the lesser media. In my opinion, the media is more to blame.

I fail to see what people like in Plextor. A lot of people (myself included) share the opinion that the "Plextor is best/better/good" is price related. People think it's better because it costs more, which is not really the case.

[pinetop]

I have an external LiteOn DVD burner 812SX. Have had it for over a year now, and it is used almost everyday.

I burn nothing but DVD-R. And have burned over 600 of them. No problems with DVD-R.

LiteOn makes a darn good burner IMO.

[Alan69]

I fail to see what people like in Plextor. A lot of people (myself included) share the opinion that the "Plextor is best/better/good" is price related. People think it's better because it costs more, which is not really the case.

Read the testing, it is clearly better at some tasks and the Liteon is lesser although improved. It is a bit better despite the $80 price not because of it.

[budz]

I fail to see what people like in Plextor. A lot of people (myself included) share the opinion that the "Plextor is best/better/good" is price related. People think it's better because it costs more, which is not really the case.

Read the testing, it is clearly better at some tasks and the Liteon is lesser although improved. It is a bit better despite the $80 price not because of it.

I have a Plextor 708A drive that's only a 4x burner but it can burn DVD+R 4x @8x speed. No playback problems at all. The Plextor 740 is a rebadged BENQ 1640 drive. Plextor must have realized the BENQ 1620 drives were outselling their 716A drive. As I mentioned SONY no longer uses rebadged LITEON drives. Seems to me every other manufacturer is having BENQ manufacture their dvd burners. TEAC is another brand that will be using BENQ drives as well. LITEON made good cdrw burners but their dvd burners are still many paces behind BENQ, PLEXTOR & PIONEER.

[winifreid]

I have never really had a problem with My liteons. I have used 3 in the past and have the 1693 ( all three are still being used). Liteon is very good about releasing firmware and then there are the codeguys that produce great hacks. I don't have a problem with cheap media, and it loves ritek.

[obs]

I fail to see what people like in Plextor. A lot of people (myself included) share the opinion that the "Plextor is best/better/good" is price related. People think it's better because it costs more, which is not really the case.

I choose Plextor for its Digital Audio capabilities. You can't beat a Plextor and Plextools for ripping audio CDs (although a non-audio-caching drive + EAC is as good).

For DVD burning quality, it's probably not worth the money compared to other drives. And people complain that Plextors don't like cheap media but you don't buy a nice receiver and use crappy speakers so ...

But anyways, why buy a LiteOn writer when you can get others that perform better at around the same price?

[rhegedus]

Does anyone have any insight about LiteOn's more recent drives? Their earlier drives weren't that good as far as recording quality goes. Are their more recent drives any better? Their most recent introduction is the SHW-16H5S. Has anyone had any hands on experience with this drive?

Never had a Lite-On badged drive, but I know they make drives for other big companies like Sony. Infact, my Sony DRU-700 is a rebadged Lite-On.

Never had a problem provided you stick to the drives capabilities.

[obs]

Never had a problem provided you stick to the drives capabilities.

This doesn't really say a lot though. It's like people who think in regards to CD-R or DVD R media: "It burns successfully, therefore it is good quality."

"Never had a problem" = not absolute junk ... but it does not mean it is actually GOOD.

[rhegedus]

If it does exactly what it's meant to do (and for which specifications you bought it) then it works.

If you try and use it outside of its capabilities and it doesn't work then it's not a fault.....

There's no grey area here.

[ROF]

I installed a Lite-On SHW-16H5S for a customer recently and burnt two discs to make sure proper operation. I was impressed with the quickness of it's lightscribe. It's support for -/+ DL media is also good and it does write at 8x on -R DL Media as advertised. The one thing I did notice is that when ripping a DL Movie disc the drive was locked at 8x. This appears to be the norm for some drives and since ripping isn't something done by most people I wouldn't worry about it. I do not have any extensive experience with it, but my first impressions were good. It installed rather quickly. It was picked up by the OS(WinXP-SP2) on first boot. Latest Firmware supplied on drive. Two Burns performed by me: DVD-r DL and DVD+R LS. No problems with either.

[winifreid]

You can use altered firmware to increase the rip speed.

[ROF]

Where can you get it for this 5th generation drive?

[winifreid]

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=97590

[ROF]

The Smart-X is good for 3rd Generation or older drives and a few fourth generations that rip-locked at 4 or 6x, but most fourth generation and this fifth generation drive do not benefit from disabling Smart-X. There has even been damaged caused by disabling it on 4th generation drives. Definitely, be very cautious if you attempt to use this tool on your latest drives.

[winifreid]

What?

[ROF]

The Omni-Patcher Smart-X Disable/Enable Switch can cause damage to some fourth generation drives and isn't supported in fifth generation.