life expectancy of stand alone DVD recorders?

[entsminger]

How many DVD's should one expect a DVD recorder to burn before it starts to fail? I have gone through at least 4 DVD burners in several years. Two panasonics and 2 Sonys. It seems like they start having trouble after 150 or so DVD's going through them. I use the lens cleaner and blow them out with air every now and then but they still don't seem to last very long? Some people tell me I should be able to burn thousands before the unit starts to have trouble , others say they aren't made to last long? I have VCR's that have lasted many years and gone though a thousand tapes and keep on going. I thought sony was good but this will be my third unit in 2 years. What's to be expected from a consumer DVD recorder and is there one make/model that will out last the others.

Scott

[redwudz]

That type of failure rate would make me shy away from Sony. JVC, Pioneer, Toshiba are all well rated. There really should be no reason that a DVD recorder shouldn't last as long as a DVD burner, and that should be a thousand discs or better. (Of course in the real world they may not last that long. )

[ROF]

There are too many factors to make an accurate prediction. I may buy a JVC that was DOA for the customer who bought the same one before me. While mine continues to last three years later the customer who bought the same model in checkout line right behind me had theirs die within the first year. Environment is one factor, location of the device in relation to other devices is another. Amount of dust or debris(pet hair, etc.) in the environment. Smoking around or in the same area as the device. Direct sunlight. Amount of times you move the device. Plus assorted other factors such as amount of use, type of use, amount of dirty discs read/burned. Then there is the manufacturer. While someone may get a thursday afternoon built device yours might be what they call a monday morning device. Everything must meet manufacturer specs but those specs allow for certain variations. If a certain variation causes your device to fail this variation may not appear on some elses device.

My burners have never died. I've had two players outright die, but never a single burner. I've repaired several but these were usually unrelated to the burning process(tray doors, no spin up, etc.). I've also seen a few dead burners too which were either beyond repair or to expensive to justify. I'd say that if you take care of a device it will take of you.

If it doesn't return it as DOA if within the first few years. Even without a receipt of an out of warranty device as long the electronics store still carries this item you should be able to do a 1 for 1 swap.

Lie about it's age if necessary.

[trhouse]

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?p=527840

[BobK]

Lie about it's age if necessary.

So how is stealing from an electronics store acceptable to you when copying a movie is a dastardly thing that's taking money out of your pocket and food out of your kids mouths? Or don't you don't own any stock in electronics stores and consider stealing okay if it doesn't directly affect you?

[TBoneit]

Smoking will shorten lfe of any optical drive. Look at the Windshield on the car of a haeavy smoker, That same gunk is in their lungs and building up on the laser lens diffusung the laser when it goes to burn. As the coating builds up it'll shorten life of the drive and a lens cleaner or blowing out the drive won't help as the film is deposited on the lens. Only a physical cleaning via disassembly will work.

IMHO of course

[Bridge]

Personally, I've had a Panasonic burner and two Lite ons go bad so far. Very sad. You spend all of this money and hope or expect it to last years and years like the old type VCRs before they made them $1.98 cheap. Yet, they charge tons of money for these things and they (or at least the burners) are made cheap already. I have an old VCR from '84 and that thing still works yet I've had to have three burners/units replaced in three years. The Panasonic and Lite on only lasted a year before the burner went bad and had to be replaced.

[LCSHG]

[ entsminger ]

Don't ever buy a Sony. They are overpriced junk.

You say that all your units died using more or less 150 disks and 4 units. I just can't see it
You need to be specific, Why do they not work With that little use Even a Sony should still work

Edit
I have two WalMart ILO HD04 units made by LiteOn. One has burned well over 1500 disks the other over 500 nd no problems with either.

[BobK]

I'm not fan of Sony, but one person having 2 Sony and 2 Panny burners all going bad after less than 200 disks is very likely due to either user error of some type, or the worst run of bad luck in the history of home DVD burning.

I had a Sony (my first burner) go bad after less than a year and about 300 disks. Since then I've burned over 3000 disks on a Liteon 851 (and it's still burning), over 400 disks on a Liteon 1693 and over 500 disks each on 2 Pioneer standalones.

I use the lens cleaner and blow them out with air every now and then but they still don't seem to last very long?

That could be why. I've had several people (that know more than me) tell me that using lens cleaner regularily can cause more damage than it prevents. I don't know if that's true, but I've never used it on any of my burners. How many times have you used the lens cleaner before you reached the 150 mark when the drives started having problems?

[oldfart13]

The lens cleaner will screw up the lenses unless it is just water or alcohol as the lenses are only plastic and will pit or dissolve because of the cleaner (many use corrosive agents that would not affect glass but are no good for plastic). I use compressed air only myself...

[entsminger]

Well we don't smoke and we try to keep the house clean but I'm sure it has it's share of dust? I only really start using the lens cleaning disk after the units start malfunctioning. This type lens disk only has a soft brush, no chemicals. I use dust off air spray ocassionally as well. After some 100 or so DVD's the units like Panasonic started having trouble finializing or won't finalize at all. The sony's always read dirty disk after some 100 or so DVD's but from what I hear that is not the problem? I have tried many different disks of different cost range and it makes no difference. This last sony which is in the shop again for repair would quit recording at about 30 minutes into a disk sometimes. It varied, some times it would work , other times it wouldn't??
Short history-----I had two Panasonics that were on a service contract that started having trouble. After much frustration I got a refund and got a sony. The first one went about 150 disks before it started reading dirty disk or quit half way through recording. I sent it in for repair. It came back and did the same thing in a few days. I demanded a new one and got another newer sony. Now after 150 disks it's doing the same thing. I'm sure when it gets back from the shop it will malfunction again as soon as the other did.
The only thing I can think of is a dust problem but how can I stop dust from getting in it? It needs air to keep cool so I don't think I can put it in a sealed container? How far away should I have other electronic equipment like tv set or VCR to be safe?

[TBoneit]

There is no doubt in my mind that the newer drives are not as good as the old ones, having said that they should still last longer than 150 discs.

My original Sony 500A burned tons of discs and only went bad due to unintentional abuse. IOW I put a 8X only disc into a 4X burner and it tried to burn it and I suspect damaged the laser as it was OK until then. I'd just guessing at the amount of discs burned but it had to be lots as I was doing several a day of video extracted from a DVRs Hard drive. Although many have knocked them that 500a burner worked on any brand of 1 to 4X media I tried in it flawlessly. I've gone back and the Princo 1X and Optodisc 2X I ran through it still play fine now. These days I'm using a Lite-On here at work and a Pioneer 509 (109) and 531H Recorder at home and stick to MIJ when I can find them or as right now I stocked up on verbatims when they were on sale.

For sure something funny is going on in your computer or ou have the worst luck I've ever heard of. The last time I saw a serial defect in a computer it was power supplies, So I suggested going to a home improvement/electrical supply house and getting a tester for the oulet, Sure enough in his case the outlet needed fixing. Unfortunately I can't think of anything environmental beyond smoking to cause this problem and you ruled that out.

So Good Luck and maybe try a Pioneer next?
Cheers

[Markenstein]

Wow! My Sony did the EXACT same thing. Brand new discs giving me "Dirty Disc" errors, trouble finalizing, stopping itself in the middle of a recording, etc. I don't know how many discs mine went thru, but I got about 1 year out of my Sony. Before that I had a Philips and got 1 year out of that as well. Getting only 1 year out of a 3-4 hundred dollar unit is CRAP in my opinion. My house is clean, no pets, and no smokers,......but I never turned the unit off. It was on all the time. Not recording though, just powered on. I wonder if that matters in a recorders life span.
Best Buy just replaced my old broken Sony with a new Sony. I plan to use it sparingly and only turn it on when I need it. In fact I dug out my old VCR to use instead for just general taping. Kind of sucks though, that you buy an expensive recorder to give you quality copies,......but you're affraid to use it for fear of it breaking.
With the poor performance of these stand alone units, and with the built in COPY PROTECT function (not allowing recording from TV) that new recorders are manufactured with, I'll probably not be buying another recorder. I see no reason to own one that's prone to breaking and won't tape TV anyways.

[handyguy]

All of my dvd writers, Sonys, Necs, Panasonics are still working just fine after 3 years. But then I only put new disks in them so to keep my lasers clean.

When they can't read, clean your laser.

[entsminger]

I only put new disks in mine as well. How do I clean the laser other than a lens cleaning disk or dust off can? The first sony recorder I left it on all the time, my last I turned it off alot. Didn't make any difference in it's longevity.

Scott

[tnamrog]

Are you using your recorder to play them as well? This could shorten the life somewhat, but not to the point as you described.

[gshelley61]

Most standalone DVD recorders have a case fan, and many of them run all the time whether the unit is turned on or not. This draws cool air through the unit, but has the side effect of making the laser reading lens in the burner get a little grimy or dusty over time. The same thing can happen with computers that are left running 24/7... dust and grime settles on the internal components over time as room air is drawn through the case by the cooling fans.

The store-bought lens cleaning discs don't always work that well. Sometimes you have to open the unit up and clean the burner's laser reading lens by hand (carefully).

[handyguy]

So, getting one with a hd is better as it saves work on your writer. Plus you can put another hd in easily.

[samijubal]

I had a Panasonic E-20 last 2 1/2 years of moderate use. My Panasonic E10 from 2001 still works fine after heavy use.

[oldfart13]

My E-80H bought 3 years ago is still running fine. It's recording a program to the HDD as I type this. The Daytek DP-30/Liteon 5001 drive packed it in after moderate use of less than a year so my friend sold it to me for $20. I replaced the drive with an LG4040B I wasn't using anymore and it's running fine even though I put about 6 hours on it per day. I simply can't say the old drives were better than the newer ones...

[pluche]

I bought my first dvd recorder Panasonic DMR E20 in november 2001 (pretty expensive then !) - it has been used daily ever since and still works fine

I believe it is important to give those machines enough space for cooling, not only for the ventilator but also for loosing heat via the metal body; never put anything on top of it while it is working;

then it is connected to power via a cheap chinese made AVR (automatic voltage regulator) and when not used I cut the power off

[samijubal]

That's when I bought my E20 that died around May/June 04. It had plenty of ventilation and was connected to a Panamax surge protector. It would still record fine, but would fail the finalization.

[handyguy]

Could be the disks, they are picky or a dirty laser.

I keep my panasonics on the energy saving mode.

[classfour]

I've burned several (100s) with the following drives:
Panasonic LFD-521 - Nov 2001, still working
Toshiba SDR5002 - Sept 2002, still working
Plextor PX712A - May 2004, still working

These are installed in my latest build, maybe 50 discs each:
Panasonic B100 - July 2005, still working
NEC 3520A - July 2005, still working
Plextor PX712SA, May 2005, still working

Portable: Plextor 716UF, over 100 discs, just breakin' it in.

Standalones:
Panasonic DMR-E20 - Sept 2001, replaced a trio of failed Terapins
that died in short sequence. I've burned 100s of DVD-R discs, then
switched to recording TV shows on DVD-RAMs, burned many, many
discs. I've had two failures due to crappy media - one out of a trio of Memorex DVD-RAM discs that wouldn't format.

Panasonic DMR-E55 - May 2005, picked up cheap on ebay. Using ocassionally for VHS captures. It is clearly not made as well as the E20, weighs about 1/3 as much - but it is made in Japan.

I've never used any DVD disc cleaners in any of these drives. My computer does build up dust inside, so the environment isn't the best.

No one in my house is allowed to smoke.

[samijubal]

The E20 didn't have energy save. I tried cleaning the laser by hand, nada. Took it in under a 5 year warranty, they wanted to replace the drive to the tune of $350 or something like that. The warranty company replaced it with a new one. Unfortunately I listened to people here and picked the crappy JVC, which I sold soon after, terrible machine.

[Seeker47]

So, getting one with a hd is better as it saves work on your writer. Plus you can put another hd in easily.

Yes, but you can't readily replace the burner, due to some proprietary firmware. GShelley61, weren't you the one who was looking into possible solutions for this ? If so, did you ever find out anything promising ? (My particular interest would be for the Pioneer 520.) If someone had access to the f/w, I imagine this would be possible. Or maybe not, if it also requires some special, discontinued burner model that can't be had for a reasonable price . . . ?

[Brent G.]

If you have consistent problems with the DVR failing, you may want to consider an extended warranty from a reputable dealer like Future Shop or Best Buy. I had a VCR with an extended warranty that failed, and Future Shop replaced it with a new one, even though the unit was around 3 years old. The warranty was then transferred to the new VCR. When the remote of the new VCR failed, they replaced that.

Of course the extended warranty is only as good as the store. I bought a prior VCR from Atlantique with a 4 yr ext warranty. Well the store went out of business a year later.

My Pioneer 220 is in the shop after recording a few hundred DVD's. It couldn't always recognize blank or recorded disks. Luckily it happened with 1 month left on the warranty.

My recommendation is if you think you are going to use the machine more than average, get an extended warranty, or buy a machine that you can throw away in a year. The manufacturer deliberatly builds machines that last for the warranty period under normal use. They aren't going to build an indistructable machine because it will cost too much and you won't buy a new one every couple of years.

Brent

[hech54]

Just for clarification folks:

A DVD Recorder is a stand-alone unit...just like your VCR.

A DVD Writer/Burner is something you install in your computer.

[BogieV]

Most of the drive manifacturers give specs for POH (power on hours) something like 70000 or 100000 hours - that doesn't mean writing but just putting on your machine.
So I guess keeping your DVD recorder on all the time is not a good thing.
Anyway - it is really regretable that the makers are not relaible any more.
But also the prices are almoast on the bottom.
I remember that good VCR (mono) in 1987 cost about 650 USD! Few years later you could buy HiFi stereo for half the price but they were not so rigid anymore.

[JAB285]

Most of the drive manifacturers give specs for POH (power on hours) something like 70000 or 100000 hours - that doesn't mean writing but just putting on your machine.
So I guess keeping your DVD recorder on all the time is not a good thing.
Anyway - it is really regretable that the makers are not relaible any more.
But also the prices are almoast on the bottom.
I remember that good VCR (mono) in 1987 cost about 650 USD! Few years later you could buy HiFi stereo for half the price but they were not so rigid anymore.

If you assume the POH includes standby mode, then 70000-100000 hours is still a very long time. If my math is correct, 70000 hours works out to over 8 years and 100000 hours works out to over 11 years! You could keep the machine unplugged until you use it, but why bother if it's going to last at least 8 years. If this is true, then why are machines failing so fast? Or are the they being overly optimistic?

BTW, you are right about those old vcrs. My first one was a Quasar that cost $600 and was built like a tank. It was a top loader with a wire remote and it was heavy. I ended up throwing it away because I wanted a newer one and the Quasar refused to break down.