Choice of DVD writer

[come_mon]

Hi,

After 3 years of torturing, my LG 4167B DVD writer could no longer recognize DVD content without many retries. Now I intend to purchase another DVD writer for replacement. SATA or IDE interface were OK for me although I prefer SATA type for performance issue.

My PC used Gigabyte motherboard and OS installed was Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2.

Could anyone comment on below DVD models, which one would you recommend:

Samsung TSH 653 SATA, TS H652 IDE
Lite-On DH20A4P IDE, DH-20A4H ide, LH-18A3L SATA, iHAS120 SATA, iHAS220 SATA
Pioneer DVR-116 IDE, DVR-216 SATA, DVR-S16 SATA, DVR-A16FX, DVR-S16
SONY DRU-V200A IDE, DRU-V200S SATA

I need to decode 20-40 video clips from DVD (burnt from my DVD recorder) each day so the durability of the DVD writer is my biggest concern.

Tks!

[yoda313]

I have a pioneer 111d drive that is a few years old now and still working like a charm. It doesn't get heavy use but sometimes I'll do a few movies in a row and it doesn't have an issue.

The 111d is an ide model fyi.

I also have a liteon bluray sata model in my vista pc that works very well however it is used as a dedicated bluray drive only and even then I use my ps3 for bluray more often so its not overly taxxed.

I think pioneer will probably get the most votes here on this forum.

[budz]

For a SATA dvd burner it would really depend on the sata chipset controller on your Gigabyte motherboard. Post the Gigabyte motherboard model you have. Older motherboards that have 1st generation sata connections were made specifically for hard drives. Intel chipset ICH 7/8/9/10 will work fine with SATA dvd burners but you'll need to disable ACHI & RAID within the mobo bios. Also for SATA set to IDE within the mobo bios as well.

Nvidia chipsets will work when using the latest drivers from the Nvidia website. Via chipsets will not work with SATA dvd burners. A PCI SATA CONTROLLER card using the SILICON 3112/3114/3512 chipset will work with SATA dvd burners. Also older mobo's with Jmicron chipset will not work as well. Although reports of newer model mobo's have a newer JMicron chipset.

If you have a older mobo then get a IDE drive. IMHO get the PIONEER 116D or 216. I own both of those drives as well as a PIONEER 115 all of them are good burners. But if you want a PIONEER 115D drive which is a ide drive, they have them at Pioneer's website for $34.99 with one cent shipping. But the drive is "SILVER". I've ordered several of these 115D drives. You can always spray paint it black.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/BusinessProducts/Blu-rayDisc+DVDWriter...VR-115D+Silver

[come_mon]

For a SATA dvd burner it would really depend on the sata chipset controller on your Gigabyte motherboard. Post the Gigabyte motherboard model you have. Older motherboards that have 1st generation sata connections were made specifically for hard drives. Intel chipset ICH 7/8/9/10 will work fine with SATA dvd burners but you'll need to disable ACHI & RAID within the mobo bios. Also for SATA set to IDE within the mobo bios as well.

Nvidia chipsets will work when using the latest drivers from the Nvidia website. Via chipsets will not work with SATA dvd burners. A PCI SATA CONTROLLER card using the SILICON 3112/3114/3512 chipset will work with SATA dvd burners. Also older mobo's with Jmicron chipset will not work as well. Although reports of newer model mobo's have a newer JMicron chipset.

If you have a older mobo then get a IDE drive. IMHO get the PIONEER 116D or 216. I own both of those drives as well as a PIONEER 115 all of them are good burners. But if you want a PIONEER 115D drive which is a ide drive, they have them at Pioneer's website for $34.99 with one cent shipping. But the drive is "SILVER". I've ordered several of these 115D drives. You can always spray paint it black.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/BusinessProducts/Blu-rayDisc+DVDWriter...VR-115D+Silver

It's GA-8S655FX-L. The manual has below description related to SATA:

- Onboard SiS 964
- 2 Serial ATA connectors in 150 MB/s operation mode
- Supports Disk striping (RAID0) or DISK Mirroring (RAID1)
- Support JBOD function
- Supports UDMA up to 150 MB/sec
- UDMA and PIO Modes
- Up to 2 SATA Device

I prefer SATA DVD writer because I think IDE interface will fade out in coming motherboards and I think my Gigabyte motherboard will "die" before the new DVD writer I buy soon. Besides, I found my current IDE LG drive occupied all the CPU time sometimes during video coversion from DVD+/-RW. I hope that a new SATA interface DVD writer will avoid my PC from being "hung up" when it's working on video conversion.

I remembered SATA was set to IDE in BIOS when I installed my SATAII HDD.

Fyi, I intend to use my new DVD writer heavily on video conversion. Those videos (average 30-40 chapters) will be burned from my Pioneer DVR-550H-s recorder. I do the conversion everyday. That is, 30-40 video clips will be extracted from DVD-RW (or DVD+RW) disc everyday and converted to mpg files using TSUNAMI MPEG DVD EasyPack. I seldom playback DVD directly from DVD drive and I don't burn DVD using my DVD drive often i.e. less than 1 disc burnt everyday on average.