Best DVD Burner for less than $200.

[timwhit]

I decided that I want to buy a DVD burner and it seems that the market has expanded a bit in the last couple of months. There are a lot more choices now. So I want to get something that is dual format and as fast as possible for the money. I see I can get the Sony DW-U10A-10 for $160 on Newegg.

So what drive should I get? And I wanted to order it tonight, it's a spur of the moment thing...

 

[Handruin]

You might want to look through this thread.

I did the same as you and purchased the Pioneer A06 a couple weeks ago from Compusa as a rebate deal for $200.

 

[Mercutio]

The Pioneeer drive rips DVDs faster, and is faster for audio extraction.
The Sony drive is twice as fast when used for burning CDs.

Either is good, but since I burn CDs a lot more often than extract audio, I'm glad I have Sony drives.

 

[The JoJo]

I just ordered the Plextor 708 burner. it's about 250-280 here, so it might be close to your limit there?

Any impressions on the Plextor anyone?

 

[timwhit]

I just ordered the Plextor 708 burner. it's about 250-280 here, so it might be close to your limit there?

Any impressions on the Plextor anyone?

The Plextor is about $250, which is a bit more than I wanted to spend. I think I will just get the Pionerr DVR-106 without any software for $165. Now on to find some good media for it.

 

[timwhit]

I also am going to get a sweet Newegg baseball hat for free with it. I already have the shirt. Now all I need is some pants.

 

[The JoJo]

I also am going to get a sweet Newegg baseball hat for free with it. I already have the shirt. Now all I need is some pants.

:mrgrn:

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I also am going to get a sweet Newegg baseball hat for free with it. I already have the shirt. Now all I need is some pants.

Walking billboard?
I won this nice polo shirt during training when I was a PC salesmen. Unfortunately it had HP's logo on it! I have never worn it. But I do wear the webtv tee shirt.

 

[Fushigi]

Vendor shirts are great. I wear them when gardening, painting, working on cars, helping people move, and in any other circumstance where clothing can get ruined.

 

[SteveC]

Vendor shirts are great. I wear them when gardening, painting, working on cars, helping people move, and in any other circumstance where clothing can get ruined.

Same here. I have a ton of T-Mobile shirts, thanks to my sister, and I like not having to worry if anything gets on them.

 

[Handruin]

I just ordered the Plextor 708 burner. it's about 250-280 here, so it might be close to your limit there?

Any impressions on the Plextor anyone?

The Plextor is about $250, which is a bit more than I wanted to spend. I think I will just get the Pionerr DVR-106 without any software for $165. Now on to find some good media for it.

So fart I've had success with Memorex 4x DVD-R and TDK 2x DVD-R. I have not purchased any other format just yet.

 

[Handruin]

Guess I should say excuse me.

 

[EdwardK]

Guess I should say excuse me.

Doug, you are polite but I can hear it from DownUnder! :lol:


I also have an OEM version of the Pioneer A06. I'm not sure what model number it would be in the states but my Pioneer A06 OEM version is marketed as Pioneer 106.

I find the Ritek DVD-Rs are cheap compatible with the Pioneer and after burning, these Ritek DVD-Rs can be played on my Sony SetTop DVD player.
The Pioneer branded DVD-Rs are horrendously expensive over here (AUS$45 for a packet of 5 ~US$6)

Cheers,
Edward

 

[Buck]

Guess I should say excuse me.

No worries Handy, the Bartender will turn on the big fans to clear things out.

 

[Jan Kivar]

I've thought on buying Verbatim DVD+/-R(W) discs once I get one of those drives. I've read that they are one of the best discs available, albeit more expensive than the "bargain" discs.

I'm thinking about the Plextor 708A too, it just bugs me that it has only 2 MB buffer... Oh well, just set the burn proggy to use 100 MB of RAM as cache... After all, there isn't yet any 8x-certified media (although Plex can write to some of the 4x media at 8x speed). I think I will use 4x even if I was using 8x media. 10 MB/s is just too much to handle in the background...

Cheers,

Jan

 

[The JoJo]

My biggest grief is that I couldn't find a SCSI burner

I refuse to put the Plextor in my all scsi main box! :evil:

 

[Handruin]

New firmware for the Pioneer A06/106:

http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/support_software.jsp?category=support/software

DVR-A06, DVR-106
R6FW107.EXE

New!
(18 Sept. 2003)
Firmware Upgrade Ver. 1.07
Caution! Once the drive has been updated to this version, the drive will NOT be able to be restored to an earlier firmware version.

 

[CityK]

Can any of you A06/106 owners tell me at what ~speed does the drive rip DVDs?

 

[Handruin]

I will, but what program do I use? I have DVD Decrypter, is that the program to rip with?

 

[SteveC]

I will, but what program do I use? I have DVD Decrypter, is that the program to rip with?

Yes, is it.

 

[SteveC]

Yes, is it.

Yes, it is. I'm not awake yet.

 

[Handruin]

I'm ripping my legal copy of toy story 2 to my drive located on a different drive controller from the Pioneer 106 and DVD Decrypter is reporting 2.1X transfer rate. (roughly 2800KB/s)

 

[Handruin]

Doesn't seem to be that fast compared to my DVD-ROM. I'm testing the same disk to the same drive and my samsung DVD-ROM is ripping at 3.8x. (5,120 KB/s)

 

[Pradeep]

Most (all?) of the DVD burners are limited to 2x rip speed with CSS protected discs. Unfortunately the Sonys also rip at 2x on non-CSS discs. However for the latest Sony burner you can dl a software appy that increases the rip speed to something like 6x or 8x I believe. In any case, much quicker to get a cheap LiteOn 16 DVD-ROM driving for ripping purposes.

 

[Mercutio]

... as long as you don't get one of the communist dain-bramaged also-locked-at-2x Lite-On "16x (but we really mean 2x)" drives, like I have.

 

[CityK]

Handy - DVD Decryptor is my prefered ripper of choice. Got to say, 2.1x sucks donkeys. Was that the final average rate, or just the rate at the beginning? Your DVD-Rom seems a little low to - of course its speed depends on the drive, the movie being ripped etc. etc.

Pardeep - Thanks. If I recall, we actually had this same conversation about 8 or 9 months ago I was just wondering if things had changed, but apparently its still status quo (other then that Sony app - which I recall someone discussing here not too long ago). I would really like to migrate to a SFF PC in the near future, and hence, would be looking to ditch my DVD-Rom and CDRW drives for an internal DVD+/-RW unit instead.

Merc - I wonder if Liteon's recent DVD/CD combo drive has been crippled by the pinkoo's too? Any first hand experience?

CK

 

[flagreen]

DVD Shrink will rip and recompress at the same time. Saves a little time to do it that way.

 

[CityK]

Yeah Frank on SR told me about that one a while back. But I like to edit out junk/streams etc.

 

[SteveC]

Yeah Frank on SR told me about that one a while back. But I like to edit out junk/streams etc.

DVD Shrink will let you do that, and it's very simple to use.

 

[mubs]

I thought DVD shrink was somebody who counseled bad / troubled DVDs.

 

[CityK]

Boo. Booooooo. Get off the stage mubs :wink:

Steve, or Bill - How would you compare it to say using DVD Decryptor & Ifoedit?

-----

I was just checking out pricing and comments on the new Plextor 708A. In CDRInfo's review, they note that

Plextor PX-708A supports by default 2x DVD Video reading, in order to avoid noise and vibration. The drive ripped the DVD movie files to the hard disk at 2,707 KB/sec, and the Pioneer drive performed in a similar way. Optorite DD0203 is faster in this test with 5,846 KB/sec.

However, pressing the eject button for 3 seconds (no disc inserted) will enable DVD ripping at higher speeds. In this case, the average ripping speed for the same movie reached the 8,957KB/sec (6.5X).

Interesting.

I also noticed that it supports Mt.Rainer. Thats the first DVD writer I've taken note of that has such support....but I obviously haven't been paying close attention either.

Newegg has the retail box listed for $250. For Canadian folk, I see that NCIX also has it listed, albeit rather poorly priced at $400cdn.

CK

 

[Mercutio]

DVDShrink rules. There's a miniscule quality difference between it and my other favorite, Pinnacle InstantCopy, but the time factor - probably 10 to 1 in Shrink's favor - really, really makes it a worthwhile choice.

IfoEdit is too damn complicated. I used it for about a week in favor of, oh, anything else.

 

[SteveC]

Steve, or Bill - How would you compare it to say using DVD Decryptor & Ifoedit?

You won't go back to using Ifoedit after trying it. As Merc said, it's very quick, and anyone can figure out how to use it.

 

[timwhit]

Damn it. I just bought a 25 pack of Fujifilm DVD-R's and they turn out to be 1x. Damn this is going to take forever to burn these. Why didn't I look at the box?

 

[timwhit]

Other than the ultra slow burn times on these discs the burner works great. Now I have to find somewhere that I can rent DVDs for cheap...

 

[Handruin]

Check out netflix.

 

[EdwardK]

Doug,

Have you updated the firmware to your Pioneer burner? Did you notice any difference?

Cheers,
Edward

 

[Handruin]

I updated the firmware, but I haven't done anything with the drive other than test the rip speed a few posts up. I'll likely be burning a DVD soimetime this week, I can let you know then.

I didn't have any problems before the firmware update, but then again, I've only burnt 3 DVD's. (One data, 2 DVD video. All of them DVD-R)

 

[CityK]

CDRLabs reviewed the new Lite-On LDW-401S 4x DVD+R/RW and its ripping was not limited to 2x ---> had an average of 9x in their test.

Perhaps these recent developments (i.e. Sony's s/w utility for the 510s, Plextor 708's hold eject button for 3sec trick, and this LiteOn) signal an end to the former practice of crippled read speeds.

CK

 

[CityK]

...Thanks, I'll give shrink a try when I get the chance in the near future.