Best DL burner available now?

[jdoggg12]

I'm wanting to pick up a new burner... title is self explanatory.

Thanks all!

Oh, by best, i mean spit out the the DVD's. I'm wantin to bakup my DVDs w/o having to compress them. I want the burner that seems to be having the least issues with dvd players.

 

[essasin]

benq 1655

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: essasin
benq 1655

...that's the best budget dvd burner, however, the plextor 716a is the BEST dl dvd burner available, and it comes with a $100 price tag. For some it's worth it, b/c it is very fast at everything.

 

[jdoggg12]

Thanks for the help guys... much appreciated

Any others to consider or is that basically the king right now?

 

[Howard]

For most users, they're all the same. Some have slightly better write quality, some have extra features, only one (so far) uses a physical SATA interface, etc.

Right now, I'm fond of the Pioneer DVR-111D since it can be made to support bitsetting and is supposedly quiet.

 

[jdoggg12]

Gotcha.. i don't really care about noise or speed, i just want it to work on the most possible dvd players as possible with dual layer discs.

 

[Zepper]

I'm a Plextor fan myself. The 716A is a very good example. There are some newer models that push the envelope a bit more, but the 716 still gets it done. Check the CDFreaks.com forum for personal experiences with most current burners. And CDRInfo or CDRLabs.com for reviews. I still have the 712 single layer and it's been great for me.

.bh.

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I'm a Plextor fan myself. The 716A is a very good example. There are some newer models that push the envelope a bit more, but the 716 still gets it done. Check the CDFreaks.com forum for personal experiences with most current burners. And CDRInfo or CDRLabs.com for reviews. I still have the 712 single layer and it's been great for me.

.bh.

I've heard great things about the 712 plextor burner, undortunatly they're hard to find now and expensive. Too bad they're not selling surpluses cheap. Who is selling the models that you say "push the envelope"?

 

[Zepper]

I think I meant the 755SA (plexy is the only one that routinely makes SATA burners) and the 760A which can burn DVD+R at 18x... Looks like the Egg has the 760A at $99. right now. My 712 started at around $190. when it was new...

Just go to plextor.com - pretty much every model except the one that can read/write DVD-RAM (750A - only one in the plextor line that's Panasonic/Teac chipset) is well above average. The latest Sanyo chipsets in the 755SA and 760A can do DVD-RAM but Plexy doesn't enable the feature yet. They also had a 740A that was much the same as the Benq 1640 with Plexy tweaked firmware and a bigger software package than most. Must have dropped that one as it's no longer in their current model list - but it's probably still around in the channel. One model of Sony is also Benq 1640 based. Those are unusually good for budget drives. Plexy has linked some reviews off the model pages.

The Asus DVD burners are usually Pioneer based so they're decent too.

.bh.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: acegazda

Originally posted by: essasin
benq 1655

...that's the best budget dvd burner, however, the plextor 716a is the BEST dl dvd burner available, and it comes with a $100 price tag. For some it's worth it, b/c it is very fast at everything.

He could get two Benq 1655 for the price of one Plextor. I guarantee you'll be "spitting out" the DVDs faster than one Plex...

 

[acegazda]

yeah...this is true. That's actually not a bad idea!

 

[jdoggg12]

So... lets just assume you're willing to spend up to $150, what would the dvd burner of your dreams be? haha, corny, i know

 

[Zepper]

In the over $100. internal burner market, Plextor is the only game in town. If I was gonna burn a bunch, I'd get two PX-760As... Or maybe one 760 and one 740. Almost all of the old high-end brands are repackaging or rebadging Benq, LiteOn, Pioneer (is going out of the regular DVD burner biz - going blu-ray or whatever only), Samsung, or LGE. I suppose Matsushita (Panasonic) is still doing some, but those have never really been competitive - if it wasn't for the fact that they R/W DVD-RAM, they probably would be gone from the market. Teacs are now Matsushita rebadge. I think Hitachi and LGE went together on opticals, and Toshiba and Samsung are in cahoots. Sonys are either LiteOn or Benq etc. etc...

.bh.

 

[Running]

well the plextor is supposedly the fastest one since it burns at 18x BUT there are no dvd's that are 18x writable on 16x.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Running
well the plextor is supposedly the fastest one since it burns at 18x BUT there are no dvd's that are 18x writable on 16x.

but that won't matter for dual layer. Plextor does advertise 10x DL burning on some of their drives.

But seriously though, the Plextors are just toooo expensive for me, even if I have the money to burn I'd rather get two "lesser" drives such as the BenQ 1655 (and still save money over one plextor). Well I guess I shouldn't say that, because I would have 2 plextors if I did have the money to burn, but you can't buy two plextors with $150, but you could get at least 4 BenQs or NECs with that ammount... I guess you could get one plextor and one BenQ or NEC...

 

[paulw86]

I wonder why so many people love Plextors. They're too fsking picky for my taste. I love my $30 1650 better.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: paulw86
I wonder why so many people love Plextors. They're too fsking picky for my taste. I love my $30 1650 better.

fanboism?

 

[paulw86]

Originally posted by: John

Originally posted by: paulw86
I wonder why so many people love Plextors. They're too fsking picky for my taste. I love my $30 1650 better.

fanboism?

I suppose so

 

[Zepper]

I had a Plextor 4220 which was one of the first drives to do CD-RW. It served me well for over 6 years until it got too obsolete. It still makes some of the best audio CD copies of any burner (though a bit slow). So when it came time to get a new burner, I bought an MSI as the Plextor I wanted cost too much. The MSI worked fine too but eventually the price of the PX-712 became reasonable so I replaced the MSI with one. And ever since, both sides of my brain have been happy. The 712 is one of the highest rated burners ever made. I say those that are down on Plextor suffer from jealousy, plain and simple...

If I was going to do production quantities, I'd probably buy a brace of some lesser model as I'd really hate for my 712 to go away any time soon.

/bh/

 

[paulw86]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I had a Plextor 4220 which was one of the first drives to do CD-RW. It served me well for over 6 years until it got too obsolete. It still makes some of the best audio CD copies of any burner (though a bit slow). So when it came time to get a new burner, I bought an MSI as the Plextor I wanted cost too much. The MSI worked fine too but eventually the price of the PX-712 became reasonable so I replaced the MSI with one. And ever since, both sides of my brain have been happy. The 712 is one of the highest rated burners ever made. I say those that are down on Plextor suffer from jealousy, plain and simple...

If I was going to do production quantities, I'd probably buy a brace of some lesser model as I'd really hate for my 712 to go away any time soon.

/bh/

Yea right...I've tried PX-712 and it's a total crap. First 2 CDs failed, then 5 DVDs failed. I got mad and tossed in their own 12X DVD-R and it failed too. I admit that my blank medias did not have the highest quality, but damn, BenQ has those jobs done flawlessly. It has never failed me. Plextor drives are also rumoured to have the highest readability. NOT TRUE. It reads like less than half of the discs my BenQ is capable of.

 

[Zepper]

Well, if many of the review sites gave the PX-712 a 10 and never less than a 9 rating then that suggests the problem is staring back from the mirror (or the possibility of a lemon - i don't hear of any effort to resolve the matter with Plextor tech support).

BTW, there is a new Firmware Update for the 712 that just came out this month mainly to improve burning with TDK media.

.bh.

 

[paulw86]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Well, if many of the review sites gave the PX-712 a 10 and never less than a 9 rating then that suggests the problem is staring back from the mirror (or the possibility of a lemon - i don't hear of any effort to resolve the matter with Plextor tech support).

BTW, there is a new Firmware Update for the 712 that just came out this month mainly to improve burning with TDK media.

.bh.

For me, it is natural to return the Plextor which was 2.5x more expensive, rather than trying to fix the problem so that I could scream "Wow it's good". Even if I did fix it, it reads significantly less disc than the BenQ I have, which is a shame for the Plextor's fame. Looks like to me you're the one unwilling to try, and calling me jealous/a fanboi/whatever won't help.

BenQ doesn't need drivers to burn media. It does its job unlike the Plextor.

 

[sonoma1993]

I have used plextor cd-writers and dvd writers in the past. The current one i'm using is a plextor dual layer 716sa burner.