Best DVD Burner

[ver00]

Im looking into getting a DVD Burner and haven't the slightest clue as to what im looking for. I was just curious if anyone had any favorites, or like whats the best one out there. Either that or the best and most resonable priced one. I tried used the search but didn't really come up with anything. Hope someone here can help me choose.

 

[Nocturnal]

cdrlab's just reviewed the newest version of the Plextor 716 and gave it a 9, 9, and 10. It must be a pretty good drive.

 

[kd2777]

I love my SOny DRU710A. Newegg has them on sale right now for 85 bucks. However I hear the NEC ND-3520A is fast a hell and a steal at 62 bucks, may be the best drive dollar for dollar.

kd

 

[ver00]

There going for this now.

Sounds like an awesome deal, either that or they got problems?

 

[Blain]

You will hear "NEC" and "Plextor" preached quite a bit, but there are other DVD burners out in the world.
LG and BenQ make quality drives that are every bit as good as the Plextors and NECs.
Check Burner Reviews Here
And Here

The NEC fanboyz tend to be "bargain shoppers" willing to give up a little compatibility for cheap speed.
The Plextor fanboyz tend to be quality oriented, but with "Plextor" imprinted on their brains from back in the day.

It will boil down to this...
* What do you want to do with the drive? Some will rip better than others, while some burn faster than others.
* Does software bundle matter to you? Some drives have pretty nice bundleds, while others offer barely more than just the drive.
* Is price the major issue with your purchase? Today's burners run far closer in price than CD-RW's did, back in the day.

 

[Jeff7181]

I bought my first Plextor drive recently, a PX-712A, and I'm so pleased with it that I don't think I'll ever buy another brand unless I have a bad experience with this drive, or a future Plextor drive.

 

[kd2777]

Originally posted by: ver00
There going for this now.

Sounds like an awesome deal, either that or they got problems?

No the price I quoted was for the Black version with software. If you don't need black or software, then this is your beast. They are the same drive aside from color and software

kd

 

[DreamerSpawn]

I used to be with Plextor...but I have to go with Pioneer DVR-109 on this one:
CLICK HERE

Originally posted by: ver00
Im looking into getting a DVD Burner and haven't the slightest clue as to what im looking for. I was just curious if anyone had any favorites, or like whats the best one out there. Either that or the best and most resonable priced one. I tried used the search but didn't really come up with anything. Hope someone here can help me choose.

 

[Brian23]

Benq 1620

 

[Bartman39]

Well I too thought the cheaper 16X drives would be the thing but I did find out the Plextor 16X burns 8X media @ 16X and flawless I might add...

Possibly other drives might be able to do this but Plextor even tells you it can... I got mine for $119 with a $30 mail in rebate for a final price of $89 and thats shipped (retail version NOT and OEM)...

PS it comes with the beige & black bezels too

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Bartman39
Well I too thought the cheaper 16X drives would be the thing but I did find out the Plextor 16X burns 8X media @ 16X and flawless I might add...

Possibly other drives might be able to do this but Plextor even tells you it can... I got mine for $119 with a $30 mail in rebate for a final price of $89 and thats shipped (retail version NOT and OEM)...

PS it comes with the beige & black bezels too

Burning 8X media at 16X is a function of the firmware for a particular drive. Even the "cheap" 16X drives can do that if the firmware supports it. The NEC 3520 (the 3500 before it) can do just that and cost $20 less than the Plextor AFTER the Plextor rebate. The NEC's are often rebranded, look for drives like Mad Dog at your local Fry's/CompUSA/Best Buy.

BTW, no drive burns flawlessly. Run a PI/PIF scan on the media after you've burned something and you'll see what I mean.

techfuzz

 

[fstime]

The NEC 3500A/3520A are the cheapest DVD burners and are simply the best.

 

[allanon1965]

i bought a benq from compgeeks and it works great! quiet and fast, 65.00 including shipping and tax...

 

[bob4432]

since i am a cheap bastard, i would go with the nec stuff since it works well and is, well, cheap. i have had numerous optical drives, both scsi and pata at all different price points. my longest living one is a plextor scsi cdrom which i have used for 5-6 years and the quickest to die was a scsi yamaha cdrw 8x4x24 which cost me $300 and died about 1 month after the warranty - yamaha said too bad.

i currently have a nec dvdrw, pioneer dvdrom, asus cdrw and liteon cdroms(dell poweredge server pulls), all of which have been working well for some time.

 

[Trader05]

I've had the NEC Drives 1300-2500, great drives even with cheap media. Then i went with Pioneer's 108, excellent drive better burns then the NEC even with cheap media, but the drive was slower. I was in decision of a new burner recently and just bought the Toshiba SD-R5372, should get it tomorrow. Check out what people say here @ cdfreaks forum: click I purchased it for $74 shipped 2day air @ shop4tech with 10% coupon

 

[Baked]

Doesn't matter which burner you buy as long as you have some good media to go w/ it. I like my NEC 3520A w/ Taiyo Yuden media. 7 minutes @ 12X.

 

[Bozo Galora]

current opinion on cdfreaks is that the BenQ is the fastest GOOD burner
LG 4163b is the most reliable (low error) GOOD burner

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: kd2777
I love my SOny DRU710A. Newegg has them on sale right now for 85 bucks. However I hear the NEC ND-3520A is fast a hell and a steal at 62 bucks, may be the best drive dollar for dollar.

kd

I just got my dad one for has birthday and it is ridiculously fast. It's also very quiet, responsive, and easy to deal with in every way. I really don't see the point in spending more than what this would cost you. I bought it locally from Monarch Computers for under $70 after taxes and it does the highest speed on everything, even clocking an impressive 4x dual layer write speed.

 

[ShadowBlade]

ive got a Lite-On dual drive, the only thing it cant do is DVD-RAM, think it write DVD+R at 16x

 

[Larcher]

The NEC 3520A has worked great in my friends computer and I also have a NEC burner the 2500A. NEC burners in my experience have always worked great and they sell for great prices since their OEM only. The Sony and Plextors are good also as other people mentioned you really can't go wrong with any Plextor, Sony, or NEC Burner.

 

[Zepper]

I'm a Plextor user too (my 4220 SCSI burner is 5+ yrs old and going strong) and my 712a is as good as I'll likely need for some time. Not likely to need DL for a long time (until prices/availability improve). If you want/need DL, get the 716a/sa. The Plextor SA versions are also some of the few SATA optical burners on the market. They only work with a limited number of SATA controllers, see the compatibility list on http://www.plextor.com. This will improve as the SATAII spec hardware enters the market. But if you want it now, and your mobo's controller is incompatible, a cheap SiliconImage based SATA controller will fix you up.
. As was mentioned above, there is a $30. rebate on several Plextor models running thru the end of March - easy to find the info on their site (kind of slow on sending the rebate checks, but I finally got mine at about 10 weeks - so what's new?).
. There are other makes/models that do some things better than the Plexis, but few cover as many of the bases as well. Having both blk and bge faces in the box is cool too - not to mention the fab software package.
. NEC is strictly an OEM product and generally comes 'drive only' - but the packagers can help there as mentioned above (if you can find out what's in the box - often difficult). Pioneer drives are NEC based and Sonys are LiteOn based. Toshiba and LG (Lucky Goldstar) are sharing development on their DVD burners. You will find Optorite under a lot of other brands including MSI. Asus' DVD burners are rebadged Pioneer/NEC. Benq drives are Philips technology and AOpen are licensed from Ricoh. Very confusing.
. AFAIK, Dell.com has the best price on the 716a retail pack, but they were OOS last I looked (easy to list the best price when you are OOS ). One guy told of having one of Dell's $50 certs and ending up with a net of $30. after rebate. Heckuva a cheap price to grab a Plexi. My 712a was nearly $200. when it first came out last spring. Good luck.

.bh.

:moon:

 

[suse920]

Originally posted by: ver00
There going for this now.

Sounds like an awesome deal, either that or they got problems?

get that or the lite on equivilent both are good burners at great prices

 

[ver00]

What kind of software is it going to come bundled with, like what would you say the best drive would be that would have like everything I need to get ripping and burning right from the start?

 

[Jeff7]

I've had good experiences with Liteon drives - Liteon DVD-ROM, CD-RW, and an earlier model DVD-RW; think it maxes out at 4x. I haven't had problems with any of the drives, and Liteon is usually good about putting out firmware updates to maintain media compatibility.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: ver00
What kind of software is it going to come bundled with, like what would you say the best drive would be that would have like everything I need to get ripping and burning right from the start?

You're better off buying an OEM drive and then picking up a copy of Nero 6.0 Suite 3 from here. Then you'll need some software for ripping. There are lots out there, but I would recommend getting DVD Decrypter for that. You might also need DVD Shrink if you're going to convert DVD9 to fit on DVD5.

techfuzz