(Dead) Cendyne DVD-R/RW 4X Drive (Pioneer) "$149.99" AR & coupon at Staples

[stormont]

Anyone know if you can buy replacement bezels like these like you can for other drives? (ie, so they match the look of a Lian-Li) I know that the drives Fry's was selling has a black bezel but the one I got from staples is white. I'd love to swap the bezel so that it matches the black of my Antech case.

 

[SimMike2]

Got the drive and had some serious problems when it was connected to my Promise Ultra 66 controller. Basically it worked right up to the point where I tried to burn the included DVD-RW with the latest version of Nero. I had a DVD all ripped and ready, but when I put the disk in, Nero would not recognize the media, nor eject the drive. I did five reboots, including two cold reboots, and the drawer would not open!! I tried the both the eject button and trying the eject function from within Windows XP. Finally I used the little emergency pin-hole and got the disk out. I rebooted and still the tray would not eject. So I finally swapped this with my DVD drive on the onboard EIDE channel and it worked. I burned a Maxell DVD-RW disk with the movie and it worked, albeit slowly at 1X speed. This disk played in two different DVD-ROM drives and more importantly, it played perfect in my Pioneer 343 DVD player (macrovision gone courtesy of the ripper!) I am extremely happy it played on my Pioneer DVD player because now I can make test DVD-RW disks before committing to DVD-R.

I'm not sure if I want to put the included generic DVD-RW back in the drive. Anyway, maybe this is just my machine, but I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on possible problems connected to a Promise EIDE card.

I just put in the included generic DVD-RW disk and the drive recognized and Nero was ready to use it. One other note, the Maxell DVD-R disks that are on sale five for $12.87 at Office Depot (less with coupons!) will burn at 2X speed.

BTW, my drive came with firmware 1.21. It was in a new unopened box from the Staples warehouse in Ontario, CA.

 

[TheHouch]

*sigh* one more day of wait, it was supposed to arrive today, but didn't. Staples rep said that UPS showed delivery for tomorrow.

I do have one question, which hopefully someone will be able to help me with. I was wondering if the cd-r portion of the drive is EFM compatible. In other words will it make working backups of Safedisc 2 protected cds etc.. The only other cd burner I have will not, and was hoping this one would. Normal Cendyne burners seem to have a good track record when it comes to EFM compatibility, according to clone cd's list, but since this is a rebadged Pioneer Im not sure if that means much. If anyone could shed some light on this I would appreciate it.

 

[Trianon]

Originally posted by: Trianon

Originally posted by: commOdog
ordered on the 16th online,

2 seperate times today i called cust service to verify order, everything was
good and order was complete on the second call, now i get this for order status:


*We are sorry , but the products that you ordered are not available. We may
carry a number of similar products that you may wish to substitute. Please
contact a Staples.com representative at 1-800-3STAPLE.

I live in OK, no snow here..................???

same here, ordered Sunday 6 AM Then they called back, some bs about not being able to verify my billing address, said, I would get it on Friday... Status shows same as above... Bastards!

well, called again, could not hold out, it's official, I am effed by Staples one more time..."you order has been scratched, but don't worry, we didn't charge your card". Like that was my biggest worry... I am so pissed off, thank god there is no Staples in IL, or I would go medieval on their ass...

 

[commOdog]

Once again staples is the suck..........

After a stuck order and a reorder, my drive still is "missing"

 

[jaybert]

ok, well, i got my media in from netsoftmedia.com. I ordered priority and they shipped it on Tuesday (since Monday was President's day). 2 days from California >> New York, not bad! Anyways, I ran ADVDInfo.exe on it and they indeed pulled up as G03's. I went to burn them and to my surprise, when I selected max burn, it said it was going to burn them at 4x. Unfortunately, when I started burning, they did indeed only burn at 1x. I'm sure a firmware hack will be coming in the next few weeks to allow 2x burns with this media (the people at forum.firmware-flash.com are working on one right now).

 

[fyrgoose]

Got my Burner today. It was one day late, but no big deal. Installed great. Used that program to check firmware and it's showing it's already 1.21. Drive says Pioneer on it, shows up in my device manager as a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105. UPS tracking is showing my 25 4x dvd-r's will be here tomorrow. Right now I'm just trying to figure out what software to use. I have nero that came with my lite-on burner. But it won't let me use the dvd burner. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

 

[FFactory0x]

Use Record now max. Great program

 

[m0ssie]

What burning software does the drive come with?

Any suggestions for cheap media which burns reliably and will play in a Sony PS2.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: m0ssie
What burning software does the drive come with?

Any suggestions for cheap media which burns reliably and will play in a Sony PS2.

scroll ^

 

[BuckMaster]

Nero comes with it. Which I love Nero!

 

[Servbot]

Yeah, Nero is great. It comes with Nero Express though.

 

[DARRIN]

Picked mine up at a local Staples last night. $289-$50instant-$50 mail in = $189. Not nearly as good as some of you guys got but I got the 2 year replacement policy for $30. They said if it messed near the end of the 2 years they would just tell me to pitch it in the trash and sent me a staples card with a credit of the purchase price before rebates. I think mine might start havig difficulties in 15 months.

 

[JameyF]

Originally posted by: Servbot
Yeah, Nero is great. It comes with Nero Express though.

What's the difference? I had Nero, but now I'm using express. I can't notice anything I can't do with Nero express that I was doing with Nero.

 

[Walliser]

Wondering the same thing here. What is Nero Express? And what is that other thingy called Movie Express, I believe?

I did not bother installing Nero Express. I still use a regular version of Nero. I once installed a Nero version that came with a drive and it nicely messed things up. It would only work with the one drive it came bundled with but would not even recognize any of my other drives.

 

[VTrider]

Well I burned a few videos on that DVD-RW that the drive came with and i'm having a few compatibility probs on my stand-alone DVD player (Samsung DVD-S221). It seems to play only like 1 in 6 tries, plays fine on 2 other DVD ROMS on other computers so i'm hoping it's just my Samsung player not liking the cheap media?

I'll try it again and make sure to close the session, don't know if I did that the first time. All I want is some nice 4X inexpensive media that will play on all my DVD units, I knew I was going to run into a headache like this

That stupid Nero express too, replaced my regular Nero...blah, blah, blah.....


-VTrider

 

[frogster220]

what does recordnowmax do? does it have mpeg video encoding, menu creation, and so on?

 

[1gemini1]

I think if you put your old key in Nero it will revert back to the older Nero upon a reboot. It does for me.

 

[jaybert]

There really is no such thing as cheap 5x DVD-R media right now. The cheapest you'll find is going to be around $1.75 if you buy in bulk.

Originally posted by: VTrider
Well I burned a few videos on that DVD-RW that the drive came with and i'm having a few compatibility probs on my stand-alone DVD player (Samsung DVD-S221). It seems to play only like 1 in 6 tries, plays fine on 2 other DVD ROMS on other computers so i'm hoping it's just my Samsung player not liking the cheap media?

I'll try it again and make sure to close the session, don't know if I did that the first time. All I want is some nice 4X inexpensive media that will play on all my DVD units, I knew I was going to run into a headache like this

That stupid Nero express too, replaced my regular Nero...blah, blah, blah.....


-VTrider

 

[cappsa]

Originally posted by: VTrider
Well I burned a few videos on that DVD-RW that the drive came with and i'm having a few compatibility probs on my stand-alone DVD player (Samsung DVD-S221). It seems to play only like 1 in 6 tries, plays fine on 2 other DVD ROMS on other computers so i'm hoping it's just my Samsung player not liking the cheap media?

I had the same issue, except I couldn't get it to play in any of my settop boxes. Turns out my cheapo DVD player doesn't support any recordable format, and my main player only supports -R(and +R/+RW). Finally I popped it in my laptop, and it picked it up and played it perfectly. Time to buy some -Rs.

 

[Need4Speed]

All is working well on mine. Firmware is 1.21 using Ritek G03 <---Thanks to Jaybert for the deal. using Nero at 1x.
So far Ive burned a few flix and a few xbox games with no problems. The dvr-105 sucks at ripping dvds though since its locked in at 2x. Went out and grabbed the liteon 166s...much better

bummer for all those folks that couldnt get it on this. might not be the best burner on the market, but at 140, this cant be beat.

 

[Sept1967]

The drive itself, is 4x no matter which firmware you have. I left mine at 1.0. If it aint broke, dont fix it.

MY drive burns 2x on 2x media , 1x on 1x media, and 4x on 4x media. Im a happy camper.

Originally posted by: BuckMaster
Well thats kinda funny. My DVD drive came into today and its still showing processing. But the funny thing is I just installed the drive and was coming back to post if I needed to update my firmware. Its now showing 1.00. I thought you had to flash it to get the 4X speeds? Is this incorrect on my part for thinking? Now from the two post above one saying to flash and the other saying not to flash it!? Whats everyone else done that bought this drive done flash or not to flash? I do know the DVD-RW that came with it looks about generic as can be. I havnt bought any DVD-Rs yet because I wanted to make sure it came in. Should I format this DVD-RW first or can you start using it right away?

Thanks!

 

[Sept1967]

You know, most Gold and Platinum credit cards will double the manufacture's warranty up to a year. So, if it had 1 year on the drive, you now have 2 years, for free thru the credit card.

Originally posted by: DARRIN
Picked mine up at a local Staples last night. $289-$50instant-$50 mail in = $189. Not nearly as good as some of you guys got but I got the 2 year replacement policy for $30. They said if it messed near the end of the 2 years they would just tell me to pitch it in the trash and sent me a staples card with a credit of the purchase price before rebates. I think mine might start havig difficulties in 15 months.

 

[Trianon]

Went for HP DVD 300i DVD+R/RW instead...

 

[frogster220]

we must have hit them pretty hard. netsoftmedia is OOS for the ritek DVD-R