Help selecting a new DVD Burner (1 Viewer)

Tesla

Portal Pro
January 30, 2009
138
4
Texas
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
I need to upgrade my ide DVD-ROM to a DVD+/-RW Dual Layer ripper/burner.

The last time I bought one, I got a NEC 3500. I still have it in another machine and it's still working great. It will do DL, but I have to use the good Verbatim DL blanks. However, I usually use DVDShrink to DVD5, and burn to DVD-R.

I would just get another NEC, but I've read that since they teamed up with Sony their Optiarc drives are not as good as the old NECs use to be. If not Optiarc, thinking maybe a Samsung?

So, something reliable as my old NEC, IDE interface, tray loading. If the software needs to have internal support for the drive, this is what I run.

XP-MCE 2005
DVDFab5-HD (current free version)
DVD Shrink (last release)
Img Burn (current version)
Roxio 10 (older versions available if needed for XP)
MediaPortal v1.0

Also, if there are any cool DVD Burner MP Plugins, I would like to run those as well. I'm new to MediaPortal (previously ran Meedio) so I'm not sure what all is available to use directly from MP yet.
 

Tesla

Portal Pro
January 30, 2009
138
4
Texas
Home Country
United States of America United States of America
On second thought, looks like it will be between one of these:

Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-116DBK

Samsung 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model SH-S222A

Either is around $25. Reliability and performance is more important to me that saving a few dollars. I guess I'm leaning towards the Pioneer.

Since most of my DVD software is fairly recent, hopefully there won't be a problem with the burning software not recognizing the drives. I'm not sure what burning engines the MP Plugins use, but I'm guessing its something open-source that the authors keep updated.

Sorry to see that NEC has gone down-hill (just in the past 5 years). They were the benchmark in DVD Burners ( and also for the first PC CD-ROMs and CD-RWs further back than that).

Plextor is still around, but their prices being double everyone elses, no one is buying them. I guess they are one of the last players who are still buying someone else's OEM drives (close to what we can get them for) and reselling them (re-badged).
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom