which NEC DVD writer?

[mofei1]

ok guys i have come across 2 NEC dvd writers one being the ND-3500 and the other ND-3520. i'm a little confused about the differences between these drivers. which one would be better?? also the price difference is around £2 on ebuyer.co.uk

[I.M.O.G.]

I would go with the 3500, it is the best drive right now. The 3520 is newer, but it has some firmware issues it appears and it does not perform as well as the 3500 does.

The 3500 is an excellent choice for a DVD burner, and I just picked one up myself after researching extensively.

What do you expect to be burning or copying? DVD's or GAMES?

[dfi]

i backed that 3500 is the best right now! plus it is cheap 60$ at newegg.

[Cid]

/vote 3500

Fast, reliable, and super quiet!

[I.M.O.G.]

The only drawback I know of is that it is not able to rip some things or break protection for archival purposes on some media.

[I.M.O.G.]

Are you in the us or uk?

If you are in the uk you shoudl shop elsewhere. They are ok in the us though.

[mofei1]

rite ok guys will look into the nd-3500 and hopefully purchase it :burn:

[mofei1]

IMOG wot is wrong wiv the uk ones. i live in the uk so....

[I.M.O.G.]

They have terrible service, and almost everyone who has shopped with them has been upset. Ratings don't get much worse than theirs...

0.56 Likelihood of Future Purchases (out of a 0-10 rating)

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller8813.html

[mofei1]

erm, i personally think that ebuyer is pretty gd, everything i have brought from them have got to me fine, and i find the prices reasonable and in fact cheaper than most places.

i have nva had to return n e faulty products that i got off ebuyer and also service i would agree is pretty average

[mofei1]

ok guys ne opinions on the sony DW-D22A-B2 which is very cheap in price. good value for money?

[I.M.O.G.]

Its not comparable at all to the 3500, but it would work thats all I can say for - its actually just a rebadged liteon drive, model SOHW-1633S (http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/168/9). Note that I did NOT say it would work well. Most discussion of this drive that I found through google reports problems, and there is limited firmware available. A large reason I went with the 3500 is because it is very well supported by the community, and it has been tested and shown to make excellent burns. The top drives are basically the nec 3500, pioneer dvr-108, benq 1620, and plextor 712. There are some newer versions of these also that may be good, but updated firmware may improve their initial moderate performance. You might also want to look here:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=113670&highlight=dvd+poll

And here:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2260&p=20

Basically if you read the reviews of ebuyer uk, everyone thought their prices were good, but anyone who had a problem with their order got screwed - all retailers make mistakes, but the good ones make them right. Ebuyer uk does not. Doing business with them is an outright gamble, but its on your buck so if you like them then go for it. I advise you to look up other retailers on resellerratings.com and get an idea of what is typical - ebuyer uk is definetly in the lowest rung.

/me pwned DVDRW

[mofei1]

ok guys i jus purchased the nec nd-3500 and some Infiniti 8 Speed Inkjet Printable DVD+R 25pk spindle and should be here by next week. is this good media to go with this drive??

[Vrykyl]

i bought an nec 3500, you wont be dissapointed in it ;)

[I.M.O.G.]

I would recommend you look here:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=61943

9) Q: What media works best with my drive?

A: I refer you to the above discussions, there is no generalized answer to this question. Even "identical" drives can show different error rates on the same media at the same burn speed. Sorry, you gotta buy some and test it. Consult the media tests and get what is working well for others, then test it. Then test it some more. There is also a very extensive media thread at CDRLabs HERE (http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6005)

I could not find any good reliable information concerning specific media with the nec3500, perhaps if you look you may find what is good... All I can say is that it is more likely that the media is poor than that it is good. There is much more poor media than there is really good media.

You would need to identify those discs by more than just the info you gave me to find out if they are good, this explains how:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=93797

[mofei1]

ok IMOG, thx for all the help, ended up ordering from ebuyer, simply because of the prices lol. its like £10 differnces compared wiv dabs and overclockers

[I.M.O.G.]

You are welcome, I learned a bit myself. :)

Good luck with the purchase, I'll cross my fingers for you hoping there aren't any complications. ;)

[mofei1]

hehe hope not, neva had problems b4 so erm like they say "touch wood" :cool: lol

[mofei1]

does the nd-3500 have buffer under run protection?? i dont see it mentioned n e where. if it doesnt, will there be n e problems in burning media?

[I.M.O.G.]

Doesn't everything have that anymore? I think all but very early drives have it, so it might often times just be overlooked because its not worth mentioning really.

[mofei1]

ok thx, will find out wen i recieve the drive wont b here till wednesday :cry: lol

[Mr.Guvernment]

what is the differnce between the 3500 and the 3500A ? i am in the market and want to get the 3500 and do the hacked fireware to get the full ripping speed out of it :D

[I.M.O.G.]

Ya, CD Freaks has a lot of firmware information for this drive, and I saw reference to that also... What ripping speed does it increase? Like if I was backing up a DVD would it make that faster? Currently I can decrypt a dvd at about 4x I think.

I believe 3500A is appropriate, and sometimes the A is just left off... If not, I think the drives are both physically identical atleast. Not sure though.

[anvil82]

I just got the ND-3520A and its great.

It will surpass the nd-3500 with a firmware update.

I couldn't see buying an older drive, while the newer one is like $5 more.

It's faster too.

[I.M.O.G.]

Right now the 3500 is best, and it already has great firmware support. It will take time for this to happen with the 3520, but chances are the firmware will be ironed out and it will be just as good (or better) as the 3500, but right now it certainly is not... I would consider getting it now to be fairly early adoption. I can sure understand preferring a newer model, but I prefer getting into something when its a little more established.

Perhaps its faster, but that doesn't mean much when its burns are crap. Chances are this will be ironed out in time, but I don't think anyone would argue that there is any considerable difference between these really. Both drives will likely be good choices, the 3500 is a great choice right now though.

[mofei1]

agreed lol :attn:

[Kendan]

Perhaps its faster, but that doesn't mean much when its burns are crap. Chances are this will be ironed out in time, but I don't think anyone would argue that there is any considerable difference between these really. Both drives will likely be good choices, the 3500 is a great choice right now though.


So which is it? Does the 3520A burn like crap or is there almost no considerable difference?

I think you just got your thoughts mixed up but I am not sure what exactly you mean.

I am looking at the 3520A and want to know how there firmware stands right now and what exactly are the problems with the firmware and some links to the firmware problems would be nice. Thanks:D

[Mr_H]

Wow! It seems as though I just bought my NEC 2510A yesterday. LOL Go with the Flow!

[I.M.O.G.]

Right now its clearly the 3500, in the end I don't expect there to be any considerable differnce. The 3500 burn quality is far superior to the 3520 right now.

I got you Kenny, just give me a minute and I will see what I can pull up in the way of links... To look around yourself, I find that CDRlabs, CDRinfo, and most of all CD freaks forums are very useful if you want a tip in the right direction. When I did my research a week or two ago, the way it stood was that the 3520 was producing crap burns as compared to the 3500, and people were referring to firmware possibly improving this in the future. Everyone was singing the praises of the 3500 however, and there were many tests run showing just how quality its burns were.

*goes for direct linkage*

EDIT: Still looking for linkage... I found most of what I found through google, but there have been plenty of tests run with what I think was a Nero tool, and it produced graphs of the burn quality which people posted.

[Agent_Mull]

Yeah, i bought the 2510A a few months ago, and i love it. Im wondering if maybe a firmware flash will enable the higher burn speeds on this since the 2500A and 2510A were the same hardware, maybe the 2510A and the 3500A are the same hardware too?

[unreal]

i have the 3500 also, voted

[anvil82]

Another thing the ND-3520A has is it will support Dual Layer DVD-R (upcoming firmware).

The ND-3500A will NOT.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tm.asp?m=93724

[I.M.O.G.]

I got kicked off line the other day and the moment has passed for me... If I happen to come across the thread which was posting burn results with these drives, I will link them.

Just moved residence and will be getting cable internet soon - perhaps then I will bounce around for the links. Its gonna bug me if I don't find them.

[Airbornederekc]

what about lite on drives that are 16x dual layer burners. im thinking of upgrading to that anyone here bad about them? or is the nec still beter than that

[I.M.O.G.]

Read on the links earlier - the nec3500 is bottom line the best all around drive right now... there are other chioces which are good but they aren't great.

[mofei1]

lol its thursday now and still havent recieved my writer from ebuyer omg this is the first time it has ever happend. apparently it will b here 2moro so i hope it is...

[I.M.O.G.]

I'm sure it will show up... ;)

[mofei1]

ok i recieved my nec nd3500 2day and jus completed my 1st burn with no errors :D, one problem is that the HDD led flashed with the drive, any one know how to sort this out? cheers

[unreal]

probably because it is using the hd when it is burning to buff... are you going to flash the drive also or leave it as original?

[mofei1]

well i know its not related to burning, the led on the hd and the burner turns on even wen i press the eject button, its like its synchronized wen reading disks and etc. not a big problem jus weird.

i think i'll leave the firmware for now, seems to b working fine for me

[mofei1]

so n e one with this drive know wots wrong with this led thing?? it is kinda annoying, is there any solutions to it?? i know something about changing ide channels but all mine are used.

[mofei1]

just found that my dvd burner has the 2.18 firmware, i take it that those are the newest ones?