DVD RW drives..one LAST time

I would like people's input on Plextor vs LiteON DVDRWs...any and all comments are welcome. I am considering getting LiteOn's most recent DVDRW...Plextor's does run slightly faster though..Just never owned a PLEXTOR, and have to say, I do like my LiteON CDRW.

Plextor is probably the best dvd.cd writter company out there. I would choose them over anyother... anyday.

1. The best plextor dvd-rw is I think 12x which is also SATA and is the only one that has a 8MB buffer (from the ones listed on newegg)

2. Second comes the NEC 16x

3. Lite-On drives

I have the NEC3500A and I like it, althought quality testing would be nice. It rips slower than some of the other drives, and if you don't flash the firmware, it rips twice as slow as some drives.

The Plextor is one of the best drives, although what you pay for is what you get. They rarely release firmwares for future upgrades. Also, the Plextors are a bit picky when it comes to the media they burn. I know some brands do not burn well on Plextors.

I really wish I had bought a BenQ drive right now, the firmwares are pouring in, and they do support media testing. They burn well, rip well, and read well.

I would not suggest the LiteOn just because some people have had issues with it. I'm not saying it's a bad drive by any means, it's a damn good reader, I'd just recommend other drives in this order.

1) Plextor (Although I cannot justify it's price, even though they are great)
2) BenQ
3) Pioneer / NEC.

Edit: I loved my Lite-On CDRW, but DVDRW is a different ball game... as I am learning!

I had a LiteOn 501S (4x DVD+-RW) for about 7 months and it's crap. The drive always had issues reading blank discs. I'd have to eject and insert the disc several times to get it to recognize a disc. Kept saying disc is not blank. Did this with all media brands.

When I finally decided to replace it, it was starting to have the same problem with all dvds, not just rewritables. I contacted LiteOn and their suggestion was to upgrade to the newest firmware. I had already done this in my attempts to make the drive usable.

Something I didn't notice until the end since I had a separate cdrw, but the drive would not read or write cds. Unlike dvds, the drive said there was a disc in the drive, just that it could not read the disc.

Now I've got a Samsung that costs less ($70 at Microcenter) and works better than the LiteOn ever did.

Misellus

I've got a sony 4X dvd burner. got it last may for $315!!!!

It's sort of picky with disks though. Some disks won't burn at all and others if you burn at max speed, towards the end of the dvd (edge of the disk) the movie will skip and freeze up.

Maximum PC listed the new sony drive as the best of the best. Dual layer + and - dual layer etc. I've got a few plexwriters though so it's still a toss up on which one to get. Mabey that 12X dual layer plexwriter (I think they've got one).

this probably a stupid question but im going to ask anyways... are any of the dvd writers talked about in this thread better at backing up my games/movies then the others?? sorry for the newb question but i read awhile back that some drives are better at backing up then other for some reason...

The ones we mentioned. NEC is good because of bitsetting, but it's less and less needed because later DVD players read DVD+R.