Hp’s LightScribe drive is made by Liteon

Liteon is the manufacturer of the HP dvd640i LightScribe drive.

i see a lot of people are going to check if they can flash their drives to one of these.

alot of folks are going to have mesed up drives then....too many people are flash happy, and do so without any concideration of the risks. i have flashed every drive i own, and every time i do so i hold my breath a little.....

That's why i bought a UPS so i don't have to hold my breath as hard Thanls for the pic and info jan70. I think i'll wait to see how they go in end users hands before i buy one.

i translated a german text to the new cooperation with babelfish. the translation isn't good, but i think it's enough to understand the main meaning...

Press: HP gets LiteOn also in the boat

HEWLETT PACKARD (message) and the LiteOn IT corporation met today a world-wide agreement for the production and marketing of HP DVD drive assemblies. LiteOn IT is world-wide one of the prominent manufacturers of high-quality Optical disk drives. The agreement closed between HP and LiteOn, makes it possible to drive out LiteON world-wide DVD burners under the label name HP. Thus LiteOn markets in the future all HP drive assemblies at private and business customers. Under the strict quality and mark control of HP LiteOn production, quality assurance, selling, marketing, support and logistics of the optical drive assemblies of the mark HP will take over. The strict quality standards of HP are taken over. LiteOn becomes its existing selling ways in Europe, which use the middle east and Africa, in order to sell the HP DVD burners. The rights at the Road maps of the products, as well as plans for future developments and information to the customer satisfaction remain with HP. HP will participate in consumer meetings and all optical drive assemblies both will test, and will judge, in order to guarantee the quality of the products. HP will invest also further in the research and development of new drive assemblies and the won realizations for the manufacturing of new products will use. All future products are likewise tested by HEWLETT PACKARD and driven out under the mark HP. The current DVD product Portfolio of HP is cared for up to the end of the product running time further by HEWLETT PACKARD. LiteOn starts the marketing with the next generation of DVD burners, which are equipped then with the new LightScribe Technology. The first devices will come in March 2005 on the European market. The advantages of this co-operation are to the Notebook and in the long experience and the strong operational readiness level of LiteOn on the European DVD market and in the top position of HP on the Desktop -, the printer market. By this co-operation the enterprises in a the position are to set without the industriellen co-operation partners and neglect customers from HP to in the future the focus on the final consumer. The agreement makes HP and LiteOn world-wide the number one in the segment of the DVD drive assemblies. The first HP DVD burner of LiteON will be the HP DVD640i. A drive assembly with LightScribe -, double Layer and dual format technology with 16facher burning speed. Starting from March 2005 the HP DVD640i in the trade will be available.

That's got to spell the death of Lightscribe then!

One crossflash that I'd never expect to work, as additional hardware features are required:
1. The normal clamp assembly may not be correct for holding the disc inverted.
2. How is the lightscribe printing surface tracked and focused ?

I do not believe that I'd even want to flash my liteon drive to the HP because
the LightScribe on does grayscale burning on the disk at this time. Now if it was
able to burn the disks in full color then that would be a different story all together.
I guess I'll just stick with my regular Liteon drive and the Epson R200 and inkjet
printable DVD's for the time being.

I don't mean to be a total nut job here but I am getting mixed messages on this website about the HP DVD640i DVD writer.

So. I went and shut down my computer pulled the drive out and made a copy of the label on the dvd writer itself. The only one of the two names(LITEON or BENQ) on it that I can find is BenQ.

BUT now everyone else is saying it is also a DW1600 or so. well Now I can't find that anywhere on here!

The burner is failing to write for some reason giving me I/O errors and this whole process of trying to find out why and made me insane

Can someone PLEASE help

Check this thread. If your burner identifies in windows as 640c, it is identical to a Benq DW1625. Post some details about your problem in the Benq forum.