Calling all good rippers (and burners!)

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

Ok, I’ll admit I’m a bit out of the loop. My Lite-On DVD-ROM drives are starting to really show their age (very slow ripping performance compared to what they used to do, ye olde 166-series) and my NEC burners are getting a bit long in the tooth (not to mention I’m really not crazy about this 7170, very immature firmware even with the recent releases, sorry Liggy/Dee, I love you guys and the work you’ve done, but this drive is just not cutting it!)

So here’s what I need:

First: A new DVD-ROM drive (or maybe a second RW? would prefer to just stick to the traditional ROM/RW dual-drive setup if I can) that’s a good ripper (reasonably fast/good at reading borked discs, etc) that’s CURRENTLY SOLD and AVAILABLE please! I’ll more than likely be sticking with PATA for now, my SATA ports are filled with HDD’s, until I upgrade to a mobo with at least 8 SATA ports, but that’ll be a long ways down the road… :wink:

Second: A new DVD-RW that’s a good quality burner (and same as above, currently sold and available!) Here’s the NEEDS list: NOT Lite-On (had a bad experience, sorry don’t trust them anymore) NOT a Plextor ($$!) has to support bitsetting and burn a wide variety of media well (that includes everything from CMC to Verbatim, including DL’s). I was looking at the Pioneer 112D but the review here said no bitsetting, has this changed? If it can do bitsetting it looks like potentially a winner to me.

I swear I edited this post about 10 times already before hitting submit so I hope I didn’t forget anything. Thanks for any/all advice.

Crap I did forget something: RPC1 “enabling” …not a huge deal because I have AnyDVD, but would be nice to have the ability to flash it to an RPC1 f/w.

And two more things, don’t care about lightscribe or DVD-RAM.

#2

Ok so I see cross-flashing the 112D to a Buffalo gets you +R (SL/DL) bitsetting, that works for me. Sounds like the Pioneer is the way to go for the burner. Still waiting for some weigh-ins on the ripper, please!

#3

Like you I went the Pioneer/Asus route for the burner. I also went with Lite-On for the ripper. I know you said you don’t trust the brand anymore, and I can understand because the one I ordered had to be RMA’ed from the start. But they scan and rip well, which is a positive, and can burn if the Pioneer fails.

#4

What I meant was I don’t trust Lite-On for the burning :slight_smile: I don’t have a major aversion to Lite-On for ripping/reading. I still have my old 166 drives I use for ripping now (and as I said, they’re getting long in the tooth, the ripping performance has been very slow/picky lately).

#5

Hi,

if your 166S doesn’t read as it did before, you may try to clean the drive (do not use one of those cleaner discs) and regrease the mechanical parts.
There are also read-speed enhanced firmwares for that drive on codeguys.rpc1.org for this drive.

Michael

#6

I don’t want to bother wasting my time with opening the drive and etc. Not even sure which parts need the greasing (pretty obvious to use rubbing alcohol on the lens, just not sure about what else). Easier to just replace it, from a “time is money” standpoint. The drives have already been flashed with the faster reading fw’s.

Forgot to mention I’m in the US so I’ll probably be ordering from someplace like the egg or zzf.

#7

I’ve always used my LiteOns (DVD burners) for ripping. No problems yet. :slight_smile:

#8

I just got an Asus E616A2 DVD-ROM which I use for ripping, and it has worked great. It can rip DL DVDs in 12-13 minutes, which is about twice as fast as my Pioneer 111 (25-30 minutes). It is also able to rip bad quality discs fairly well too. I got it from www.thetechgeek.com for about $33 total.

#9

You talking about this one ? Is it much different than the A3 on the egg’s site (except the A2 appears to have a larger buffer)? Was thinking about picking up a couple of those, looked good on paper.

#10

I got this drive: http://www.thetechgeek.com/content/product.php?pid=9292&cid=25

Not sure if it is the same one you linked, but it looks to be the same (except beige).
From what I have read the Asus E616A2 is much better than the A3. The A2 has a 2MB buffer, whereas the A3 only has 198KB buffer. I have only had the A2 for about a week now, but it has been ripping DVDs phenomenally (twice as fast as Pioneer 111) and it has great error correction.

#11

Just wanted to confirm that the tech geek drive is NOT an A2, they are shipping the A3 now :frowning: I’ve now been screwed by 2 websites now (techgeek being one) advertising the A2 and then sending me the A3. Looks like getting an A2 is impossible now, any other suggestions for a great ripper now that the A2 isn’t happening?