Pioneer, Liteon or Optiarc

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers Writer User Reviews and Comments
#1

Hello,

I want to buy a new dvd burner and as most of the other threads say, it should be “the best”.

I did found some reviews in the internet but I’m not sure what to take.

I’ve heard lots of good things about the burning quality of pioneers’ drives. But it looks like the 216/217 was the lastes true pioneer with nec chips. Now we have the 218 but it’s decribed by some users as the loudest drive ever made. I also managed to find some very good reviews of the lastes pioneer 219 but it’s hard to find on the market and there’s no information about it.

I was told to buy a liteon iHAS624. I found a nice review here but vroom had problems with the dl media. So I’m not thrilled to buy this one.

Also here on the forum I found many recommendations for the sony optiarc 742x series as being the best dl burner.

It’s important for me that the drive makes QUALITY burns. Of course it depends on the media, that’s why I need a drive that can make in generall good burns.

The drive should not have rip/region and whatever locks and should be able to burn at max speed (without deminishing the quality though). Fancy crap like LightTag/Scribe/Bullshit isn’t that important to me. When I burn a disk I want to have a good quality data not a good looking disk.

I saw that most quality drives use chips from NEC or Optiarc. Can you tell me how to find the chipset of a particualr drive and which drive has the “better” chipset?

Scanning for errors isn’t that inportant but it’s a nice feature.

I also found lots of bad reviews about samsung and lg drives.

So what would you recommend me and why? Any links to good reviews are welcome. Pioneer, Liteon or Optiarc?

Stefan

#2

Hi and welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

Most people thinks that the burner is the main factor to obtain the best writing quality, but the truth is that the burner and burning speed are certainly important, but the first factor to get the best quality is the disc.

No drive can transform a low quality disc in a good disc. So, the first thing you have to do is buy only quality discs. At the moment, the only best discs (mostly for DL media) are Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden. All other brands have a very variable quality.

Using good quality discs, most burners give good results. Some drives indeed have a better performance than other, but in general any drive performs good with good discs.

Usually I suggest to avoid LG drives because I had bad experiences with them (I bought 3 LG drive, and all were dead after few weeks after less than 30 burns), but there are people that never had problems with LG drives.

What drives can you find in stores? Do you have a list of models?

#3

This is what I found at home (see also the attached pics):
Verbatim SL and DL as well as CD, Sony SL and Maxell DL (ritek) disks. I usually buy Sony or Verbatim. So what do you think?

edit:
I can buy a Pioneer s18lbk (s19lbk is still difficult to find), Sony Optiarc AD-762x, Sony Optiarc 742x is also available, Liteon iHAS 624. Others are also an option but I think the three above are a good pick.







#4

If you can find I suggest to get the Optiarc :slight_smile:

#5

[QUOTE=geno888;2572984]If you can find I suggest to get the Optiarc :)[/QUOTE]

Which one? AD-72[B]6[/B]xS or AD-72[B]4[/B]xS? What’s the difference between them? What’s the difference between the models 726[B]0[/B], 726[B]1[/B], 726[B]3[/B]? Can they be crossflashed?

Any links to a good review of the Optiarc?

#6

All models of 724x and 726x series are identical (except for lightscribe or labelflash), so you can choose the one you like :slight_smile:

the [B]0[/B] models are the plain burners, the [B]1[/B] is referred to lightscribe, and [B]3[/B] to labelflash :slight_smile:

Because of I’m not interested at all in these features, I’d get the [B]0[/B] model, but actually there is no difference in drive performance (maybe there is a slight price difference).

About a review, take a look here :slight_smile:

#7

7261 has Lightscribe. Don’t know about the 7263, it may be Labelflash, you’ll just have to read a few threads here about the 726x drives.

The 726x and 724x drives are similar, both using an NEC chipset, but have some slight differences in the pcb and internal power configuration (repeating what I’ve read here in the forums).

I have a 7240s and it has been a good drive, though I prefer my old Samsung SH-S203B for day to day use.

Edit: :doh: Beat to the punch!

#8

3 = Labeltag? :confused:
At least in former times, 3 indicated Labelflash…

[QUOTE=stefan_p;2573002] What’s the difference between the models 726[B]0[/B], 726[B]1[/B], 726[B]3[/B]? Can they be crossflashed?[/QUOTE]Theoretically these drives can be crossflashed, but I am not aware of any tool. So, practically the answer is no.
Apart from that, Lightscribe drives have additional hardware, so crossflashing a non-LS drive with LS firmware is useless.

You might also keep in mind that these drives are available for ~20 Euro. The Lightscribe version is only two Euros more.

Michael

#9

[QUOTE=mciahel;2573007]3 = Labeltag? :confused:
At least in former times, 3 indicated Labelflash…[/QUOTE]

ooooooooooops sorry my bad :o:o:o

#10

Thank you for all the replies, guys.

I just read the review here about optiarc 7240 (the link given by geno888). I don’t know. It’s a good drive but I think I might go for the iHAS 624 (still not decided though).

I’d like to have the Pioneer S19 but it’s still difficult to here to find.

What about the difference in the chipsets? NEC vs. mediathek (was that the name?). Pros and cons?

#11

Mediatek chipset allow to make scans of burned discs. NEC chipset is not reliable for scans :slight_smile:

#12

NEC vs Mediatek
If you are going to do a lot of DL burns, I’d stick with the NEC chipset. Especially if you use the relatively poorer Ritek S04 disks rather than the Verbatim.

If you want a scanning drive, the Lite-on’s are a good choice for scanning dvds.

#13

And unlike Mediatek based drives, NEC based drives can scan CD media :bigsmile:

Michael

#14

Does anyone know why the NEC chipsets seem to burn “better” compared to the mediatek? Cheaper components or bad firmware?

#15

My guess would be better engineers & technicans…