Suggestions for DVD ripper/burner

[sfpass]

Hi all,

My old NEC 3500 is in its death throes and I need to replace it ASAP. I've been reading over a few threads but I have some specific questions. I'm looking for a replacement drive that's IDE since I use an external enclosure that only supports IDE.

I've been looking at the Samsung SH-S202 (J, I guess) and the Pioneer 115D, although any other suggestions would be more than welcome! It's been a while since I've comprehensively read up on DVD writers so if any of you have a better feel for the current crop, your comments would be appreciated.

I'm going to be ripping a lot of old movies that probably are scratched up so good ripping performance is one of my top priorities. From what I've read, ripping varies a lot from drive to drive - one drive may perfectly read what another one might not. But still, which drives are more consistently good readers? Read speed is not important. I really only care about how well a drive will handle errors and scratches. Is the MediaTek chipset supposed to perform well in this regard?

As for scanning, I typically just use Nero 6.6.01 to "Verify" the disc after burning. Not sure if that actually is as good as the scanning program I've seen used on these forums, but I think I might start using that to scan my discs now.

I only will use the drive for burning SL DVDs - mainly movies and data archiving. Again, write speed is not as important as consistently quality burns and burned discs that are compatible with a variety of readers.

My other criterion is the ability to handle DVD-R. I just bought a 100 pack of Verbatim DVD-Rs so ideally, I'd like my drive to be compatible with them. I think I also have a 100 pack spindle of TY DVD-R lying around somewhere. I usually buy Verbatim or TY but if a drive can handle worse media, that's a bonus. Either way, I'd like a drive that could burn DVD-R and DVD+R equally well.

I'll recap:
I'm looking for an IDE DVD burner that
-can read/rip scratched discs, deal with errors
-is compatible with DVD-R

Thanks in advance for your help and advice!

PS: I'm not too good on the technical details of reading/writing so please excuse my confusion.

[zebadee]

Hi
Welcome onboard sfpass.
The Samsung is probably marginally better reader than the Pioneer.
However looking at your post.
The Pioneer DVR-115(D) ticks more boxes overall.
Better burn quality, over a wider range of media.
A good reader as well.

[sfpass]

Thank you for the warm welcome!

I followed your advice and did a little more research into the Pioneer 115D. Since it’s relatively new, there hasn’t been a whole lot of posts about its performance. I couldn’t find too much about how it performs on ripping scratched and old discs. However, I did find many comparisons between the Pioneer 112 and Samsung SH203B. I’m assuming the SH202B and SH203B are the same drive except for SATA compatability and the Pioneer 112 is somewhat similar to the 115, just older (but please do correct me if I’m wrong here).

I was a little concerned reading this:
[I]"The Pioneer only has one major strength: it can burn the hell out of a variety of DVD media in the 4-12x burn speed range. High quality, low PIE/PIF, low jitter, standalone DVD player friendly burns. Otherwise it’s a poor to so-so CD-R writer, finicky on different hardware setups, a slow and poor ripper, useless as a scanner, and simply unreliable when burning at 16x or faster. I haven’t had one die on me yet, but I’m not impressed by its build quality, either. And it’s butt ugly to boot.

The Samsung is everything the Pioneer isn’t. It burns CD-Rs well, excels at high speed DVD burning, quickly recognizes inserted media, rips well, scans well, and feels like a well-made, quiet, dependable drive. Slower speed DVD burns are acceptable in quality, but it doesn’t come close to matching the Pioneer no matter what burn speed you use. This is true on most MIDs I’ve tried–the only one the Pio and Samsung really battle over is DAXON AZ2 @ 8x. Funny, but the Pioneer overspeeds AZ2 to 12x better than the Samsung (strat swap required)."[/I]

Unless Pioneer made significant improvements to the 115D vs the 112, are these issues still valid? It seems like the Pioneer’s main benefit is the ability to burn to all kinds of media. For my applications, I really care most about quality ripping (slow is OK). If I stick with using good media, the Samsung looks like the winner in every other performance category. Or has the Pioneer 115D been improved from the 112 to the point where it can compare favorably to the Samsung 202/203?

[bjkg]

…Since it’s (Pioneer DVR-115D) relatively new, there hasn’t been a whole lot of posts about its performance…

@ sfpass,

It appears that you have not been “ReSearching” “Looking” in the correct area for current up to date pertinent information concerning the Pioneer DVR-115D.

In the CD Freaks dedicated Pioneer DVD Forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87) there two extremely detailed reviews on the Pioneer DVD-115D [“CD Freaks Presents: The Pioneer DVR-115D DVD Burner Review” http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/cd-freaks-presents-pioneer-dvr-115d-dvd-burner-review-239955/ and “TerminalVeloCD presents: The Pioneer DVR-115D Review” http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/terminalvelocd-presents-pioneer-dvr-115d-review-233549

In the CD Freaks dedicated Pioneer DVD Forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87) there is also a detailed informative current ongoing Pioneer DVD-115D posting titled “Pioneer DVR-115: Post your scans and questions here” (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87/pioneer-dvr-115-post-your-scans-questions-here-232284) which contains current up to date information on the performance of the Pioneer DVD-115D.

There are numerous postings in the dedicated Pioneer DVD Forum (http://club.cdfreaks.com/f87) focused on the performance characteristics of the Pioneer DVR-115D.

Regards,
bjkg

[sfpass]

Hello again,

Actually I did go through the entire “post your scans/questions thread” for the 115D and the Pioneer forum in general but most of the replies there were concerned with scans or burning.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my previous post - I’m looking for a drive that is a good reader, especially with old and scratched discs. So error correction would be important. I can live with a slow reader but I’m really interested in a drive that can read/rip whatever I throw at it. I couldn’t find many posts that addressed this specific performance issue.

Although the TerminalVeloCD review does do a scuffed DVD test…and concluded that the Pioneer 115D was only a so-so reader. Its error correction wasn’t great either.

So with that in mind, does anyone have suggestions for a drive with superior error correction and reading ability? It doesn’t have to be limited to the Samsung or Pioneer. I’m almost tempted to say I’m looking for a dedicated reader.

Thanks for the pointers!

[zebadee]

Hi
If wanting a reader/ripper then either of the Lite-On or Samsung range must be very strong contenders.

[KILLorBE]

Like zebadee said, personally Lite-On would be my first pick.

Regarding the scratched discs, there are ways to get rid of most scratches, but there’s one problem… the software you use, Windows tends to hang or crap out real quick when something can’t be read, but you might be able to find some solutions here.

I’ll try to write an article about recovering data and on how to get rid of scratches ASAP (If it takes too long PM me).