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DVD Movie frustration

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DVD Movie frustration

Postby Derek Sims on Mon Nov 11, 2002 5:21 pm

Dear CDR Labs

I have decided to contact you from the UK having found your excellent website, as I am sure you can help me in my search for a good DVD ROM drive, mainly to play DVD movies. Just to give a little background to my request:

When we had our desktop PC built in late 1999 we asked for a DVD ROM drive so we could play DVD movies and audio Cds. The machine is a 433 Mhz Celeron which now has 192 MB RAM and was supplied with a Raite RDR 102 DVD drive. The operating system is Windows 98.

The machine would not play DVD movies with a software decoder such as PowerDVD, giving extremely jerky results. I had read that it was necessary to enable DMA but this option was not even available in the Windows settings with this particular drive. To resolve the problems we bought a hardware decoder, the REALmagic Hollywood Plus. This resolved the jerkiness but the drive refused to recognise a number of DVDs or froze partway through. All of the “faulty” DVDs played perfectly in a stand-alone DVD player when returned to the library from which they were borrowed. I tried cleaning the Laser several times.

About eighteen months ago the drive stopped recognising any audio CD as even being present. This was not a major problem as we bought a TDK CyCLone CDRW, but recently it has refused to recognise most of the DVDs we try to play. (It does, however, always play the one DVD we own, a second-hand copy of The Usual Suspects). As I now have a DVD drive in my laptop at work I have been able to check the Disks and they have all played perfectly.

We have now decided it is time to dump the original DVD but because of our frustrating experiences we want to give ourselves the best chance of being able to play movies. The drive in my HP laptop is a Toshiba so I was inclined to the SD-M1612, which I believe is being replaced by the SD-M1712 but from reading your reviews I would also shortlist the Pioneer A06S and the Lite-On LTD163.

Bearing in mind our history of problems, and that to us saving money is secondary to having a drive which avoids the three years of frustration we have experienced, could you make any specific recommendations from your tests? Most of the drives you have reviewed appear to be available in the U.K.

Anxiously hoping for your reply

Kind regards

Derek Sims
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Postby cfitz on Mon Nov 11, 2002 6:17 pm

I think you will find plenty of people here with good experiences regarding the Pioneer and LiteOn DVD-ROM drives. BuddhaTB has been quite happy with his Pioneer 105S ( http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 7911#37911 ), and Inertia, eliminator, leokor, etc. have been happy with their 106S drives. Robotnik, EARLTHEPEARL, jamessampson, etc. (and I) have been quite happy with our LiteOn LTD-166S drives ( improvements over 163 = full DVD-Multi support and physical improvements: http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7291 )

Both Pioneers and LiteOns can be made region-free, the Pioneer through firmware updates (see BuddhaTB's post) and the LiteOn through firmware updates or, more easily, through a handy region free tool you can get from Dimitri ( http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6439 )

Here are some more comments on the 106:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6754

and on the 166S:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6553

There are plenty more, just scroll the DVD forum.

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Postby TheWizard on Mon Nov 11, 2002 9:30 pm

Very well written, Derek. I think that is the first post on this forum that I have seen written like a formal letter. I see no need to throw in my two cents since cfitz did an outstanding job summing everything up. I just wanted to comment on how professional your post/letter was, Derek. :)
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Postby cfitz on Tue Nov 12, 2002 1:09 am

TheWizard wrote:Very well written, Derek. I think that is the first post on this forum that I have seen written like a formal letter. I see no need to throw in my two cents since cfitz did an outstanding job summing everything up. I just wanted to comment on how professional your post/letter was, Derek. :)

Yeah, I thought so too.

However, feel free to add more. I'm sure others can easily add points that I have missed, and I didn't address Toshiba drives at all.

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Postby BuddhaTB on Tue Nov 12, 2002 1:19 am

Nice response cfitz! :D
Basically summed up everything I had to say before I even saw this thread.

You can't go wrong with Pioneer or Lite-On. :wink:
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DVD Movie frustration

Postby Derek Sims on Wed Nov 13, 2002 3:57 pm

Thank you all very much for your helpful comments. I have now ordered a LiteOn LTD166S and look forward to the results.

This is the first time I've used a forum. I'm sure it won't be the last.

Kind regards

Derek
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Re: DVD Movie frustration

Postby VEFF on Wed Nov 13, 2002 4:12 pm

Derek Sims wrote:Thank you all very much for your helpful comments. I have now ordered a LiteOn LTD166S and look forward to the results.

This is the first time I've used a forum. I'm sure it won't be the last.

Kind regards

Derek



Welcome to the forum then Derek!
This is almost like a community, in that most people here show a genuine interest in trying to help one another.

Good luck with your drive.
Burners only:
Pioneer DVR-115D
Pioneer DVR-111D
Plextor PX-716A TLA0304
Plextor PX-716A same TLA

LiteOn 52246S 52X CD-RW
LiteOn 52246S (another)
LiteOn 52327S 52X CD-RW
TDK 40X USB 2.0 CD-RW
TEAC CD-W540E 40X CD-RW
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