LG GGW-H20L being discontinued?

[club_ice]

I get the feeling that this drive will be discontinued as LG has the one without HD-DVD support on it. I am thinking of picking it up, but just wanted to get your thoughts on it, as the price is just under $300 CDN.

I would not mind HD-DVD support as there are some movies out there on HD-DVD that may not make a progression to Blu-Ray....and hey you never know.

[Ian]

Yep, its being phased out in favor of the GBW-H20L. I'm not sure how much its going for in Canada, but the GBW-H20L can be picked up for $230 in the US.

[Dartman]

Mine burned the BD-RE that came with it slowly but it works perfectly on playback on a first gen machine. I can't say the dvd burning is as nice but it does work. I watched one BD movie with it as well and it was perfect on my amd 4600dual with 2 gig and a ATI 1900xtx with the power dvd or whatever it is that comes with the drive.
I paid 259 shipped US for mine and I'd say yes if you want or need HD support and Blu burning you better get it while some are left, luckily it does come with that one RE blank, good luck.

[club_ice]

I decided to go for it ($269 CDN)...the HD-DVD might come in handy, and the drive has had great reviews. I've been waiting to backup some of my stuff on Blu-Ray discs so this works out great. Not too worried about the DVD speeds as I have a couple of DVD Writers still going strong. (GSA-H22L and GSA-4163B)

Thanks for your input.

[Dartman]

Well lets hope blank prices start going down faster so we all can play with our new toys. I remember helping my friend find good deals on blank CDR media back about 95? for like 10 bucks a disk. When I got mine they were about a buck, less in bulk.
Anyways, hope it arrives soon and you have fun with it.

[Morpheus]

I'm not surprised that this has happened to me again. (I'll find some component that I like and I want to get for my next build, and then I find it's been discontinued and I can't get it or I might get one of the last ones available. Argh!) I wanted to get a Blu-Ray writer for my new build (early next year) and I wanted to get the LG GGW-H20L for the sole reason that it has HD-DVD Rom (I bought the Star Trek: 1st season Remastered set which are hybrid discs - standard DVD on one side and HD-DVD on the other side. I think the HD-DVD side has extras that the standard DVD side doesn't have. Now that Blu-Ray has won and HD-DVD has lost, Paramount has released Star Trek 2nd season Remastered as standard DVD only. I was hoping that they would re-release season 1 as standard DVD as well - so I can get rid of the HD-DVD hybrid set.) Now the LG is discontinuing the GGW-H20L - I have to buy this quickly before they are gone. I believe I can get this in store tomorrow (although it's a whopping $350 CDA!)

[Dartman]

Maybe you should see if anyone on the US side will ship to you as long as the shipping and customs doesn't kill the deal.
Frys here has it for 229 I think, at least they did last week so maybe New Egg or Amazon will have similar prices.
Last I checked the place I got mine was still 259 and I don't know if they actually still have any and whether they ship to you as well.
OK Meritline ships to Canada and takes Canadian credit cards http://www.meritline.com/lg-ggw-h20l-li ... drive.html There are probably some others as well, didn't check how much shipping is, good luck.

[Morpheus]

A few days ago, I did a Google search and found that Best Buy Canada has the GGW-H20L for $349.99. I checked the store stock and they had some at my local Best Buy store. I checked the website today and I was suprised -the price was listed as $299.99 AND it was on sale for $239.99. I went today and they didn't have any on the shelf. I had to ask for it - they had the stock in the back room. The guy handed me the box and it turns out to be the wrong drive - it was the Blu-Ray Reader drive (GGC ?) I had him go back and get the correct drive. I bought it and also got the 3-year warranty. Of cource I can't use it until I build my new PC - which will be around May.

[club_ice]

Well I just got it today and hooked it up. It runs fine, but I am getting the feeling its not transferring at DMA speeds. Putting a CD disc at first causes a bit of a CPU spike, which doesn't happen with my other two LG DVD burners. I had to hook this thing up to my JMicron PCI Express SATA card. Also, I put in my copy of Gone In 60 Seconds Blu-Ray, but the drive just won't read it, works fine in my PS3 though. Guess I still have some checking to do.

Some more information, I put a BD-RE disc in and burned 15 gigs of regular computer files. (Music, Images, etc.) It burned just fine with no errors, but took almost 1 hour at 2x?

[Dartman]

I think Nero does some kind of verification as it burns if you used it, as far as the movie you may need to install and enable anydvd HD, especially if all your gear isn't HDCP compliant to get it to play.
My disk copied at 1x as well even though it is from LG and claims 2x speed so either the drive doesn't like it or Nero is doing something weird like the verification thing slowing it down. At least the disk played fine after all that time.

[MichaelT1960]

I also have the GGW-H20L and can't find out why it burns a Verbatim, Ridata, and LG BD-RE 2X disc at 1X or slower even though the software indicates burning at 2X! A 23GB burn takes about 3 hours to do!

LG's Tech support has the nerve to blame it on my hardware saying there are many things that could limit the burn speed. They also have said that it starts at 1X and ends up burning at 2X which is also false. It is supposed to burn CLV at 2X.

Does anyone know why it does this and how to fix it???

Otherwise the burner is fine!

HELP!

Thx,

Michael

[Ian]

What software are you using Michael?