Looking for advice on NEC 3550

[Abell44]

Hello,

I have been using an NEC 3550 as my drive for burning. I will also occasionally run error scans on random discs using the same NEC 3550 with CD/DVD Speed. Usually they come out acceptable and I just move on.

However, recently I burned about 20 DVD's on Verbatim DLP Inkjet Printable +R, MCC003 (Made in Taiwan) disc . The first few I tested came out ok, and then I started to notice large spikes on some of the discs. Being concerned about bad media, I decided to scan them on a different drive on another PC. I used a BenQ DW1650 to scan the discs that the NEC reported bad. The BenQ drive reported the discs completely different, with no large spikes.

To change it up again, I decided to try testing a different media on both drives. This time I used a Maxell -R, MXL RG01 (Made in Japan) disc burned in 2004 on an NEC 2500A. The results on this were much worse on the NEC end. The NEC drive reported huge errors thoughout the disc and running the ScanDisc utility showed about 99% as damaged on the surface scan. The BenQ drive reported the disk completely different and showed no errors on the surface scan.


Here is a link to the scans that I made from both drives.

I'm basically looking for advice on whether I should continue to use the NEC 3550 for burning and just get a different drive to scan with. If it looks like the drive NEC is degrading, I could switch to a different drive for recording.

I have a Pioneer DVR-109 available or I could purchase another recommended drive. Getting the BenQ DW1650 that I scanned with is a possible option as well, but it is in another family members PC and I would have to replace it with a reliable substitute.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Scour]

TBH, all scans are to bad for this good media.

Do u have the Pioneer 109 or u can get it?

If u have him, then prefer it for burning media, he should be better than the NEC.

If u looking for a new drive, a Benq 1650 or 1655, Pioneer DVR 111 (not good for scanning) or a liteon 165P6S or 165H6S should be a good choice

[bicomputational]

I use the 1650 for scans all the time and find it very reliable, so I think
those scans are showing you the true quality of your burns. I agree with Scour that you should be able to get better burns than the Benq scans are
showing with that media - if you need a drive that is great for both scans and burns and can get your hands on the 1650, do it. I'd put a Pioneer 111d in place of the Benq; I think it's an even better burner but not good for scanning. Its also very reliable (which I don't think the Liteons are any more, much as I may love them for scanning) so you'd be replacing the Benq with something as good for everyday use.

[Abell44]

Scour and bicomputational,

Thanks for the information and reviews of the scans. I've taken your advice and ordered the DVR-111D drives. I'll be placing one in my PC and replacing the the Benq 1650 in my cousin's PC with the other DVR-111D. He does not use the scanning utility at all, in fact, rarely uses the drive. So as long as he has a good burning and reliable drive, I can feel comfortable. In the end the set up would be the Pioneer-111D as the burning drive and the Benq 1650 as the scanning drive in my PC.

In the mean time, I switched out the NEC drive in my PC with the Pioneer DVR-109 that I had available to use here. I made 2 more burns using the same MCC003 media and then scanned on the Benq 1650.

Here are the results for the DVR-109. Should these results be closer to what I'm looking for on the MCC003 media unitl I receive the DVR-111?

[Scour]

This scans look much better

But I think the MCC003-media is not avaible everywhere because the newer 16x-media is produced much more