rom better than writer?

[paps33]

This could may be considered more of a dvdrom rather than a dvd writer question, but I'll put it here.

I had always thought until recently that dvdrom drives did not hold any real advantage over combo writer/rom drives in terms of their ability (in general) to read/rip dvds. But in a couple instances lately I have not be able to rip or watch (without freezing) a couple dvds unless I used a dvdrom. The writers I tried were a Liteon ltr-411s and a Nec 2500a. The dvdrom I ended up using is an old Acer 1648. What caused problems (assume it was copy protection related) for the Liteon and Nec (different systems, various software) was no issue for the Acer. So am I right to conclude that in terms of viewing/ripping dvds that the best chances for sucess come when one uses a decent dvdrom versus a dvd writer? In other words, in general are dvdrom drives better for reading/ripping than writers?

Also, if my above conclusion is valid what would be a recommendation for a good dvdrom? I have the Acer, but I don't consider that all that great (even though it worked where the liteon and nec failed). I also have a LTR-163D, and I was considering getting maybe a 166s or a 167T. Would the 166s or 167t be worthwhile?

paps

[Halc]

There is no simple rule: good dvd-roms are better than lousy dvd burners (in terms of ripping, not general quality). And vice versa.

You already have one of the best DVD-ROMs, if you have some incarnation of AOpen/Acer DVD-1648. The 1648/AAP model is amongst the fastest (if not _the_ fastest) and with tested highest error correction capability (better than LiteOn 167s).

So if your ripping works well with the Acer, then use that. If you want to try another, I'd consider AOpen 1648/AAP, LiteOn 167s and possibly Toshiba SD-M1912.

[pranav81]

Right words used by Halc.A good ROM is always a better reader than a average burner.



::Pranav::

[paps33]

Thanks for the responses guys.

So it seems my Acer drive is not as bad as I had thought then. I had assumed it to be run of the mill, with my Liteon 163D being much better. And it even sounds like it (the Acer) would be preferred over a new Liteon, such as the 167T

As I said originally, I was just suprised that both the Acer 1648 and Liteon 163D (which I've since tested) managed to read through a dvd that neither the Liteon 411S or Nec 2500A could. I never considered these later drives to be in the lesser quality category.

[dodecahedron]

So if your ripping works well with the Acer, then use that. If you want to try another, I'd consider AOpen 1648/AAP, LiteOn 167s and possibly Toshiba SD-M1912.

Halc, what did you hear of the Toshiba SD-M1912?
i bought a 1712 when they were (apparently) phased out for the 1812 which wasn't as good.
how does the newer 1912 compare to the 1712 ?

[paps33]

Decided to try an Aopen 1648/AAP. The results were that it had the same problems during playback (freeze at a specific location) and ripping as my writers did (this was true after trying all available firmwares). So it seems that my LTD-163D and Acer/Benq 1648A are actually better at reading certain protected discs. They pause a bit at the problem spot, but they then do continue on.

I do have a need to get a new drive for a system. Since the 1648AAP didn' work out any opinions on what the chances of a Liteon 166 or 167 doing a better job are?

[Nil Einne]

Interestingly, although it's commonly claimed that the Aopen 1648 is the best reader out there for damaged DVDs, this does not concur with at least one persons tests:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... 737#132737

Perhaps this is because there are different idealogies at work here. A lot of people, when they say it has very good error correction tend to look at how fast it can read DVDs which are poor quality/slightly scratched. The faster the better. However, the kind of DVDs we are talking about here are ones which most drives can read, albeit slowly. However, this user in particular has looked at 2 DVDs which are such poor quality that NO drive at all is capable of reading them completely.

[RJW]

Drive act different on different problem sources.
In other words the Acer is great for scratches however for high jitter/beta of a bad quality recordable a Pioneer 107D might acutally outperform it. (While the pioneer would loose on scratched media.)
So it all depends.
Acer is known to be a very good overall reading bad DVD and DVD recordable disc's.
Pioneer writers are known to be excellent readers for bad quality recordables but are not that good at scratches.

[Nil Einne]

That is very likely correct. But in this case the Aopen and the Pioneer both perform quite poorly...

[DVD_ADDICT]

I used 2 of my toshiba dvdrom 1612's, a pioneer 107d dvdrw, & a liteon 811 dvdrw to try to rip a disc that was scratched. None of them could read the disc at all. Low and behold I used my Plextor 708a drive which was able to rip the disc with no errors. Glad I decided to become a dvdrw addict! LoL!

[Nil Einne]

P.S. I think it is better to refer to the drive as Aopen rather then Acer. Although Aopen is a division of Acer, the drive is sold under the brand Aopen so calling it Aopen just confuses things. Even worse, Benq is of course also Acer (actually Benq is more Acer then Aopen since Benq is renamed Acer for a cooler sounding name) and they also have their own DVD-rom (or is it made by Philips? not sure which one actually makes it).

[Nil Einne]

Also, when refering the Aopen, you probably should mention if your talking about the pro or nonpro since my understand is they are quite different