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When I was looking at this drive at Best Buy, I was going to purchase it, because it was supposedly a rebadged LiteON. However, I was under the impression that Lite-On drives used "Smart Burn" technology, this memorex 52x uses something called "Just Burn" technology. I can't seem the make heads or tails of the burn-proof strategys. Whats the difference? And is the 52x memorex drive really a lite-on?

thanks

Dfifo

Up until now, as far as I knew all Memorex 52x drives were LiteOns. But you are correct, SMART-BURN is the LiteOn trademark, not "Just Burn". I'm not familiar with this "Just Burn" to which you refer. Are you sure there isn't SMART-BURN printed somewhere on the box? It was on my 48x Memorex (LiteOn) drive.

You can also try looking for a stick-on serial number label that resembles this:



Every LiteOn I have bought (both original LiteOn and rebaged) has had such a sticker on its box.

cfitz

I did some searching, and the only references to "Just Burn" that I could find were in relation to Memorex burners. Since Memorex doesn't make their own burners, it is possible that "Just Burn" is simply a generic term that Memorex coined to use on their packaging so they wouldn't have to keep up with all the various names of burn-quality-enhancing technology either.

cfitz

OK thanks for helping cfitz I think I just found the answer. I looked a little closer at the product description on the website and found the following:

Just-BURN buffer underrun error protection

SMART-BURN disc monitoring and speed adjustment technology

I thought Smart-Burn was the buffer underrun protection, but maybe not. At any rate, they list both so I'm just going to buy it, and if it doesn't turn out to be a lite-on I'll return it.

Here's the link to the drive on Best Buy's website if your interested.

http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=111 ... 1&scat=514



Dfifo

Well, that's a little embarrassing. I would think I would have run across the "Just Burn" phrase by now. Oh well, I don't feel too bad since it doesn't (according to Google) show up on the official LiteOn site, and the LiteOn page for the LTR-52246S simply states "Buffer underrun error free".

You are correct that SMART-BURN is not the buffer underrun protection. It is the term LiteOn uses to describe the technology for adjusting burn speed, power, etc. to give best burn quality. I misunderstood your question and thought you were talking about the burn-quality-enhancing technologies such as SMART-BURN and BURN-Proof rather than buffer underrun prevention technologies. Sorry.

Anyway, that seems to clear things up. Thanks for the follow-up post. I predict you will have a LiteOn in your Memorex box for sure. (famous last words... )

cfitz

The term SMART-Burn is a little confusing, because with the VERY early LiteOn Mediatek based drives (and I believe they were the first company to use the Mediatek chipset; previously they used Sanyo) the term did refer to the buffer-underrun protection. There was the 12102B and 16102B which had SMART-Burn but no media detection system (they'd burn any disc at 12x and 16x respectively, regardless of whether or not it was capable).

But come the 24x, LiteOn expanded the term. At first it was still their version of Burnproof, but then it changed after the first couple of firmware releases to mean both Burnproof AND the media detection system. It's taken a while for this to sink in with me really. And now it seems they've changed it again.

It's not just me who's confused. Look at Nero. On the 24x it refers to SMART-Burn enabled. Disable it and get buffer-underruns. On the 48x on the other hand, the Burnproof is a generic "Buffer underrun protection" (which can't be switched off!!!) and SMART-Burn is the media detection system. Why oh why can't these companies be consistent!!!!

jase wrote:It's not just me who's confused.

I think we all get confused by the plethora of terms. Just two posts above I referred to BURN-Proof as being in the same category as SMART-BURN, while it is actually (or at least was at some point) actually only buffer underrun prevention:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/articles/index.p ... d=2&page=3

(how could I ever have forgotten those cute, smiling, accommodating little BURN-Proof CD-RW drives?? ) I thought BURN-Proof covered the whole gamut of burn-quality enhancement. I guess not. Or then again, maybe it has evolved somewhat like SMART-BURN did and now it does mean something other than or in addition to buffer underrun prevention. Who knows? Not me. The important thing is that dfifo finds a LiteOn in his Memorex box, which I don't doubt he will.

By the way Ian, if you are listening, why don't we get nice holiday buying guides anymore? This is the first I had seen that article, since it was written before I knew about CDRLabs.

cfitz

cfitz wrote:Well, that's a little embarrassing. cfitz

OMG!! I've lost all faith!






Just kidding
Couldn't resist..

glock20rocks wrote:OMG!! I've lost all faith!

It's better that way!

cfitz

cfitz wrote:By the way Ian, if you are listening, why don't we get nice holiday buying guides anymore? This is the first I had seen that article, since it was written before I knew about CDRLabs.

I thought about doing it this year, but I didn't have time. I don't really have time to write any articles these days. It's just benchmark, spend time with the wife, benchmark, go snowboard, benchmark...

Ian wrote:I thought about doing it this year, but I didn't have time. I don't really have time to write any articles these days. It's just benchmark, spend time with the wife, benchmark, go snowboard, benchmark...

Well, I certainly understand that. There are definitely things in life more important than optical drives and media.

Along those lines, you'd better not let it leak out that you listed "benchmark" before "spend time with wife"...

cfitz

cfitz wrote:Along those lines, you'd better not let it leak out that you listed "benchmark" before "spend time with wife"...

cfitz

Yeah, that could be bad....at least there's an "edit" button

dfifo wrote:When I was looking at this drive at Best Buy, I was going to purchase it, because it was supposedly a rebadged LiteON. However, I was under the impression that Lite-On drives used "Smart Burn" technology, this memorex 52x uses something called "Just Burn" technology. I can't seem the make heads or tails of the burn-proof strategys. Whats the difference? And is the 52x memorex drive really a lite-on?

thanks

Dfifo

JustBurn is probably a spin-off of Ricoh's JustLink/JustSpeed technology. The only drives manufacturers I know of that use JustLink are Aopen, Samsung, and (of course) Ricoh.

Can this Memorex firmware be updated to Lite-On?

ngri714 wrote:Can this Memorex firmware be updated to Lite-On?

If you have a Memorex 52MAXX 2452AJ or a Memorex 48MAXX 2448AJ you can use Lite-ON firmware on it.