what's the worst DVD burner u have owned?

[liteonrules]

my first dvd burner and it is LITEON 811S, i hate it

[motocoke]

LITE-ONs. I bought a 832S and yesterday a 1213S. AAAArrrgggh....such bad burns with Mitsubishi and Verbatim (which I bought a lot of). I had a TDK 440N previously and it gave very good quality burns.

Can't Lite-On get their act together ?

[dolphinius_rex]

My LiteON 411s would qualify as worst... but for dissapointment level the Plextor 712a is even worse! At least when I bought the 411s I KNEW it was not going to be good... but when I bought the 712a I expected something that would be impressive... or at least moderatly good.

[burninfool]

Optorite DD0203...what was I thinking?!

[wicked1]

plextor 708A no doubt

[hoxlund]

looking back now i absolutely hated my Sony DRU-510A, along with it being $370 and eating about $100 worth of dvd media

[Phoenix '97]

Well since I've only owned 3, probably my Toshiba SD-R5002.
Would only record at 1x to most DVD-R media even though it was rated for 2x. Even if it did start at 2x it would sometimes shift back to 1x midway through the burn! It's a good reader though.
Paid $420 Cdn. for it in 2002.

[alexnoe]

Pioneer DVR-A03 -> was ok, just a bit slow and a bit expensive. Payed 1149,90 DM in Dec 2001 for it A DVD-RW 1x speed was 50 DM, A DVD-R 2x Speed Verbatim 18,90 DM (1 Euro ~ 1,95 DM)

Plextor 708A -> BAH! Overpriced, b0rked reader, only works well with very few media

LG 4120B -> no bitsetting on dvd+r dl for me till now, but otherwise worth every euro.

[HyperYagami]

Remember back then before LiteOn and Plextor released their 1st burner people on all different forums were like "NEC/TDK/Sony are crap. LiteOn/Plextor will rule the DVD-burner industry and destroy everyone else!"?

Quite an interesting turn out isn't it. They reminded me of Apple.

[dolphinius_rex]

Remember back then before LiteOn and Plextor released their 1st burner people on all different forums were like "NEC/TDK/Sony are crap. LiteOn/Plextor will rule the DVD-burner industry and destroy everyone else!"?

Quite an interesting turn out isn't it. They reminded me of Apple.

Waddaya mean? Sony was and still is crap

[cychou]

My first DVD burner is a MSI DR8A (a.k.a. Sony DRU 530, OptoRite 0401). This drive is absolutely dismal when burning DVD-R. DVD+R is slightly better but not by much. It is also really bad with rewriteable disks. Most disks, including branded Ricoh, TDK and Verbatim will stop working after a few erases. Others like Imation or Princo won't even work!

What a nightmare!

Since I switch to LG 4082B, everything has been working fine!

[ClayBuster]

I would have to say my lite-on 812 was a POS followed by my 712A and 712SA.

The Plextor drives are great when you feed them TY or singapore MCC though but forget it with any of the cheaper media. The stuff I've feed though the Pioneers will make the Plextors choke.

I would say my best drive so far was the Pioneer 106 and 107.

[Wesociety]

My first DVD writer was a LiteOn 411S POS.
Write quality was moderate to terrible on most media.

[hoxlund]

well where i think you went wrong wesociety is when you bought a dvd burner with POS in the model name

[Wesociety]

well where i think you went wrong wesociety is when you bought a dvd burner with POS in the model name

Actually, that is just what *I* think the model name should be!

@liteonrules, are you regretting your choice of a forum username now?

[Ian]

The Artec VPP-8D24Q is the worst one I've used. It wouldn't write to DVD-R media at 4x as advertised and as far as I know Artec has not fixed that issue.

A close second would have to be Artec's 12x DVD writer, the VOM-12E48X. It still won't write at 12x, even with the latest firmware.

[Wesociety]

A close second would have to be Artec's 12x DVD writer, the VOM-12E48X. It still won't write at 12x, even with the latest firmware.

How can they get away with this blatant false advertising???
I suppose most of the forum users know that it would be a bad idea to purchase this burner, and that is why we haven't heard much fuss over this debacle.
Ian, any way you could get some type of "official statement" from Artec on this matter?

Back on the topic of "worst DVD writer", Dolphin and I discussed this some time ago. I think it would be awesome for a site (such as cdrlabs) to hand out an official award. "Worst 8X DVD writer award" for example...
Obviously it would piss off at least 1 manufacturer, but it would be fantastic!
BTC drives also come to mind when discussing crap burners.

[Bhairav]

^^completely agree,wes. I had a BTC IDE1004.. quickly got rid of it for a Lite-On 401S -> not a good idea . NOw it's an 851S ->832S, much better.. burns +R and -R pretty well.

[Dartman]

The worst one has been BOTH LiteOn 811 burners. Niether can burn anything reliablly above 4x and even then many times the disks wont play in some machines. I got stupid when OfficeMax had the big 69 after rebate sale and bought another one figuring my first one was just a fluke.
My Sony 500a was bad in the sense that it would rarely actually write any 4x media faster then double speed and Sony excuse was always your not using aproved media. It did always make a working copy though unlike my 811 drives. I'm so glad I also bought a NEC 2500 at the same OM sale and just got a BenQ 1600. I will never buy another LiteOn DVD burner again.
The 811 is only still in my machine becuase I can test media with it.

[Ian]

Ian, any way you could get some type of "official statement" from Artec on this matter?

Good luck. I feel like I'm Artec USA's beta tester. They're shipping drives out that obviously aren't finished. I tried getting some issues fixed with the VPP-8D24Q and they said they were too busy working on their upcoming 12x and 16x drives to make their current drive work right.

I've had the VOM-12E48X for months now. It was one of the first 12x DVD writers to show up and will probably be one of the last I review, if and when they release a firmware update that will add support for 12x DVD writing. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. The last few emails I've sent them have gone unanswered.

This isn't the first (or second) time they've done this. They sent me their 52x combo drive last year. Stupid thing wouldn't write at 52x.. only 48x. Needless to say, you didn't see a review of it here.

"Worst 8X DVD writer award" for example...
Obviously it would piss off at least 1 manufacturer, but it would be fantastic!

Sometimes I'm tempted.. very tempted..

[kirpen]

Just wondering what is meant by bad write quality? I burn with an 811 all the time and my discs play fine. Do people consider burns bad because of scans that may or may not mean anything or on playability?

[Dartman]

Well when they test great and still skip and pixelate thats a bad burn. The problem with the 11 series drives is they are so inconsitent many bad, some OK, some excellent, just becuase of variations in build/laser assembly quality we think. If you got a really good one be happy and keep using it, if you buy another one and it sucks, welcome to my world One of mine reads plus media great and burns bad, other reads minus great and burns so so.
Unfortunately I was so stubborn trying everything to make mine work I'm past the return period and it's not worth RMA'ing at this point to get another one that MIGHT be OK. The other one I popped open to realign the pickup and it does read better but still not so good, can't return that one now.

[Shredder]

Do people consider burns bad because of scans that may or may not mean anything or on playability?

Some people just look at the scan results and some others look at the compatibility with various readers, but most people consider both of these factors to rate the burn quality.

[shimman]

plextor pa-708a without any doubt....pa-712a could have been one of the worst but i was lucky & got the good replacement.

speaking of 708a, it could have been a bad unit but many other had same problems that have not been fixed

[rdgrimes]

NuTech 082 makes a very attractive paperweight. Only thing I trust it for is erasing RW discs.

[OT]

alexnoe Jeez, is that a ghost?