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All right, we have had many threads over who makes the best CD Burners. I think ONE thread about who makes the best dvd-rom drives is in order.

Now this is only for DVD READERS, not Burners.

I think that, without a doubght, Lite-On makes the best DVD-ROM drives. They have excellent performance compared to other drives.

The only thing that I don't like with Lite-On DVD-ROM drives, is that they are not so well built, I hear a lot of people complaining about how they have had to exchange thier Lite-On DVD-ROM drives because thiers broke. That happened to me as well.

The Lite-On DVD-ROM drives have Performance and Speed, just about what all you need in a reader is.

Another complain I have is that they are a little noisy(not when using them to watch DVD's), but is not a real big problem when you get such a good performence and for the price. I have a 163D rebagged Cendyne, got it for free from OfficeMax.

Yeah, I forgot to mention the noise. Thanks for adding that.

Nah, the best DVD-ROM drive maker is TOSHIBA. Special patched "no speed limit" RPC1 firmware is a must, of course.

Han, I am on your side

FYI, I bought the Plextor PX-116A this week end and made several benchmarks I published on CDFreaks' forums :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?threadid=72286

hey I have read in here mixed review on the Liteon LTD-165H (XJHD165H)/LTD-166S (XJHD166S which basically is LTD-166S. Is this drive as fast as some people say and does it read all formats well? I don't care about the noise, but I do want to rip a lot of dvd movies. By the way Lite-on doesn't show this drives available on their website. Anyways let me know if this drive is good? I saw another drive on sale, a samsung SD-816B with POWERDVD software for about $10 less than the lite-on LTD-166S. Does the samsung or other drives even compare to the lite-on in performance? Thanks

My LTD-163D has been performing poorly lately

I've only been getting 4x on ripping dvd's when it usually goes cav up to 16x.

Maybe it'is due to the ball-bearings, I'm assuming that with time they start porducing a little vibration when they spin decreasing the lens reading speed. But that's my theory and as it usually happens they are wrong.

Which Is the quietest DVD drive for HTPC

can read mpg files ( burn as data CDRW discs )

best quality when used with ATI Radeon

I believe most would be able to read DVD RAM discs ( those used by Hitachi DVD RAM cameras)

i must hear more about this no speed limit rpc1 firmware, cause all im going to be doing with my near future dvd-rom purchase is ripping dvd movies

one thing i also like about the toshiba dvd drives is the lack of volume control and headphone jack on the bezel, along with my sony dru-510a dvd writer

ill have no volume or headphone jacks left, , and thats a good thing

Well, it all depends on how good the movie is recorded, whether it's a single layer or a dual layer DVD, how badly it's scratched, how well it's balanced, etc. In perfect conditions Toshiba is now a pretty fast ripper!

well ill be ripping almost all the time with commercial dvds

and probably princo 4x dvd-r

aviationwiz wrote:All right, we have had many threads over who makes the best CD Burners. I think ONE thread about who makes the best dvd-rom drives is in order.

Good idea. It's been ages since I've seen a proper DVD-ROM review anywhere. The latest one on CDRLabs is the good old Lite-On -163 (emphasis on OLD). I'm doubting between the Lite-On -166S and the Plextor -116 at the moment. Would be nice to see a thorough comparison between these to drives.

Man, the Toshiba M1712 drive is so impressive! It read my DVD-RW (Optodisc 2x) starting @ 6.57x and it went all the way up to about 14x! I think this drive is by far the fastest drive when reading DVD-RW media.