Reliable DVD Burner

[EasternSP]

I have used the Pioneer and Alera DVD burners, but I have to reinstall the darn things after burning two DVDs. If I don't uninstall the USB Root hubs then restart the machine, the device will only give me a partial disc, I.E. a coaster.
Are there any DVD burners out there that don't have to be reinstalled every couple of burns?

I am running Windows XP Pro. The rest of my machine details are in my signature.

[mattmatt]

LG. Never had a problem :)

[STORMDAVE]

I have used the Pioneer and Alera DVD burners, but I have to reinstall the darn things after burning two DVDs. If I don't uninstall the USB Root hubs then restart the machine, the device will only give me a partial disc, I.E. a coaster.
Are there any DVD burners out there that don't have to be reinstalled every couple of burns?

I am running Windows XP Pro. The rest of my machine details are in my signature.

I've been using Pioneers forever now, and have had zero problems. The culprit must be your system. I've never liked Tyan motherboards....Maybe you need to reinstall XP Pro and get the latest BIOS as well as the newest system drivers? Are you running XP Pro SP2?

Even Apple uses Pioneer 112's in my Mac Pro.

[andrewwhiteley]

Hi there - I too have used Pioneer DVD burners for a long while with no issues until my DVR 110 began to make coasters from certain media types that had previously been OK. I assumed it was the media's fault, shelved it and changed brands. Unfortunately the burner was also making dodgy recordings on Taiyo Yuden media so I gave up and installed a Plextor PX-760A. Since then I've had zero coasters and have been able to use the media that I had previously shelved.

[EasternSP]

Hmmmmm, maybe I should look at the system. It seems to be kinda fickle about stuff that is connected via USB, I.E. card readers, DVD recorder & scanner. Thanks for the responses.

[THoff]

Plextor. Loaded with features, reliable.

Whatever you do, don't use external USB burners, it's just not robust enough for reliable burning. Get a drive that connects directly to a SATA/PATA connector on the motherboard, or possibly using Firewire.

[tingsern]

External USB drives not robust? Not here ... I have two Plextors (PX-716UF and PX-708UF) all hooked up via USB 2.0 .... absolutely ZERO problems ... have burned about 500 DVDs already and still going strong.

[Rusty]

I think THoff is refering to the shared resources with USB. Useable, but definately not as good.

Any opinions on daisy-chained 1394a/b? Mine are single device only (so far)

Rusty

[3gems]

Industrial Duplicators tends to use Pioneer & Plextors alot in Singapore. Think your problem may be due to some firmware issues of your DVD writer ? Im thinking XP Pro should auto-detect & install your USB hub by default ?

As most DVD media (+R/-R/RW) are coated with certain color dyes, thus its 'refractive index' towards the DVD writiers/Recorder's laser pick-up lens can be very sensitive & subjective. Thus, trial & error is, in my opinion the safest way before buying them in bulk.

From my experience, even if you can successfully 'TOAST' your 2 copies of DVD, that may not gaurantee that they are compatible with other players for playback....Thus, try change other Brand media to verify if its the burner or USB hub issues etc...

[darwinpro]

With Pioneer drives you must keep the firmware updated. Check the Pioneer website for the latest firmware version for your burner. I use Pioneer burners in my duplicators and have no problems.

[tingsern]

Over here, I have 2 plextors and several maxtors external Hard-disks (1.5TB) for storing video temporarily. I have used Roxio to burn simultaneously into both plextors with data coming from the external maxtors. If that don't push USB sharing to the limit, I can't see anything else that can. And I don't have a problem with the plextors or any DVDs burnt so far.

[THoff]

In true Plextor drives (there are some rebadged models that contain other vendor's drives) there is an AutoStrategy feature to develop write strategies for media for which no write strategy is present in the firmware, so they can support new media as it is released without having to flash the drives. The drives learn as they use different media and can update their strategies.

The strategies are stored in non-volatile memory in the drive, can be forced (selected) by the user, and you can even have more than one strategy for each media code in case you find that the same media manufactured in different countries behaves differently (not uncommon).

[EasternSP]

I had a pioneer DVD Burner some time ago, but then my spy detect software discovered there was phone home software in one of their updates so I pulled the burner and scrapped it.
Thanks for all the tips so far. I'm checking into the Plextor model for an internal connection.

[GrassValley_BH]

Any opinions on daisy-chained 1394a/b? Mine are single device only (so far)

Avoid daisy-chaining when you can. Remember that FireWire is repeater-based, so a bad or poorly-performing device will slow down or even stop communication to other devices later in the chain.

[skier-hughes]

When I'm out and have my laptop with me I often daisy chain ext firewire drive and a cam to capture material.

I've had no problems so far with daisy chaining, but I have with poor quality cheap 4 pin cables.

Graham