Watch Blu-ray And Burn DVDs: Three Low-Cost Solutions

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]B-Unit[/nom]Damn, wish I had known Lite-On and Plextor got their drives from the same place. Been avoiding Lite-On like the plague because they sounded like a fly-by-night generic.[/citation]

Lite-On is a manufacturer, one of the industry's largest.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]ram1009[/nom]This author must be pretty young as he has no idea what the first burners aimed at the masses cost. My first HP burner was nearly $400 and I waited some time until it dropped to that level. Also, it was nearly useless as it constantly produced "buffer underrun" errors.[/citation]

It was an HP burner. OEM brands were a lot cheaper...I don't think "the author" even bothered looking until the 4x models came out though.

 

[inmytaxi]

Seeing as these are close in price to BluRay writer's during some sales, why not review the $60 LiteOn ihos 104 instead of the 208?

 

[DrgnRebrn]

the 104 is only a 4x drive, he pointed out in the beginning of the article that he was reviewing 8x drives....

 

[kikireeki]

Call me when Blue-Ray burners are on sale for under 120$ and 50c per disc.

 

[A_Real_Overclocker]

Unless I am amiss on my calculations at $2=25Gb a pop blueray is finally in the same price range per Gb as Hard drives. I am very interested now in the lifespan of BD discs and the burn quality current drives give. As pointed out earlier the early DVD drives and discs were crap. If reliability is up to par I might soon switch myself. I have not been watching BD prices I did not realize that prices had finally started dropping to more sane levels.

 

[liquidsnake718]

These are probably better for mediacenters rather than PCs as PCs are so bulky. I think getting a PS3 ould be the best bet if you really want to watch BD movies and not worry about having to burn discs.

 

[teodoreh]

What about noise levels????
This article is half.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]teodoreh[/nom]What about noise levels????This article is half.[/citation]

Please read the comments, thanks!

 

[tmc]

Consumers are not served well by the optical disc industry anymore. The QC of blank media & the prices are beginning to be non-comptetive with hard drives. First think of the price per gb with a hard drive vs the price per gb of blank media. Next, think of how long each medium would last (if you stored your data on it & stuck it on a shelf for 5 years/hardly used it). Now you begin to see a picture of why optical media is not as cost effective anymore and much more of a liability for data integrity these days. So, the optical media industry needs to get it's act together.

 

[niknikktm]

Optical discs take up much less shelf space than a HDD would.

Say what? Put it on a shelf? An optical disc will outlast a hundred HDD's, and who puts a HDD on a shelf? HDD's fail. Moving parts wear out. It's a fact. If you take care of an optical disc it will last a lifetime.

I've had no problems with QC of the media I buy. Just don't buy the bargain basement brands. I use Ritek and maybe have one defective disc in a 50 disc spindle.

I've been burning DVD's for over a decade. Never had one of my discs go bad yet. Wanna know how many hard drives I've gone through???

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]niknikktm[/nom]I've been burning DVD's for over a decade. Never had one of my discs go bad yet. Wanna know how many hard drives I've gone through???[/citation]

Lucky you!

 

[tmc]

[citation][nom]niknikktm[/nom]Optical discs take up much less shelf space than a HDD would.Say what? Put it on a shelf? An optical disc will outlast a hundred HDD's, and who puts a HDD on a shelf? HDD's fail. Moving parts wear out. It's a fact. If you take care of an optical disc it will last a lifetime.I've had no problems with QC of the media I buy. Just don't buy the bargain basement brands. I use Ritek and maybe have one defective disc in a 50 disc spindle.I've been burning DVD's for over a decade. Never had one of my discs go bad yet. Wanna know how many hard drives I've gone through???[/citation]

The thing is you probably don't write that many dvds. If you've written enough dvds since the've become affordable to buy (around 2003) you will find that many which have been written in the past 6 years could have read errors (particularly on COMPRESSED DATA BACKUPS). Way back when we had slower burners & higher quality substrate things were good and the lifespan was advertised as "lifetime", but in recent years-- there have been projected "aging" lab tests which show that an ordinary DVD-R/+R disc can have corrupt data (un-recoverable) in as little as 2 years. Now, compare that with a hard drive that sits on a shelf for 5 years and you see where what I'm getting at-- provided you don't have high humidity or large temperature changes.. chances are that drive will be able to work nearly as factory fresh. There are practical reasons to understand about the longevity of data storage devices & media.. because alot of these media backups//digital conversion have lost PRICELESS conversions of film & historical documentation. To say that off the shelf optical discs are archive quality (aside from Taiyo Yuden) is a critial mistake. Manufactured Media (printed dvd discs) used to have a longer lifespan due to high quality substrate, but that's almost no longer the case anymore-- but since the industry is converting over to blue ray, the focus is on high quality blue ray substrate.

 

[A_Real_Overclocker]

The thing is you probably don't write that many dvds. If you've written enough dvds since the've become affordable to buy (around 2003) you will find that many which have been written in the past 6 years could have read errors (particularly on COMPRESSED DATA BACKUPS). Way back when we had slower burners & higher quality substrate things were good and the lifespan was advertised as "lifetime", but in recent years-- there have been projected "aging" lab tests which show that an ordinary DVD-R/+R disc can have corrupt data (un-recoverable) in as little as 2 years. Now, compare that with a hard drive that sits on a shelf for 5 years and you see where what I'm getting at-- provided you don't have high humidity or large temperature changes.. chances are that drive will be able to work nearly as factory fresh. There are practical reasons to understand about the longevity of data storage devices & media.. because alot of these media backups//digital conversion have lost PRICELESS conversions of film & historical documentation. To say that off the shelf optical discs are archive quality (aside from Taiyo Yuden) is a critial mistake. Manufactured Media (printed dvd discs) used to have a longer lifespan due to high quality substrate, but that's almost no longer the case anymore-- but since the industry is converting over to blue ray, the focus is on high quality blue ray substrate.

Agreed I write a large amount of dvd's now, and after a near disaster with some cheap media a couple years ago I now pi-po scan every disc I burn if it has any significant storage data on it. With a lesson involving a spindle of 50 discs DO NOT TRUST YOUR burning software's disc check feature. I burned every disc with the check disc enable in nero , and still had about 35 of the discs unreadable with errors after a few months later. Now I check all burns as I said with a PI-PO scan, and if my quality falls below 95% I will not use that media anymore. I now back up all my truly important data such as family albums, dvd's, and documents on my main system drive with a backup on a separate raid 1 array. To say the least dvd reliability is very lacking still.

 

[Crashman]

Agreed I write a large amount of dvd's now, and after a near disaster with some cheap media a couple years ago I now pi-po scan every disc I burn if it has any significant storage data on it. With a lesson involving a spindle of 50 discs DO NOT TRUST YOUR burning software's disc check feature. I burned every disc with the check disc enable in nero , and still had about 35 of the discs unreadable with errors after a few months later. Now I check all burns as I said with a PI-PO scan, and if my quality falls below 95% I will not use that media anymore. I now back up all my truly important data such as family albums, dvd's, and documents on my main system drive with a backup on a separate raid 1 array. To say the least dvd reliability is very lacking still.

I store my archives in two places: On a RAID array and on a disconnected backup drive. Whenever I upgrade, I add the archives to my new array and use the old drives as disconnected backups. I don't place much faith in optical media for long-term storage.

 

[wira020]

Would really appreciate if you could also compare them in term of noise.. at least comparatively which is loudest etc... i own LiteOn 24x dvd burner/reader and the speed at read alone is unbearable... especially while starting read... i seriously cant understand why would manufacturer ignore noise production of ODD when it's meant as media player... whats the point in using silent fans, soundproof internal and quiet hdd when the ODD is as noisy as hell...

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]wira020[/nom]Would really appreciate if you could also compare them in term of noise.. at least comparatively which is loudest etc... i own LiteOn 24x dvd burner/reader and the speed at read alone is unbearable... especially while starting read... i seriously cant understand why would manufacturer ignore noise production of ODD when it's meant as media player... whats the point in using silent fans, soundproof internal and quiet hdd when the ODD is as noisy as hell...[/citation]

All of them are moderately noisey at max read/max write, and all of them are very quiet at normal read (media playback). To make it comparative noisier drives would have to be added to the comparison...max noise for all three is around half of the "worst" drive I've heard, but you won't notice the noise during media playback.

 

[Guest]

I bought LG's UH08LS10 and am disappointed. Blu-ray playback is horrible. It briefly pauses every couple of seconds which makes for a unacceptable movie viewing experience. Even more frustrating than that is if you got LG’s support website and search for model number UH08LS10, you get no results – as if they don’t even sell the device. What a waste of money!

 

[nukemaster]

I bought LG's UH08LS10 and am disappointed. Blu-ray playback is horrible. It briefly pauses every couple of seconds which makes for a unacceptable movie viewing experience. Even more frustrating than that is if you got LG’s support website and search for model number UH08LS10, you get no results – as if they don’t even sell the device. What a waste of money!

I think your drive is defective, or you have a software issue. Can you not just exchange the drive where you got it?
I have the non bluray burning LG BD drive and it works very well, no skips ever so far.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]wtkidd1972[/nom]I bought LG's UH08LS10 and am disappointed. Blu-ray playback is horrible. It briefly pauses every couple of seconds which makes for a unacceptable movie viewing experience. Even more frustrating than that is if you got LG’s support website and search for model number UH08LS10, you get no results – as if they don’t even sell the device. What a waste of money![/citation]

That's probably either a software issue or a lack of supporting hardware to decode the movies fast enough. Basically if you use CPU decoding you need a powerful CPU, and to use GPU decoding you need a "decent" graphics card and the right software settings.

Also, you're not looking for the "right" drive according to the way LG sets up their site. THEY want you to look for "UH08" and forget the "LS10" part. Yes, the site is too lame to cross-reference UH08LS10 to the UH08 page.

 

[pocketdrummer]

Keep in mind, the LG is also $60 cheaper than the LG. How much is the extra performance worth? Besides, $40 more than the plextor, and you could just buy a Blu-ray burner.

 

[Guest]

The bundled software by Cyberlink sucks. They're only interested in getting you to upgrade to a higher version. Why would I pay $100 for an upgrade to software that I'm not sure will work because there bundled software sure doesn't.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]youyoutoto[/nom]why bother with a blu ray reader /dvd burner combo ??? they now have blue ray burners if i really need a dvd burner i'll jsut get a blue ray burner/reader , and a seperate dvd burner/reader[/citation]And you drug up a review from LAST DECADE just to let us know it was outdated? I smell spam, specifically a hidden link, and I've reported it.