Club CDFreaks - Knowledge is Power - View Single Post - need a 2nd burner NEC or Lite-ON????

*Spartane* · 30-01-2005

I'm with the "LiteOn is crap" world. LiteOn built up its reputation by creating great CD burners, and they're rapidly destroying this reputation by building mediocre DVD burners. My original drive was a LiteOn 451 and it's no longer in my system. They read great (hence KProbe) but they don't write well. Many people have previously owned them and have since replaced them (like myself) with a much better alternative. From the LiteOn forum, I hear that the more recent LiteOn drives are not any better. Strongly NOT recommended for DVD writing.

The BenQ 1620 is an excellent choice as far as writing is concerned, particularly if you restrict it to +R discs. Night and day improvement over the LiteOn.

I recently purchased a NEC 3500 and it surprised me with both its burn quality and its reading speed. It burns well and allows me to do a couple of important things that the BenQ 1620 does not as follows:

1. I configure Nero to automatically verify my writes. The NEC drive verifies the data at a full 16X read speed instead of the BenQ's restricted 8X. This reduces my verify time from 9:00+ down to 5:00. Since I nearly always verify my burns, this saving of time is significant for me.

2. Using Quikee's hacked NEC firmware http://freeweb.siol.net/tvajng/Quikee_FW.html, I can now burn cheap 4X -R Prodiscs at either 8X or 12X, depending on whether I want a clean scan or whether I want a fast burn that scans a bit dirtier at the end. Either way, my NEC allows CDSpeed to read them back with a straight-line "Transfer Rate" graph going all the way up to 16X without any hiccups in speed.

The NEC drive has a couple of negatives too, as follows:

1. It does not allow me to use CDSpeed to do a quality scan. This is a big negative, since I like to know what my burns are like. Fortunately, I have both drives in my system, so I can move the disc to my BenQ for my quality scans.

2. Burn speed is a bit slower on the NEC 3500 as compared to the BenQ 1620. An 8X burn on the 1620 takes about 8:40 while an 8X burn on the 3500 takes about 9:40. This is because the 3500 leverages off the burn strategies from the older 8X NEC 2500, and begins the burn at 4X write speed instead of 6X. This situation changes when you burn at 12X or faster, since writing starts at 6X. A 12X burn with the BenQ takes about 6:35 while a 12X burn with the NEC takes about 6:45 - still slower with the NEC, but now not enough to matter.

I'd say the burn quality is, in general, a little bit better with the BenQ 1620 than with the NEC 3500, since 12X burns on the BenQ seem to scan a bit cleaner than those made on the NEC. But the difference is minimal and probably not enough to matter one way or the other.

I find that I'm now burning most of my discs on the NEC 3500 for the above reasons. I can write/verify a 4X Prodisc -R in 11:45 with the NEC 3500. Doing the same thing on the BenQ 1620 would take me about 25:00.

30-01-2005	#8 (permalink)
Spartane CDFreaks Resident Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 576	Re: need a 2nd burner NEC or Lite-ON???? I'm with the "LiteOn is crap" world. LiteOn built up its reputation by creating great CD burners, and they're rapidly destroying this reputation by building mediocre DVD burners. My original drive was a LiteOn 451 and it's no longer in my system. They read great (hence KProbe) but they don't write well. Many people have previously owned them and have since replaced them (like myself) with a much better alternative. From the LiteOn forum, I hear that the more recent LiteOn drives are not any better. Strongly NOT recommended for DVD writing. The BenQ 1620 is an excellent choice as far as writing is concerned, particularly if you restrict it to +R discs. Night and day improvement over the LiteOn. I recently purchased a NEC 3500 and it surprised me with both its burn quality and its reading speed. It burns well and allows me to do a couple of important things that the BenQ 1620 does not as follows: 1. I configure Nero to automatically verify my writes. The NEC drive verifies the data at a full 16X read speed instead of the BenQ's restricted 8X. This reduces my verify time from 9:00+ down to 5:00. Since I nearly always verify my burns, this saving of time is significant for me. 2. Using Quikee's hacked NEC firmware http://freeweb.siol.net/tvajng/Quikee_FW.html, I can now burn cheap 4X -R Prodiscs at either 8X or 12X, depending on whether I want a clean scan or whether I want a fast burn that scans a bit dirtier at the end. Either way, my NEC allows CDSpeed to read them back with a straight-line "Transfer Rate" graph going all the way up to 16X without any hiccups in speed. The NEC drive has a couple of negatives too, as follows: 1. It does not allow me to use CDSpeed to do a quality scan. This is a big negative, since I like to know what my burns are like. Fortunately, I have both drives in my system, so I can move the disc to my BenQ for my quality scans. 2. Burn speed is a bit slower on the NEC 3500 as compared to the BenQ 1620. An 8X burn on the 1620 takes about 8:40 while an 8X burn on the 3500 takes about 9:40. This is because the 3500 leverages off the burn strategies from the older 8X NEC 2500, and begins the burn at 4X write speed instead of 6X. This situation changes when you burn at 12X or faster, since writing starts at 6X. A 12X burn with the BenQ takes about 6:35 while a 12X burn with the NEC takes about 6:45 - still slower with the NEC, but now not enough to matter. I'd say the burn quality is, in general, a little bit better with the BenQ 1620 than with the NEC 3500, since 12X burns on the BenQ seem to scan a bit cleaner than those made on the NEC. But the difference is minimal and probably not enough to matter one way or the other. I find that I'm now burning most of my discs on the NEC 3500 for the above reasons. I can write/verify a 4X Prodisc -R in 11:45 with the NEC 3500. Doing the same thing on the BenQ 1620 would take me about 25:00.