I like the 183L drive just like rolling56 does but if the one you have is not working for you and you've exhausted all avenues then return the drive. Then stick to a ide dvd burner.

The Pioneer 112D drive is fine. But are you sure you wanna go with another Sata dvd burner? My experiences with the Pioneer 112D drive is great. If I were in your place I'd skip the Sata dvd burner and get a ide one like the Liteon 18x or 20x drive.

Liteon drives:
18x: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106042

20x: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106049

Good luck! Let us know what you decide on.

Ok, I ordered:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827129007

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106055

Added a few bucks and lost a little speed on CD RW (which I have never used) and picked up LightScribe for fun.

Ill let you know how they work out when they come in

Good choices!
I look forward in reading how the drives perform for you!
For the Pioneer 112D drive you can enable bitsetting to dvdrom for single layer dvd dvd+r media using The Dangerous Brothers hacked firmware and Buffalo firmware. It already comes from the factory defaulted to dvdrom for dual layer dvd media. The Liteon 20x drive will be good for ripping dvd media and for scanning.

P.S. Use Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden media from now on and you'll have to problems.

Interesting. What is a bitsetting? And where do I find this firmware that I need?

Thank you guys so much for your assistance. I learned a lot from you.

Wait and get your drives running (good choice) and then after you know they are working correctly, you might want to try un-official f/w's. It will void your warranty

When will your drives arrive?

I with rolling56 wait until after you know the new drives are running okay then look into using unofficial(hacked) firmware.

Ahh, sweet. They are due to arrive on the 8th, so on Tuesday

Finally got my drives

The LiteOn seems to be working beautifully in reading the disks. It takes about 11 minutes for one. Thats definetly faster that my older burner but is this the speed I should be getting? (I dont know)

If you can offer it, I could use a little help on using the programs ( DVD FAB & IMG Burn & DVD Shrink) What order should I be using these programs? I will have to use Shrink to compress the images in order for it to fit on a regular DVD Blank wont I?

When I use DVD Fab to make a full disk copy, it exports the Video_TS and Audio_TS files (although the Audio_TS Folder appears to be empty) and I am not sure exactly what to do with them. I have always restricted myself to ISOs to make things simple.

11 minutes for a rip of a commercial dvd disc is fine. You're ok in that dept. Don't worry about the AUDIO_TS folder being empty. You'll need to use dvdshrink if the dvd movie disc cannot be backed up on a single layer dvd media.

1. rip with dvdfab decrypter first. create a folder with whatever name you want and direct dvdfab decrypter to save the files in there.

2. open up Dvd shrink, find that VIDEO_TS folder that you created and click on it so you can open up those video files that you had ripped from dvdfab decrypter. you'll have a choice of either saving the compressed video files in ISO image or create VIDEO_TS folder. choose create ISO image save to hard drive. then you'll be able to burn that ISO image with Imgburn. If you save to VIDEO_TS folder you'll have to use Nero Burn or you can create a ISO image from that by using Imgclassic tool. Just save as a ISO image and burn with Imgburn and you'll have no problems.

Here's a few links with guides on dvdshrink and Imgburn:
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/
http://www.imgburn.com/

Make sure you use the latest dvdfab decrypter program.

Wonderful, got it working.

I don't know why but yestarday I tried doing everything in that order and once I tried to burn the image through Imgburn, I would get errors, but not anymore. However my first attempt today durring the burn process I got the BSOD However I have not got it since. I also noticed that after the burn appears to be complete (100%) It ejects the tray and then immediately sucks it back in and goes through another process before it gives me the "Burn was Successful" message. Why does it do that?

My only problem with this process is when I bring the Image from DVD Fab over to Shrink to compress it, the Encoding process is very slow (takes about 20-25 minutes).
Other than that it is working great thus far. Maybe I should just go with Dual Layer to skip the need for compression?

Last week you mentioned using hacked firmware. Am I ready for this? What exactly will it do?

Hi,

glad, you found a solution for your problem with your Samsung drive.
As your additional questions are not Samsung related, it is a good idea to open a new thread in one of the forums, that are better suited for that. So I'll close this thread now.

Michael