I'm shopping for a new DVD drive to replace my sadly-orphaned BenQ 1625 (can't write to 8X DL at any speed, and the firmware will probably never be updated to add the needed write strategy). Among other things, I have one wish for my new drive: the ability to successfully burn non-Verbatim DL disks most of the time, that will usually play well enough to not crash most set-top DVD players.

Before anyone from the Church of Verbatim starts throwing rocks, yes... I know Verbatim is perfect, holy, & flawless, and everything else is worthless trash.

HOWEVER, the reality is, the overwhelming majority of DL discs sold at retail stores across America aren't Verbatim... and somehow, most of them seem to work anyway.

I mean, for god's sake, just look at Apple... if even a QUARTER of the DL discs burned by technically unsophisticated Mac owners (and most likely bought on sale at Best Buy & made by Ritek or CMC) ended up as coasters, there would be class-action lawsuits flying against Apple (for making drives incapable of working with discs that apparently satisfy the legal definition of "DL"), Ritek and/or CMC (for making discs that allegedly are crap), or all the above. Steve Jobs would have ramrodded through some certification process and aggressively-trademarked logo to unambiguously separate the good DL discs from the bad, if only to take the heat off of Apple itself. But there aren't, and it hasn't happened. So why does it seem to be so utterly impossible to find a PC drive that can do the same thing with non-super-premium DL media?

Somewhere out there, there HAS to be a drive capable of successfully burning a non-Verbatim DL disc from lead-in to lead-out that can play at least well enough to not crash a set-top DVD player. The question is... which drives are they? And just as importantly, which drives aren't they?

I haven't seen anybody here quite say it like that, cheap trash maybe, but not worthless. You can set coffee cups on them & use them for wind chimes or Christmas decorations.

My personal suggestion would be Samsung SH-S203B, but I don't want to preach.

Canes.. You sound like me.. but this should help you..

I have not had ANY problems burning DVD+R DL RITEK(SONY), VERBATIM MIS and MII, or RICOH (NEXXTECH, DYNEX) << cheap best buy and circuit city stuff.. using a Lite On LH-20A1H.. I burn at 2.4 or 4X and I DON"T get coasters.. the layer break is smooth in playback on multiple standalones. I don't get into the scanning for quality cuz if it plays fine through the whole movie then I'm happy.

Now my SAMSUMG SH-S202G would make coasters out of the RICOH media almost every time, but the LITE ON is heaven.. All this reading about people having problems I honestly think it is the drive or speed at which you burn.. because after about 20 burns with multiple so called "crap" media that burn flawless in the LITE-ON ,I just can't look at the SAMSUMG in the same way after it has wasted sooo many of my RICOH Dual Layer Discs,, I was on the bandwagon with everyone else.. Just thinking that VERBATIN was the only media that won't make coasters. True, they are quality.. but other brands will work great with the right hardware and burn speed..

so go for a lite on and those non Verbatim DVD+R DLs will work great for you.. just burn
at low speeds..

Yeah, that's what scared me about the Samsung. I came this close to buying one at Best Buy this afternoon (on sale for $59.95), partly because it explicitly claims to support writing to 16X DL discs (I'm slightly paranoid about having to junk yet another drive in a year and a half, when 8X discs are history, and all the new cheap discs are 16X). But everything I've read about the Samsung drives has basically said they're absolutely flawless with Verbatim... but are just about the worst drives you could possibly get if you plan to use anything besides Verbatim.

So... at the moment, Lite-On is at the top of my list unless I find one likely to be better. Even if I ultimately end up using Verbatim all the time anyway, I'd rather hedge my bets and at least have the freedom to CONSIDER non-Verbatim discs in the future, instead of totally burning that bridge behind me.

Hi all
I have a lite on Lh 20a1P, and i can not get it to burn dl discs made by rioch.
put it threw nero disc check, failing on calibration error,
unsure if it is media,dvd re writer or even both are to blaim

Does nero cd dvd speed/drive recognize the media and shows the MID?

Happened to have a bunch of DL Ritek S04.
Could not get them to burn on BenQ 1650/BCIC nor Pioneer 111D/1.29 using either ImgBurn or CloneCD. These are 360 backups. I get 100% success with both Verb MII/MIS and Ritek D01.

What drive out there do you guys recommend for Ritek S04. Itching to get another drive right now.

Actual burners from Pioneer, Nec (optiarc), Liteon, Samsung and LG.

From the OP: Church of Verbatim...hehe (proud member here ).

Pioneer, Samsung and NEC/Optiarc usually treat mediocre media well.

I have burned a Ritek D01 (Memorex branded) with the LiteOn LH-20A1H and it was a terrible result, but the strange thing is that my standalone player does play it .

For burning Ritek D01, which could be the best option? Somebody knows? Thanks.

@ _chef_ and Arachne
Thank you for your responses. Since you both list Pioneer first for burning Ritek S04, can I assume that you both meant 115D model. Is there a major burn quality difference between the SATA and IDE version? I know that the 116 is coming out later this year but burners are so cheap right now - cheaper than a spindle of dl media!!
BTW, I also go the Church of Verbatim as well, but occasionally check out other denominations. It's just fun to do so. It's a hobby.

@ juancdg
I have had good result with Ritek D01 (Fuji and Sony) with BenQ1650 (FW:BCIC). By good, I mean it plays well in both standalone players as well as 360 w/o problems. I do not scan so I can not tell by that criteria.

Not when it comes to burn quality anyway.
Burners connection/ bus really doesn't matter bacause the burn commands sent to drive are all the same for; parallel, SCSI, ATA, SATA, or whatever drives.I've the same experience.
When it come to questionable media, ie. "the ones not recommended by our senior members", NEC and Nexperia chipset drives still burn them at best.

Thanks kefravenshield and pinto2. I will try to burn the Riteks D01 on my BenQ 1620 .

Well I bought Pioneer115D, put FW1.8 on and it burnt DL Ritek S04 quite well. 2 out of 2 were read by the 360. This was not the case with Pioneer 111D and BenQ1650.

Surprisingly it errored out with SL Sony (Sony16D1) 3 in a row but the same image worked fine with prodiscF02, RitekF1, verb, Yuden etc

I had no problems burning "Ritek S04" at 2.4x, 4x, 6x and 8x with my 111.

Which FW do you have on 111D?

1.29 & 8.29 used.
Please post the complete MID.

wellllll i own all three now.. i have lite on a3 (2 of them), a 203b a 203n, and a pioneer 212... imo the lite on cant burn nearly as well as the 203 or 212 can. the 212 seems to be great for reading bad discs and dl burns.. but the sammy has HONESTLY burned all but the most garbage media i have thrown at it, the lite on would not burn half the media the sammy did.. imo the best all around would be the sammy.. i like the pioneer for scratched and bad media for reading (the sammy does pretty well though)... the lite on imo is good for scanning, or i would not have it in my rig.. sorry to say that

i like the 203b so much i just ordered another as a spare

I also use FW 1.29 with my Pio111D. While it sees "Ritek S04" at 2.4x, 4x, 6x and 8x, the Imgburn does not burn it because of "Power Calibration Error". Have no idea what that means. CloneCD just does not write to this media. With Verb (MII and MIS, 2.4X) and Ritek D01 (Sony and TDK), the same setup works fine.

Pio 115D/FW1.8 is looking promising for non-verbs in my setup.

Tempted to get Sammy 203 as armada. It's free shipping on the drive at Newegg today.

Good pair - I have both (yet to fit the 203N though).

This drive got mixed reviews here.but for me it has burned & been able to read eveything I've put in it.
Hammer Storage MATSHITA DVD-RAM SW-9585 DVD Burner
I do have it in my second computer which is an older computer.I never try to burn over 8X with it due to processor size of the computer.This computers main function is to burn DVD's so that's all it is doing when I'm burning.

that sounds like another problem, not with the media and drive......

I would stay away from the Lite-Ons. I recently bought a Liteon LH-20A1L, I'm looking for a replacement right now. this is the worst DVD burner I've ever had. I get very poor burns on almost every type of media. I've bought several Lite-Ons but after this drive, I've lost all faith in Lite-Ons and am looking at other brands. I am looking for recomendations on a good SATA drive that will burn common cheap media such as TYs or MBI.

Not sure this will help as my sohw-1693s is rather old at this point. However it simply makes the best DL burns at 4x of all my drives. A scan with DVDInfoPro gives these results : PI 60 PIF 6. This is with Ritek D01 media. To this day is my most reliable drive along with my sh-s182m.