Hi folks new here. I'm wondering what are some of the best internal dvd burners for dvd-r media. Once in awhile I will try and install a video game. Mainly i'm into burning movies. I like the dvd-r format because of my living room player is capable of that format. I think reading spead may be a good thing i'm not sure. If that has anything to do with it or if it's more your hardrive that provides the best overall performance for what I do. Well I hope I haven't annoyed anyone with a question that's been answered a million times. If so my apologies. My current burner is a NEC 3520a which worked like a champ up untill recently were i'm now getting alot of blocky looking things in my recordings. Also I cannot install any video games anymore. I got a video game called painkiller with my video card which a chaintech 6600gt apg, and it worked great when I first installed it to test it. Now it won't or any game for that matter. It bothers me but not as much as the imperfections in my movies. Cd's still work like a champ rip and burn couldn't ask for more. So I feel like upgrading and I enjoy watching movies on my pc as well. Alot actually and the NEC worked really well for that unbelievable actually. Looks like hidef compared to my living room system. Anyways I was concidering, these another NEC, BEN Q, Pioneer, Liteon, ASUS which i'm finding is the same as pioneer. Any help would be cool guys. Another factor would be media compadability I like to try alot of different brands, but dvd-r all the way. Not about to buy another living room player so that's very important for me.

Your problem is your decision to try lots of different -R media. In general, there is probably more bad -R than +R. You need to settle in on one or two media codes and stay with them. Two of the best are MCC 03RG20, from Verbatim and TYG02.

If you really want a new burner, LG does a very good job on either, probably the 4167.

As a suggestion. NEC drives are generally better +R burners than -R. It has lessened by the degree over the years with new drive releases (for example the 1300a was infinitely better at +R than -R, as it was a pretty bad -R burner).

But one suggestion if you wish to use your disks in your standalone living room dvd player is why not flash your current NEC drive with a bitsetting firmware. This will allow your DVD+R disks to have their booktype changed to DVD-Rom making them even more compatible with standalones and game consoles than -R's.

Also +R disks are generally better technology wise. (there is an extremely detailed and complecated thread somewhere here on CDfreaks explaining the differences between -R and +R and why +R is infinitely better).

But if you do want to get a good -R burner then the LG is an excelllent choice. The Pioneer DVR-111D DVD is another good -R burner too.

The NEC's and Benq's are however as far as i have read over the years generally much better +R burners than -R.

You're probably referring to this article by Michael Spath:

Why DVD+R(W) is superior to DVD-R(W)

For most tasks there's little practical difference between DVD-R and DVD+R in my opinion, but if you burn multi-session data discs, DVD+R is a lot better.

Read the article if you're interested in the details.

I'd say it's a very close race for the BenQ 1650/1655.

For my NEC 3500 and 4551 drives, I have had slightly better results with DVD-R than with DVD+R (for media of comparable quality), so I think the preference for +R media might have been turned upside down in the later NEC drives.

Actually the NEC 3520a has been almost flawless on dvd-r's as far as I know except for lately. If you only knew the abuse the poor little guy has gotten. I usually do use good media but try different labels. I had my eye on the BenQ 1650, Pioneer 111d, NEC 3550a, Lite on shw160p6505, lg 4167b, Asus 1608p2s. I may just need a good cleaning is all. I was really considering another NEC because mine worked so well with dvd-r's, but now I think I will try a different brand. I have a gig of ram, AMD 2700+ ( throuroughbred core), 550 watt's of super generic power . Well I don't want to get side tracked to much here my main concern is a new burner, and it's pretty much all about getting a movie to dvd-r. Thanks for your guys input it gives me a few options.

I forgot to add I burn exclusively at 4x speed usually use ty -r media. Something that will go to my hardrive fast would be nice. If it is possible to get the ripping time down would be nice. Not sure if that's a hardrive thing, or a synergy thing with the burner and hardrive. So it's looking like LG, and Pioneer are a goody. Oh another thing I have a really old driver in my NEC 5.1.2535.0 ( 2001 ) . I never updated it. It worked great so I figured I never needed to. I noticed an updated driver would help with new 16x media. ( Will it help with writing to the hardrive though?) I usually buy 8x media and burn at 4x speed ( ty stuff lately) and figured what's the sense? Plus i'm not gonna burn over 4x speed for quality burns. But the problem im having lately is before i burn when I view it on my hardrive with a virtual player before the burns I can see the blockies, and again the video games all getting errors, and some saying corrupt files. I just burned a a movie tonight and it looks great. So it's kind of spuratic. Maybe it's when I run dvd fab freeware I get the most defective burns. That certainly happens often with that software. That is for another forum I reckon though. So I better stop while i'm ahead. I'll probally go with the LG seeing how all the browsing I did here I noticed Chas0039 to have tested a billion dvd's . Pioneer sounds good as well from what I read from newegg customers for it's quiet drive. I think that would be nice, but not necessary.

No, this is the driver for an optical drive.
You mixed up driver with firmware.

TY makes 3 -R media, TYG01 (discontinued), TYG02 and TYG03. Which one do you use?
Also, most burners do not burn 8X and 16X better at 4X. This could be part of your problem. Also, there has been a problem with some branded TY from stores. Lastly, look here for a current firmware:
http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/3520/

I can recommend 2.U5. The Pioneer 111 is a very good drive.

Ooops i meant firmware sorry. As for the ty media actually i'm not really sure ( I bought it from meritline a batch of Taiyo Yuden 8x
). I just ran out and my new batch is samsung optodiscr008 ( I got a good deal on it figured I would try it). I beleive the first time I've used this and it doesnt seem bad at all so far. Is the pioneer 111(D) a good one? I can get a good deal on that one, or any of the ones i've mentioned. Most my problems actually happen when it's either reading ( not real familiar with terms), or when it's running through some decrypter. Because once it's in the hardrive it is already faulty, and has nothing to do with media, or a burn. I always use ***decrypter for burning. I havent' got around to trying anything else ( I don't have anything else )I figured if it's not broke don't fix it, but somethings breaking. Thanks for the firmware link I will have to read that article. I'm really thinking it's a reading issue if no video games are able to be intalled, and the faulty lookin video is there before it goes to disc.

You could use ImgBurn for burning instead of DVDD. Both are developed by Lightning UK!

I just may have to try it thanks. I still wonder why i'm getting errors with mint video games I've played only once or twice. Not a scratch on them, and I rip ( I believe that is the term) a movie to my dvd decrypter, and then run virtual player and I see artifacts sometimes ( new sony arccos encryption maybe). This is before I burn I think maybe my NEC is a good burner, but i'm having a reading problem. Then again cd's are no problem whatsoever. They rip fast and burn great with tdk cd-r's. I'm not sure what's going. Ok when a dvd burner has a fast reading speed will this actually speed up dvd shrink, and dvd decrypter when its going into your hardrive? Or is that gonna be about the same no matter what? I seen that there is a firmware for getting rid of riplock which I didn't even know my nec had. I can't figure out what firmware I have. All I can find is the driver. The updated/modded firmware sounds good to if it makes ripping an encrypted movie faster.

I upgraded thanks for the recomendation you were the first to recomend it. I think it solved my problem. I just burned my first backup in a long time without a glitch even with some compression at 8x with 8x optodisc008 ( samsung ). I think I will stick with this setup for awhile and see how it goes. I love my 3520 and hopefully it will still give me a year of good use. Thanks and i'm burning at 8x now also.

Pioneer 111 is good but there is no bitsetting firmware for it as far as I'm aware, unless you can use the Buffalo firmware on it.
Pioneer, BenQ and NEC are the fastest rippers. LG is slowest for ripping but the latest drive has increased ripping speed.