I dont know how they do it but Newegg does it again.
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16827106078
26.99, mine is on the way, there is also a thread on this drive in the Liteon forum. Burns a full DVDR in under 5 mins

I only see one difference in the specs between the 20A1P and the 20A3P - the CD-R burn speed. The 20A1P does 40x and the 20A3P does 48x. Every thing else looks the same.

Although it'd be interesting to see how burn quality and scan reliability differs, if at all.

My 20A1P is rated @48X for CD-R burning and reading

Ditto.

*looks again* OK, I guess they're both 48x.

Is there any difference between the 20A1P and the 20A3P that anyone knows of, then?

Yes, different chipset is the only thing that has been discovered so far, in tests it seem to be slightly faster then the 20a1P

20a3p is the refined version of 20a1p, supposedly

Here's a link to the thread in the Liteon forum:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=222747

Interesting facts from that thread:

1) Fast 20x burns

2) Does not display jitter under CDSpeed

3) Does not have the initial high PIF values when running CDSpeed at 8x.

4)Vista Compatible

5)Only supports slow 8x(P-CAV) and 12x(CAV) burn speed

They are not getting anymore of my money. Liteon has fooled me twice, no more Liteons for me.

I wish I could start an argument over that, but I've no ammunition--I've had 3 Litey DVD burners, each more mediocre than its predecessor. Too bad I don't have a huge stockpile of Bennies to wear out ripping and scanning.

Me too
lots of medel #
always same also ugly face plate ( Bezel )

A very Wise man I have one Liteon left and I only use it to read with and it will be my last one!!

Why the hating on Lite-On? I thought most people only bought them for their scanning capabilities anyway, so why the bashing? Where folks expecting better burners? Lite-Ons have never been top burners.

And what will you replace the Lite-On with for scanning/ripping, since they aren't making anymore classic BenQs? Can LGs and Samsungs replace Lite-Ons and BenQs in the scanning and ripping arena?

I am not one of those bashing Liteon, but I am disappointed with my Liteon 20A1S. I bought it primarily for quality scans, and it has a problem with doing so at 8x -- the (occasional) spikes at the start of an 8x quality scan. I have an older 165 and 160 which do NOT exhibit the same problem, so I am going to retire the 20A1S in favor of one of the older models. It does seem a shame that a newer model should be worse than older models, doesn't it?

I've also had my frst LiteOn (20A1P) gone bad after 2 month and it was the first DVD burner that does this , I just hope the new one won't do the same

I like its quality with MID that I use most (Panasonic TYG03) more than Benq 1640 or Pioneer 111L

Yo-

Have to disagree with you a little here-

My LiteOn 160P6S is my very favorite burner of all time - to the point that I bought two backups for it to make sure that I had reliable burners for the near and far future-

That being said - the LiteOn line has never been a really great as reader/rippers - say compared to the AOpen 1648 aap - but the current Samsungs seem to be the most reliable current readers/rippers-eh!

whats so bad with lite-on? ... i always thought they where a quality burner, especially for there prices .

cause i only had like a total of 4 burners in my life since 1998 when i first got into cd burning... 3 cd burners and 1 dvd burner (memorex 2x2x6 this was my first burner, then a HP 8x4x32 i think i got this around 2000 area, then a lite-on 24102b cd-rw (which i like alot, good for the safe disc v2 days which was the time i joined this forum back in 2002 and still burns great to this day, then i got my current lite-on 1673S dvd burner which i got in 2005 and that has pretty great quality burns which is my main drive i use now for dvd burning) ... so far i like lite-on alot myself and will most likely continue buying there drives.

but just for kicks, what other drives (of similar price range) would you recommend over a lite-on in general nowadays? (for those who dont really like lite-ons anymore)

Well....

Strictly for burning, no quality scans, I would recommend an LG-H42N (PATA) or LG-H62N (SATA). I really like my Pioneer 111, but you can't get those anymore. The Pioneer 112 or 212 is not bad, but not as good as the 111 in my opinion.

Scans don't mean didily squat if it plays and plays well then that's the bottom line. I can care less myself if the readings of the scanning is high as long as it plays in my player and I see no pixelation or skipping ect... It is a good burn in my book

good point cause thats the bottom line

cause the way i see if is it's nice to have quality scans but like you said, the bottom line is as long as it plays perfectly fine in dvd players and lasts for many years thats all that ultimately matters

so in this case i would assume that most name brand media (most of the stuff you find at best buy etc) would fall into this category. but me personally i would rather spend a little extra for the best (or close to best) media and know it will work time and time again.

but i think where most people (the average joe) screws up is they burn all the media they have at max speed which is what usually drops the burn quality quite a bit.... cause they only see "faster is better" since it saves them time.

cause for me i would rather wait a few extra minutes per disc if it's going to raise the burning quality noticeably (which it pretty much always does if u talking about 16x vs like 8x/12x)

p.s. burning dvd's is great as they last me SOOO much longer than cd-r's did... i still got a batch of memorex media (100 pack, they have overall good quality scans and i did checks on em over a year later (almost 2 years now) and they still have pretty much the same results) i got from 2005 and i still have roughly 25 of those discs left... and i got a 100pack of TY 8x DVD-R (TYG02) from about a year ago or so and i aint even burned 1 yet... so most likely ill have enough dvd's to last me several more years.... and i got a 20pack of verbatim dvd+r dl for my XBox360 backups which i have about 14-15 of these left and those aint going to run out on me anytime soon either.

Very well said the speeds are for certain software companies to allow some play time as I am the fastest. I always burn at 12x or 16x on what I plan on using to watch.

@ Dr. Who ... when you burn @ 16x ... how is the quality scans? (i know u aint to big on these but im just curious) ... cause on my memorex 16x (CMC MAG M01) when i burn those @ 16x the disc quality scans are horrible, especially at the end of the disc. where those same discs are MUCH MUCH better if i burn @ 8x. i never tried 12x. i would attempt 12x just to see but i already capped my firmware to 8x for those discs so nero wont allow past 8x for those discs and im to lazy to change it back to 12x. lol

i've always liked my litey 1635S:

very nice burn for a litey, well, you use good media as well