Hi All,

I am new here and need some advice on which burner to buy.

I started with I/O Magic IDVD16DD that I cross flashed to BenQ DW1620. This worked great for little over a year when I accidentally hit the drive tray at which point the drive's alignment went bad and it started making lot of coasters.

In Aug 2006, I bought the BenQ dw1655 OEM and it was working fine till few days ago when it stopped reading/writing all the discs. It is still detected by the PC but thats pretty much it.

Now I am looking for a new burner that meets the following needs:

1) Must support bit setting. I specially need to set DVD+R and +R DL as DVD-ROM and DVD+RW as DVD+RW.
2) I don't use DVD-R and DVD-RAM so I have no interest in these formats.
3) Occasionally I burn Data and Audio CD. So the drive should burn good CDs.
4) I have an old PC so the interface must be EIDE.
5) I burn lot of DVD+RW so a good +RW speed will be welcome like 8x.
6) I only burn Verbatim DVD+R and Verbatim DVD+R DL. So the drive must burn these medias at best quality.

Please make some suggestion for the new drive as I cannot find any good BenQ in the market or on the internet. Or you can point me to a place from where I can buy the BenQ DW1655 again.

I live in US so please suggest the drive that i can buy in US.

Thanks for all your help.

-Amit

If you don't require accurate scanning, you could try your luck with a Pioneer.
If you don't need DVD+RW bitsetting, LG would also be a choice (that cannot scan at all though).

Welcome to the forum

As you know, BenQ drives are quite rare these days, but if you keep a close eye on our Bargain Basement Forum, members post in there whenever they see a BenQ drive available

I second the LG recommendation, BTW.

@kg_evilboy

I have never scanned a disc. I just trust the burner blindly. That's why I need a good burner.

Which LG drive do you recommend?

@Arachne

Which LG drive do you recommend?

I've enjoyed all the LG drives I have, they're all excellent burners, but the most recent one I have is an external E10N (edit: the internal equivalent is the H10N).

There are newer models around, though - Evilboy can probably recommend one or two.

The 20x burning H55N isn't really good at the moment, and neither is the H50N, from what I heard.

The best would be sticking to H42x/H44x which are the newest 18x Renesas chipset LGs, or you can also get a H22x which are the latest 18x Panasonic chipset LG.

@kg_evilboy

One thing I forgot to mention is that I do need the capibility to rip stuff. I was reading here that LG drives come with some kind of riplock to prevent ripping. This will be a big negative point for me.

Also can you point me to some review of these LG drives that you recommend.

I was on the CDRINFO website reading reviews of various burners at
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Revi...x?CategoryId=1

I did not find any review on LG drives that you have mentioned. Also the last Editor's Choice goes to BenQ DW1655 which a bummer as it is not longer available in the market.

I was comparing Pioneer DVR-112, LITE-ON LH-20A1P and Samsung SH-S182D SB02. Both Pioneer and Lite-On have problems with Verbatim media (MCC004). Samsung was rated an average drive since it had its own problems.

Right now I am reading the H10N review at their site.

Hopefully someone comes up with a good burner for me that I can buy currently.

-Amit

Hi All,

Is there any difference between BenQ DW1650 & DW1655 other than that 1655 has LightScribe technology?

-Amit

Hi
Welcome to the forum achugh.
Riplock doesn't prevent ripping, it restrict the speed at which this is done.
Review of LG GSA-H22N (Most recent model I've seen a review of.)
BTW The 1650/1655 are identical apart from the LS bit in regards to actual hardware.

@zebadee,

Thanks for the information. I was lucky enough to find the last BenQ DW1650 from a merchant and placed my order right away. Hopefully, I should get it in the next few days. I will come to know once I receive a tracking number.

If I my order did not go through for some reason, I will come back here to pursue this thread further to check my options.

Thanks to everyone who replied here.

-Amit