SATA burner recommendation

neb wrote on 12/26/2006, 9:30 AM
I need a SATA burner and I have been looking at potential drives, and there is not much out there that is SATA (at least that i am seeing).

Does anybody know anything about the LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model SH-16A7S-06? Its cheap, which can be bad, but if it works i do have a limited budget.

It seems that the other option is Plextor PX-755SA, which is more expensive and is DL, which i dont really need, but i will spend the money if the Lite-on is a bad choice.

Any other options that i should check out?

Basically my work flow is edit, burn, duplicate in house, so i just need something that will reliably burn compatible dvd-r discs, and it has to be SATA. Known support in DVDA v.1 would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Thanks for your help!

ben

Comments

baysidebas wrote on 12/26/2006, 10:26 AM
If you duplicate in house then your choice should be the Plextor. The cheap burners can't really handle more than a couple of consecutive burns [without a rest period to cool down] before error rates start climbing and eventually produce coasters. The Plextor will burn disc after disc, all day, reliably.
neb wrote on 12/26/2006, 11:33 AM
i do duplicate in house, but i have a stand alone 1 to 7 tower that i use. So as long as i can make a good first copy every time then im good. Really when it comes down to it i only need to use the burner one or two times a week.

ben
Lcymru wrote on 12/27/2006, 8:27 PM
I have the Lite-On SH-16A7S Sata and it burns Verbatim 16X +R media (aka MCC004) very, very well. That is the only media I have used with that drive. It also allows +R bitsetting (aka book type setting) for enhanced compatibility with set top DVD players, as well as quality scanning with a utility program called Kprobe. My understanding is that Lite-On burners have traditionally been among the best for -R media, too.

You may already be aware of this, but a very good forum for DVD burners and DVD media can be found at www.cdfreaks.com. I learned the hard way that the burner, media and associated burn speed combination is critical to obtain reliable results (eliminating skipping, freezing, etc.) The cdfreaks forum includes a lot of test results that points me to the best media / burn speed combination for a particular drive. I also use a free but revered program called Imgburn to burn instead of DVDA (I prepare from DVDA to the hard drive, and use Imgburn to both create a DVD image from the prepare directory and to ultimately burn).
neb wrote on 12/28/2006, 1:22 PM
Thank you both for your input. I will check out that forum and see what i can learn there.

Thanks for your help!

Ben