I'm considering these DVD burners:

Pioneer DVR-212D
ASUS DRW-1814BLT
Lite-on?
LG?

Needs to be SATA. I don't know enough about the various models and quality/brand combinations so I hope to learn of some recommended dvd drives. I'd like it to be quiet and avoid problematic issues.

Well DVD burners ought to be cheap. So they are loud while playing DVD, burn DVDs and CDs badly and don't read scratched media well. The german printed magazine C't did a test in their recent issue. Only offline and german, though.
What I can tell you: Always burn with 8x for +-R and with 4x for -+RW. Buy high-quality media. They recommended the ASUS DRW-1814BLT. Summed up, it was the least problematic and quite quiet. Do you have a strong preference for either noise/burn quality/read quality/copy protection reading?

Here the tested units:
Optiarc AD-7173S,LG Electronics GSA-H55N,Plextor PX-800A,Asus DRW-1814BLT,Samsung SH-S183L,Pioneer DVR 112 Super-Multi,LiteOn LH-20A1S

Thanks for all that info, jojo.


Burn quality/copy protection reading is most important to me. I would like to avoid considerable noise but if there isn't consistent burns, then the noise becomes redundant, right? I am not sure of the best media to use but I once found two web pages that had descriptions of where the various brands originated (the manufacturers/outsourcing info). From what is locally available, Verbatim was the best choice. Sony was too, but it hardly ever goes on sale.

I have a Lite-On DVDRW SOHW-812S in my current computer but I am not attached to brands and will go with the best quality/price/performance combo regardless of brand.

Samsung's S182 I think is quite good... the S162 got great reviews. 182 seems quite on DVD just a little noisy on CDs

To keep up to date with what is good, bad and ugly on the media front I read current threads at CDfreaks. Verbatim for instance seem to have slipped in the ratings since they tranferred production to India.

Sorry, I forgot about your thread and since I don't have internet at home, I will look if one tested units fits your needs better than the Asus.

I am a rookie in this field but LG H62L (Lightscribe) or LG H62N (No lightscribe) are 18x SATA burners (10x for Dual Layer +/-) and it has the Renesas chipset wich is good (usually superb burn quality).

The LiteOn seems to be amongst the noisiest but are very good at scanning (reading).
LG and Pioneer are amongst the best on write (burn) quality on good DVD media (obviously less good at scanning).

Here is one interesting thread for newbees.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=215860
LG Chipset table
http://club.cdfreaks.com/attachment.php/?attachmentid=108766

Another longer thread here.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=213829

Hope this helped.
/ Alexander

Ok I have the review in front of me now.

They tested the burners with the following mediums. They are of the highest-quality they could find.
Plextor DVD-R 16x (TYG03)
Sony DVD-R 16x (SONY16D1)
Verbatim DVD-RW 8x (MKM A03 000)
Verbatim DVD+R DL 8x (MKM 003 000)
Plextor CD-R 48x (Taiyo Yuden)

7 contestants, and 5 discs make 35 permutations. Only 5 of these permutation produced "good" results at default speed. 7 had errors right from the start. You see how grave the situation is.

If you need a CD-Audio monster, go with the Lite-On LH-20A1S. It's ignoring all 8 copy protections tested and has good reading qualities. The Asus reads only 4 but also has good quality reading.
Downsides of the Lite-On compared to the Asus: Slow DVD-RAM burning, slow Vista live filesystem burning, bad reading quality of CD with stains/scratches, noisier at reading. Recommendes write speeds for the mediums tested: 12x/12x/8x/4x/24x
Downsides of the Asus compared to the rest of the field: only 4th place in DVD-Video reading noise, fails to read DVD with very high jitter (2 units read it), recommended write speeds: 8x/16x/8x/8x/48x

Best DVD-R burn quality: Plextor. But it fails on DVD+RW (do not use) and CD-R (recommended: 16x), DVD-RAM access time and DVD-Video noise.

Yes LG Electronics GSA-H55N (used in the test) has a Panasonic chipset. They are not top notch.
Also the latest Panasonic are reported to be less good than the older 111D and 112D drives (i think).

I am slightly inclined to buy the LiteOn 20x external (USB) burner, hoping it is as good as the tested one.
Seems to be one of the better fast (18-20x =newest) DVD drives.
I will probably have to buy a good burning DVD player in the future too then.

Hi Jojo

I found your post quite informative, but I would like to get a recommendation for noise out of those brands you mentioned.

How does your review rate these models on noise in particular? which are the top 3?

I have considered reviews of the LG and Samsung - particularly these models - but cannot find an objective comparison.

I am planning to have two DVD-burners
- one as quiet as poss (for an affordable price)
- one good quality (plextor)?

Thanks

jojo4u in your post you mention they tested the following burners listed as follows:
Plextor DVD-R 16x (TYG03)
Sony DVD-R 16x (SONY16D1)
Verbatim DVD-RW 8x (MKM A03 000)
Verbatim DVD+R DL 8x (MKM 003 000)
Plextor CD-R 48x (Taiyo Yuden)

but later in your post you talk about an Asus drive? Which model? I am looking for a quiet dvd burner, considering the DRW-1814BLT, to replace my Lite-On SH-16A7S.

i have LG SATA GSA-H30N and it"s working wonderful.

Digerati, my post was a follow-up. The listed units were mediums, no burners. Look up in the thread.

About the noise: The C't tests in sone and I have two figures. The first is reading CDs and the second is reading Video-DVDs.

Asus 5,9/2,8 sone
LG 8,2/2,7 sone
Lite-On 7,4/1,7 sone
OptiArc 8,0/7,9 sone
Pioneer 6,9/0,9 sone
Plextor 7,7/7,7 sone
Samsung 6,1/1,6 sone

Thank you jojo

I am surprised by the results. This LG model is nearly last overall, many consider it a quiet brand. Overall the quietest on average seems to be Samsung and Pioneer, given these models.

Could you do a similar table of overall quality & reliability results? You mentioned Plextor was best in the test. I would expect Pioneer to be good as well?

Thanks

Pioneer finally released a fancy-bezel retail-kit SATA version of their drive in Japan right now. I have an IDE version of the a09 drive and it is much quieter than all other drives I've used.

Looks like I'll be getting this one from Cokefans.

I will consider to buy this one, the only thing is I would prefer an external (USB) DVD burner but they are also more expensive.

Thanks jojo for your "sone" table where Pioneer is the quietest DVD reader and 3:rd quietest CD reader of the lot.

just put it in a fanless alum enclosure.

Remember the latter figures from the c't test are for 1x dvd playback.

If you use a data dvd, the drive will read at 8-20x (depending on read strategy, part of the disk, etc).

This will be incredibly loud, esp. in the case of LiteOn.

I'd recommend Pioneer myself.

Pioneers do not write DVD-RAM. RAM is the most reliable (through hardware means) media for modifying disk contents.
What DVD writer is good at RW writing quality and can write to DVD-RAM?