Dixons DVD Burner £80, any good?

[MurphmanL]

Dixons are selling a Liteon dvd burner and one of a different brand for the same price off their internet site, im pretty sure I saw the liteon burner for £80 in store, im thinking of picking it up, is it a good buy? This will also be my first time installing my own Cd Drive, I already have 2 drives, so can i simply remove a current one and rig up this drive exactly as the old one was?

[MD]

I recently bought a OEM 8x Liteon DVD burner and have had no problems.

Changing out drives is easy, you should have no problems, it is exactly as you describe except for one extra step. On the back of the drive you buy and the drive you take out you will find a set of 4 pairs of pins and then a single pin, these are where you will need to mark if the drive is slave, master or Cable select.

Again these shold be marked clearly on your old and your new drive, as long as you make sure these are marked up the same then you will be fine......

m@

[streetster]

as for replacing the old drive.. there should be a jumper on the back which says ' MA, SL, CS' (Master, Slave, Cable Select), make sure you set your new drive to whatever the old drive was, and then yeh windows will find it ok and it'll all be good... i cant give you any useful advice about purchasing the one from dixons, except that there are many drives about for that price which may be better spec, and may be compatible with more media (ie burn at 4x/8x rather than slow speeds),

you also havent mentioned what speed the dvd burner is, and whether it supports dvd+r and dvd-r... i'm sure the knowledgable chaps on this board will be able to recommend you a superior one for prolly the same price

mark


edit: beaten

[MurphmanL]

How do i mark out if the drive is slave, primary or whatever??? If the drive im taking out is a slave, won't this drive operate in it's position as a slave? Also, i persume you may use your dvd writer for making vcd's tell me, is it possible to make a proper dvd from a downloaded AVI video file using software such as Ulead DVD Studio?

[MurphmanL]

you havent mentioned what speed the dvd burner is, and whether it supports dvd+r and dvd-r...

The burner supports burning at 4/8x i believe and i am certain it supports DVD-R +/- Burning.

[Aaron]

If it's the same drive I've got (LiteOn 811S) then it's definately worth getting.

Burns DVD-R at 4x, DVD+R at 8x and CD-R at 40x. Not fussy about what media it uses, unlike some drives. Great error control for backing up copy protected material too.

[td5]

Cant really go wrong with LiteOn's, they sure are reliable drives. You sound new, so before buying any media , have a look on www.dvdrhelp.com to see if its actually any good, as DVD-R media vary's a lot from manufacturer to manfacturer.

[Kezzer]

I had two Lite-On drives, both went bust. The CD-RW died completely after 4 burns and the DVD-ROM drive makes some loud scraping noises. Didn't get the out the box 'til late and it was too much hassle to RMA them.