looking for quality DVD/CD burner

2022-02-05 06:04:05

I've been looking (online) and I don't feel like I can pick out a burner that will work right and last a few years. Most are priced $25 or less, not encouraging. I bought an ASUS about a month ago and have had some strange malfunctions. Wasted discs and precious time. I bought ASUS because I think the name indicates at least average quality. I've tried different brands of disks and different burning software with it but problems keep happening. I think the burner is the source of the problems. I see a Dell model DW-316, a well known name, but apparently it doesn't burn DVDs. There is an LG SP80NB8O, again a well known name and can  even do double layer, for $25 or even less.  Can any one here tell me a burner on the market they have good experience with or that they consider a good gamble? I would like to know.

Thanks.   Bill S.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #1 – 2022-02-05 11:40:50

While it is possible that the DVD/CD drive is the culprit, in my experience it is more likely to be the quality of the DVD/s/CDs that you are using. Brand and particularly dye-type are important if you are looking for a quality result.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #2 – 2022-02-05 16:07:47

Thanks for the advice. Even so, can you suggest a burner and discs of reliable quality?
Thanks.    Bill S.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #3 – 2022-02-06 05:37:06

I neglected to mention I am talking about an EXTERNAL burner as I don't use a desktop PC any more.
Thanks.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #4 – 2022-02-06 14:18:53

Can't really offer any help with external drives. I have one for use with a laptop but I can't recall ever having used it! As for media, I use Ritek F1 dye based DVD-R x16 and, although I haven't burned any in years, Taiyo Yuden dye based CDs were always highly regarded. I still burn DVDs for family members, must have burned hundreds over the years, and have had very few problems the Ritek F1 based discs.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #5 – 2022-02-06 17:22:23

You can use a NexStar DX for external optical drives.
At work, I use one.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #6 – 2022-02-11 19:04:59

Yes just get a typical internal drive and put it in an external usb enclosure.

LG WH14NS40 or WH16NS60

Asus doesn’t make optical drives. They are just rebadged LG.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #7 – 2022-03-02 05:58:34

Thanks for your help. I got some SONY cd blanks that don't have problems.

Re: looking for quality DVD/CD burner

Reply #8 – 2022-06-02 09:00:31

It seems the general word is that... Verbatim (only the Mitsubishi dye ones which are typically the 'Azo' or 'DataLife Plus' branded ones) and Taiyo Yuden are the best CD/DVD discs in general. while I suspect the media is more important than the burner, it's probably a good idea to avoid laptop burners and use only desktop burners for a better chance of success.

but the typical Verbatim CD-R's you can get for a cheap price on say Amazon (I bought a batch (100-pack) in April 2022 as I got a better than average price on it) are the cheaper 'CMC Magnetics' media code and not the higher quality 'Mitsubishi' dye as those CD-R's tend to cost a bit more.

but on the bright side with the standard/cheaper Verbatim CD-R's... is they can be overburned the furthest I have seen so far. so the good thing about those basic Verbatim CD-R's 80min/700MB (CMC Magnetics media code) is that on a standard AUDIO CD they can overburn to at least 82:14:66(82min15sec) successfully and play back fine on my original CD player (Panasonic RX-DS620) which has a April 1991 mfg date (which I probably had since late 1991 or sometime in 1992) as on that it shows up as 82min12sec. NOTE: I used 16x burn speed on my Sony 7240s burner (which has a 2009 mfg date) as I heard 16x is a pretty good option to keep jitter a bit lower etc for CD-R's.

I even do disc quality scans with KProbe v2.5.2 on my CD/DVD media. although when it comes to CD media I only got one burner that can do scans of those properly (i.e. Liteon 24102b CD-RW drive, which has a Dec 2001 mfg date) as you can see it has a steady stream of C1 error info where as when using my DVD burners you can tell it does not properly scan CD-R's with those. but when it comes to scanning my DVD media I just use either of my two Liteon burners (Liteon 1673s(from 2005 ; which is my original DVD burner) and Liteon iHAS324B (from 2011)) as this is a good way to tell how the overall burn quality of the media is as if these are burned well initially and scan well, you can pretty much assume they will likely last decades (see below) before any read failure occurs.

I have quite a few Verbatim DVD recordable media (with the quality 'Mitsubishi' dye) that is 13+ years old and still scan well (I got into CD-R burning in 1998 and DVD burning in 2005). so basically I am confident this media will last at least decades before any failure to read the data occurs which is why I use it for long term data backup as it's still the best option for non-hard drive data storage long term for us common people. this is especially good for high value data like family pictures or videos and the like. but if you got a ton of data to backup, it's not really practical to use non-hard drive storage, but DVD media is still good for a more limited amount of high importance data.

hell, I even bought some new old stock of Verbatim 8x rated 'MCC 003' media code (so the quality Mitsubishi dye and is 8x certified write speed where as say the more common Verbatim DVD+R 16x Azo certified discs you will find are 'MCC 004') not long ago now (I got basically 200 discs (4x 50-pack) which basically comes out to about $0.20 a disc) and I would guess these are roughly 13-17 years old and it still works well and disc quality scans with KProbe are solid as I would say besides two discs I knew would likely fail due to obvious/heavy scratches (and they did fail because it could not pass ImgBurn's 'verify'), that out of the remaining 42 discs or so I burned so far all were of solid burn quality with the exception of 'maybe' 4-8 discs, but even those still technically work. I largely used my Liteon iHA324B DVD burner (which should have a 2011 mfg date) and burned them at 8x.

but some quick info on interpreting KProbe (seems Liteon burners are made for KProbe), for a bit more 'perfect' scans should be roughly...

CD-R...

-C1 errors = no concrete data here. but just using the small amount of Verbatim CD-R (CMC Magnetics) media I burned not long ago (basically 7 discs) the C1 error rates were between 16k-54.6k total with peak spike being roughly in the ball park of 30 for the most part and I used 16x burn speed on my Sony 7240s burner from the year 2009 and then scanned at 8x on my Liteon 24102b CD-RW drive.

-C2 errors = 0 (you don't want a single C2 error for a quality burn)

DVD-R/+R...

-PI = 10-20 (although it appears 'up to 280' is still within spec. for the record... some discs I have burned (not many, but a small amount of the 'MCC 003' batch) exceeded 280 and my PC DVD burners can still read the discs without problem)

-PIF = 4 or less (in terms of a single spike. for the record... you can still go a fair amount beyond that and have a readable disc though. although just to see how my original DVD burner (Liteon 1673s) faired I burned one of those 'MCC 003' disc on it (at 8x) and while the disc still technically works I suspect it's burn quality on that disc is so-so given while my Liteon iHAS324B burner can read it at full speed without problems, my Sony 7240s does have issues reading it, as you can hear it slow down etc etc, but in the end still reads it and the data is not corrupt. but reason I mentioned this is it might give me a ball park idea on when issues can set in and this has a steady 6-16 PIF spikes near end of the burn area. but another disc, Verbatim DVD-R 16x Azo bought not long ago (which I returned to Amazon not all that long ago which was surprising because I have the exact same media and media code in the past, and still have, that still burns well to this day but this new batch I ordered (and then sent back) was horrible in comparison) that actually outright failed to read the data (failed ImgBurn's 'verify') had a steady PIF spike of 10-30-ish area for a good portion late into the burn with a single spike as high as 76 and this disc had outright corrupt data (which failed to read late into the disc where the high PIF spikes are). but anyways, on the more quality burns on my 'MCC 003' media, in terms of total PIF's, I would say I was generally in the ball park of 2000-5000 total PIF errors. for measure... in terms of total PIF's, on a fair amount of my other discs, which are roughly as good as your going to get, you can potentially get around 500 total PIF's. but even at 2000-5000 or so is still far closer to quality than junk when you bottom line things)

NOTE: PIF are more important than PI's in general (and the same with C2 errors over C1 errors for CD-R media)!

there is M-DISC media, which I heard was nice, but the show stopper with these discs is the cost is simply too high and likely does not offer much real world difference over standard quality CD/DVD media in terms of practical longevity.

I never bothered with BD recordable media (25GB BD-R etc) due to high initial investment costs and I am not sure how reliable those discs are compared to more common CD/DVD media etc etc given your basically cramming a lot more data into the same physical space, so at least on paper, it seems it might be more error prone given the tighter tolerances. plus, you just don't see many people with drives that can read BD media where as if a person has a computer that can read optical discs, there is a high probability they can read CD/DVD's.

p.s. I use ImgBurn v2.5.8.0 (the best general CD/DVD burning software in my opinion) on Linux Mint v20.3-Xfce currently setup through PlayOnLinux using Wine v6.0.1(32bit). note: to get ImgBurn working on Linux... you need to set Wine to Windows XP mode and then on ImgBurn itself set 'Tools > Settings > I/O' select 'SPTI - Microsoft' and for 'SPTI - Device Enumeration Method' select either 'Device Interface' or 'Drive Letter'. also, on Linux... when burning a standard audio CD using ImgBurn you basically use the "Tools > Create CUE File..." section and I only use standard WAV files (drag-and-drop into that general section and it will save a 'cue' file and then 'Mode > Write' and load the 'cue' file, select burn speed etc, proceed to burn, and if your overburning select 'overburn' (NOT 'truncate'), then just sit back and wait and your done) as I just temporarily convert my FLAC files back to WAV (using Foobar2000) for use on ImgBurn on Linux. on a side note I played with EAC (Exact Audio Copy) on Linux Mint not long ago and it seems to work okay (I was using Wine v4.0.4 through PlayOnLinux) but generally speaking I use ImgBurn to burn standard audio CD's.