Having DVD-R reading problems with new drive, advice wanted

[chilledinsanity]

Hey, I recently bought a new drive, an NEC 3450A. I read a favorable review on it, but I've been having hell trying to get it to read my old discs. Here's the situation:

All of my old discs are Ritek G03's and G04's (DVD-R) and were burned using a Toshiba SDR-5002 using data verification and closed track. I still have this drive and it still reads them flawlessly. My new NEC drive however has been running into all kinds of problems trying to read them. It will almost always see the discs, but will run into CRC errors whenever it tries to copy files, the same discs the Toshiba reads with ease. For video files, even the ones where it can copy all the files, it will still stutter in video playback, whereas the Toshiba will run fine.

I'm kind of stumped as to what I should do or what tests I can run. My Toshiba drive won't last forever and I want to be able to have something that can read my discs when it finally dies! Here are a couple ideas I've had:

-copy all of my old discs and burn them again with the NEC drive (my least popular decision for obvious reasons), but even then is there any guarantee THOSE discs will be compatible with future generations?

-update the firmware (my current version is 1.20), if so, to which version? Do any of them even address the problem I'm having?

-buy another DVD drive that will be good at reading the discs (again, not really popular, but better than re-burning everything). If so, then what?


Any advice would be appreciated, I'm really at a loss as to what I should do. Thanks!

[setarip_old]

Hi!

Have you successfully burned any DVD-Rs with your new NEC drive?

If so, can the NEC read them?

[chilledinsanity]

I've gone and burned several discs with the NEC drive and they can all read fine, the same discs are read fine with the Toshiba drive. I think the burn quality on this drive is fine

However there's still a problem with the reading. I burned an .avi on the NEC drive that takes up the whole disc, however when I play it back on the NEC drive, it stutters. When I play it back on the Toshiba drive, it does not. I think the read quality is inferior on this drive (the drive in general), I'm going to see if I can find a way to return it unless somebody has some more ideas.

Any suggestions as to which drive I should look into buying instead?

[setarip_old]

If you have an available bay in your setup (since you say the NEC BURNS) properly), you might consider purchasing a separate DVD-ROM for reading/playing - and keep the NEC burner...

[wmansir]

You might want to check out the CD Freaks forums. They have a specific forum for ever MFG, including NEC (http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86).

As for a drive recommendation, I just bought a BenQ 1640. It's around the same price as the 3540 (maybe +$5) and has great reviews, although there seem to be some build quality concerns with some units according to posts at CD Freaks. Of course the squeaky drive owner posts the most, and my unit has worked flawlessly, so I can't confirm those concerns.

[chilledinsanity]

You might want to check out the CD Freaks forums. They have a specific forum for ever MFG, including NEC

I have a [URL=http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=152166]thread (http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86) going there too, it's been a couple days though and nobody's replied.

setarip_old:
Yes, the NEC burns properly, but the fact that it can't even playback the video disc properly that it burned irks me a bit. However I'm not completely against that notion, but what would be a good DVD reader to get? The main issue with this is that it can't read my old disc and it sucks for movie playback for AVI's recorded on DVD-R, even if it burned it.

wmansir:

Have you had any problems reading discs burned on other drives with the BenQ, especially Ritek? Also, can you watch avi movies that take up the whole disc on your drive without problems?

One thing I noticed when watching a movie on my toshiba is that the drive light will just blink every 10 seconds or so, most of the time, it doesn't even seem to be accessing the disc, which is good. On more complicated scenes it will just blink a little more frequently. On the NEC the light seems to blink longer and more frequently for less complex scenes, for more complicated scenes the light is on solid, then it starts stuttering.

[setarip_old]

what would be a good DVD reader to get?

I've had wonderful performance from my ASUS DVD-ROM fo several years...

[chilledinsanity]

What model? Ever have difficulty reading burned DVD-R's? If so, do you remember the brand?

Sorry for all the questions, it just seems that word of mouth may be my best option at this point.

[setarip_old]

What model?

E616 (Firmware Z.0 - No need to update)


Ever have difficulty reading burned DVD-R's?

Nope...

[ljw1]

I have had the same problems as you with that ritek media. It will only read in the burner and a particularly good liteon drive that I have, all other drives fail. Doing a quality check on these disks shows that they are marginal so my previous burner which burned these disks obviously did not have a good write strategy. Now I have a benq 1640 and have gone back to taiyo yuden disks and have had no more problems. Oh yeah it is taking ages to recopy all those marginal disks Grrrr!!!

[chilledinsanity]

Man, this sucks. Which LiteOn drive do you have?