Which DVD writer to choose ?

[come_mon]

After 3 years of torturing, my LG 4167B DVD writer could no longer recognize DVD content without many retries. Now I intend to purchase another DVD writer for replacement. SATA or IDE interface were OK for me although I prefer SATA type for performance issue.

My PC used Gigabyte GA-8S655FX-L motherboard and OS installed was Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2.

The manual has below description related to SATA:

- Onboard SiS 964
- 2 Serial ATA connectors in 150 MB/s operation mode
- Supports Disk striping (RAID0) or DISK Mirroring (RAID1)
- Support JBOD function
- Supports UDMA up to 150 MB/sec
- UDMA and PIO Modes
- Up to 2 SATA Device

I remembered SATA was set to IDE mode in BIOS when I installed my SATA II HDD.

Could anyone comment on below DVD models, which one would you recommend:

Samsung TSH 653 SATA, TS H652 IDE
Lite-On DH20A4P IDE, DH-20A4H IDE, LH-18A3L SATA, iHAS120 SATA, iHAS220 SATA
Pioneer DVR-116 IDE, DVR-216 SATA, DVR-S16 SATA, DVR-A16FX
SONY DRU-V200A IDE, DRU-V200S SATA
ASUS DRW2014S1 IDE, DRW2014S1T IDE, DRW2014L1T IDE, DRW2014LIT SATA, DRW20B1ST SATA, DRW20B1LT SATA
LG GH22-NP IDE, GH20-NS SATA, GH-22NS SATA, GH-22LS SATA
Philips SPD2517BM SATA, SPD2517BD SATA
HP DVD1635i IDE

I use my new DVD writer heavily on video conversion. Those videos (20-40 chapters) will be burned from my Pioneer DVR-550H-s recorder. I do the conversion everyday. That is, 20-40 video clips will be extracted from DVD-RW (or DVD+RW) disc everyday and converted to mpg files using TSUNAMI MPEG DVD EasyPack. I seldom playback DVD directly from DVD drive and I don't burn DVD using my DVD drive often i.e. less than 1 disc burnt everyday on average.

I prefer SATA DVD writer because I think IDE interface will fade out in coming motherboards and I think my Gigabyte motherboard will "die" before the new DVD writer I buy soon. Besides, I found my current IDE LG drive occupied all the CPU time sometimes during video coversion from DVD+/-RW. I hope that a new SATA interface DVD writer will avoid my PC from being "hung up" when it's working on video conversion.

PS: Due to my bad experience with my current LG DVD writer, I prefer other brands of DVD writers. Yet, if you think LG drive quality have no problem so, please still suggest which model you prefer.

Tks!

[Ian]

I wouldn't write off LG. Three years of heavy use is pretty good for an optical drive.

[come_mon]

I wouldn't write off LG. Three years of heavy use is pretty good for an optical drive.

I think I didn't write clearly in my last message. Actually the heavy use just began since Aug 2007. Also, the LG drive had problem and need repair from vendor in the first year of purchase (within warranty) long before the heavy use period.

[Ian]

Ah, that's not good then.