The Plex 708a is the drive i'd prefer, but simply is too expensive atm (wife n kids etc etc) .. I am just waiting today for the guy I bought it from to test one of his in stock to see if mine is faulty or these Liteons really are completely hopeless at reading DVD-R.
An interesting sidenote, after checking the manual (on disc as a pdf *bleh*) it lists recommended/compatible media for all formats *except* DVD-R. To me that just underlines the fact that Liteon can't even recomend a DVD-R disk to use as these are so bad on the current firmwares. A shame as otherwise its a good drive (if that makes sense when it can't read dvd-r)
nm, looks like an exchange for a pioneer 106 for me then, didn't really want one cos of slooow 16x cdr, beggars can't be choosers i guess.