[gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
  My 5-year old gentoo-AMD64 machine when up in smoke this week so I'm
building a new machine. Most parts are on order but one big change
these days is the motherboards I want to purchase no longer support
EIDE/ATAPI interfaces so I'll have to get a new CD-R/DVD-R drive to
get the OS loaded and for writing mostly audio discs using
cdda2wav/cdrecord. While I understand firmware is often a problem on
these drives I'm wondering what drive manufacturers folks would
recommend these days as having the best results with cdrecord?

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Paul Hartman]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>  My 5-year old gentoo-AMD64 machine when up in smoke this week so I'm
> building a new machine. Most parts are on order but one big change
> these days is the motherboards I want to purchase no longer support
> EIDE/ATAPI interfaces so I'll have to get a new CD-R/DVD-R drive to
> get the OS loaded and for writing mostly audio discs using
> cdda2wav/cdrecord. While I understand firmware is often a problem on
> these drives I'm wondering what drive manufacturers folks would
> recommend these days as having the best results with cdrecord?

I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>  My 5-year old gentoo-AMD64 machine when up in smoke this week so I'm
>> building a new machine. Most parts are on order but one big change
>> these days is the motherboards I want to purchase no longer support
>> EIDE/ATAPI interfaces so I'll have to get a new CD-R/DVD-R drive to
>> get the OS loaded and for writing mostly audio discs using
>> cdda2wav/cdrecord. While I understand firmware is often a problem on
>> these drives I'm wondering what drive manufacturers folks would
>> recommend these days as having the best results with cdrecord?
>
> I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
> me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
> It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
> other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.
>

I just ordered an OptiArc 7240S from NewEgg this morning on a similar
recommendation from the cdrtools list.

Just curious - have you attempted any firmware upgrades from within
Linux? Have you tried (or do you know about) the Liggy and Dee
firmware?

Thanks for the info.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>  My 5-year old gentoo-AMD64 machine when up in smoke this week so I'm
>>> building a new machine. Most parts are on order but one big change
>>> these days is the motherboards I want to purchase no longer support
>>> EIDE/ATAPI interfaces so I'll have to get a new CD-R/DVD-R drive to
>>> get the OS loaded and for writing mostly audio discs using
>>> cdda2wav/cdrecord. While I understand firmware is often a problem on
>>> these drives I'm wondering what drive manufacturers folks would
>>> recommend these days as having the best results with cdrecord?
>>
>> I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
>> me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
>> It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
>> other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.
>>
>
> I just ordered an OptiArc 7240S from NewEgg this morning on a similar
> recommendation from the cdrtools list.
>
> Just curious - have you attempted any firmware upgrades from within
> Linux? Have you tried (or do you know about) the Liggy and Dee
> firmware?

I've got AW-G170S and cannot remember if I've done a firmware update
on it. I think Sony only release a Windows-based firmware installer
but I'm not sure how the third-party ones work.

I have read about the modified firmwares to change burn strategy,
enable bitsetting (make a DVD-R look like a DVD-ROM to fool devices
that refuse to play burned discs) etc but I haven't personally had a
need to use it.

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Paul Hartman
>> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>  My 5-year old gentoo-AMD64 machine when up in smoke this week so I'm
>>>> building a new machine. Most parts are on order but one big change
>>>> these days is the motherboards I want to purchase no longer support
>>>> EIDE/ATAPI interfaces so I'll have to get a new CD-R/DVD-R drive to
>>>> get the OS loaded and for writing mostly audio discs using
>>>> cdda2wav/cdrecord. While I understand firmware is often a problem on
>>>> these drives I'm wondering what drive manufacturers folks would
>>>> recommend these days as having the best results with cdrecord?
>>>
>>> I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
>>> me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
>>> It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
>>> other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.
>>>
>>
>> I just ordered an OptiArc 7240S from NewEgg this morning on a similar
>> recommendation from the cdrtools list.
>>
>> Just curious - have you attempted any firmware upgrades from within
>> Linux? Have you tried (or do you know about) the Liggy and Dee
>> firmware?
>
> I've got AW-G170S and cannot remember if I've done a firmware update
> on it. I think Sony only release a Windows-based firmware installer
> but I'm not sure how the third-party ones work.
>
> I have read about the modified firmwares to change burn strategy,
> enable bitsetting (make a DVD-R look like a DVD-ROM to fool devices
> that refuse to play burned discs) etc but I haven't personally had a
> need to use it.

I don't expect I will either. I was just curious as to your experience
if you had.

The drive is on order and hopefully new parts get here Wednesday or
Thursday so hopefully I'll be running Gentoo on my new i5-661 by the
weekend.

Thanks for your inputs.

cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:38:16 -0600, Paul Hartman wrote:

> I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
> me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
> It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
> other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.

I've got a couple of these, one SATA one PATA, the SATA one works very
well but the PATA one is slower at ripping discs.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 014: Keyboard locked - Try anything you can think of.

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Joerg Schilling]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:38:16 -0600, Paul Hartman wrote:
>
> > I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
> > me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
> > It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
> > other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.
>
> I've got a couple of these, one SATA one PATA, the SATA one works very
> well but the PATA one is slower at ripping discs.

While NEC is not bad, my current NEC drive does not read hidden audio
tracks (like e.g. found on "13" Die Ärtzte).

The answer can only be: "It depends..."

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] - What SATA CD-R/DVD-R drive manufacturer to buy?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Joerg Schilling
<Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:38:16 -0600, Paul Hartman wrote:
>>
>> > I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for
>> > me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer).
>> > It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any
>> > other brand but it seems to work for me anyway.
>>
>> I've got a couple of these, one SATA one PATA, the SATA one works very
>> well but the PATA one is slower at ripping discs.
>
> While NEC is not bad, my current NEC drive does not read hidden audio
> tracks (like e.g. found on "13" Die Ärtzte).
>
> The answer can only be: "It depends..."
>
> Jörg
>

Thanks Joerg. I sort of knew that would be the answer. Since I really
needed something to build the machine and it isn't going to get much
cheaper than $25 for an Optiarc I just ent ahead and got one. We'll
see how it works.

Is there any way to know ahead of time which drives will read the
hidden audio track?

Sort of related is that what about multimedia CDs - 8 tracks of audio
and then a multimedia video. Any way to copy those with these drives?

What's your opinion in the Libby and Dee firmware and/or flashing that
firmware or Optiarc firmware updates using the binflash app? I'm in no
hurry to do any of that but figured I'd learn a bit about it in the
next week.

Thanks,
Mark