[pawn]

Not sure if anyone cares, but every bit of data helps.


I finally (after months of frustration) replaced my (what was brand new) Liteon DVD drive with a Sony unit. Works like a dream now. Just watched the extended Fellowship of the Ring, not a blip. Very happy.


It was pretty difficult to determine where the problem was since I "upgraded" to WinXP, changed the DVD drive and changed video cards all at the same time. Nero DVDSpeed helped prove the DVD drive was crap, as shown here:

http://www.hanneng.com/nero.JPG


For the record, the Sony drive doesn't attempt to climb the speed curve as fast, just a nice smooth steady increase until it peaks at about 7x. As you can see above, the Liteon unit seems almost out of control trying to spin as fast as possible, then crapping out, then speeding up again. Probably built to look good on data transfer tests, etc.


The sad thing is, teh Liteon drive was more expensive. My heart originally told me to go with a bigger name, but the seek time were transfer rate shown for the Liteon drive were better, and had the same speed and buffer size. Oh well, live and learn.


Thanks to those that tried to help.

 

[JackLT]

I was just about to upgrade to a Liteon LTD163, it's rated as one of the fastest for CD extraction and DVD extraction.


Maybe you just had a bad unit?


Anyone else use the Liteon 163 with success?

 

[pawn]

Quote:

Originally posted by JackLT I was just about to upgrade to a Liteon LTD163, it's rated as one of the fastest for CD extraction and DVD extraction. Maybe you just had a bad unit? Anyone else use the Liteon 163 with success?

Who knows. Maybe the rest of my system just isn't fast enough to keep up with the transfer rate the Liteon was trying to achieve. Either way, if it's a bad unit, it was the day I bought it.

 

[P3Animal]

I thought that the Lite-On drives low down to 1x speed when playing a dvd to keep the noise down. I was also going to buy the LiteOn ltd163d, but now I'm not too sure.

 

[pawn]

Quote:

Originally posted by P3Animal I thought that the Lite-On drives low down to 1x speed when playing a dvd to keep the noise down. I was also going to buy the LiteOn ltd163d, but now I'm not too sure.

I'd be interested to see a post from someone successfully using this drive.


My exact same system ran nicely in the past with a Pioneer drive (which I gave to my brother-in-law after "upgrading" to the Liteon). It now runs ncely with a Sony drive.


Looking at my Nero results (above), the Liteon is definitely just spinning wildly out of control for who knows what reason.


BTW, want to buy a Liteon drive? Real cheap. ;^)

 

[P3Animal]

This is strange though, since I thought a lot of users on this forum are using this drive, and recommend it.

Decisions, decisions

 

[pawn]

Quote:

Originally posted by P3Animal This is strange though, since I thought a lot of users on this forum are using this drive, and recommend it. Decisions, decisions

If that's the case, I'd go with it. Mine's obviously a fluke, since the people in here would know the unit inside and out.

 

[kanefsky]

Did you ever look at your IDE channels under Device Manager on the Advanced Settings tab? Sometimes Windows will downgrade the transfer mode on the drive from DMA to PIO. Your performance will suffer greatly when this happens. I've had this happen a couple times, and I can fix it by uninstalling and reinstalling the device via Device Manager.


--

Steve

 

[pawn]

Quote:

Originally posted by kanefsky Did you ever look at your IDE channels under Device Manager on the Advanced Settings tab? Sometimes Windows will downgrade the transfer mode on the drive from DMA to PIO. Your performance will suffer greatly when this happens. I've had this happen a couple times, and I can fix it by uninstalling and reinstalling the device via Device Manager. -- Steve

I'm a noob, but not that much ;^)

 

[Vern Dias]

I have not been happy with Lite-on DVD drives. Very intolerant of disc defects, susceptable to stutter, etc.


I have recently discovered the Benq DVP-1648A. So far, I have had good luck with the drive. One advantage to this drive is a jumper to switch between UDMA33 and UDMA66.


With this drive, using UDMA66, my IDE channel LED stays off totally when playing a DVD. The indicator on the DVD drive is the only indication of IDE activity.


It is also very quiet, and available in the internet for under $45.00.


Vern

 

[Carey P]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vern Dias ...Very intolerant of disc defects, susceptable to stutter, etc..

This was exactly my finding. I became convinced over time, that my Lite-On 163D had more troubles with DVD's, especially during the second layer and with used rentals, than my original Toshiba 1402. I'm back to the Toshiba now, though it's not exactly perfect either . I actually found a DVD it could not play, though the Lite-On could. I do miss the very quiet (1X or 2X) operation of the Lite-On. I don't miss the annoying "re-sync" pause it would do after hitting Play, once a movie was paused for more than a few minutes.


Interesting thing about that IDE LED. It would blink every half-second or so with the Lite-On, but more erratically with the Toshiba, using Windows ME and the old ATI drivers. Now, with XP, Catalyst 2.3, and the Beta M-Audio combo, the LED is flashing almost continuously, though it seems to have no bearing on DVD playback (I'm using the CUSL2-C).


I'm still waiting for that perfect drive that can handle dual layer DVD's and is quiet too. Maybe Vern found it, who knows .


Carey

 

[DaGamePimp]

I had problems with a LiteOn dvd drive as well [ I must add here that the LiteOn cd-r/rw drives are Fantastic ] . I used no less than 10 different dvd-rom drives and not a one of them was perfect until I installed a DVD-R drive and guess what - 'perfection' . The DVD-R drives have a larger cache [ 2mb or higher ] which is what I think makes the biggest difference in getting rid of stutter issues . Obviously DVD-R drives are costly for using just as a dvd-rom so find the dvd-rom drive with the largest cache and you should be in stutter free bliss . Make sure it has at least UDMA 33 support as well .

--- Best of Luck ,

--- Jason Berg

 

[Mike Harry]

The only thing that was wrong with your lite on drive, you needed to download the last firmware from liteon. Had some problems until firmware upgrade. Use it to play Dvd, ripping Dvs & Cd,s. No matter what brand of Dvd drive, CD, even Hard Drv's, upgrading firmware can fix play back issues. I tried alot of different drive lite is the fast ripping drive I tired. Always check for latest drivers, software patch, ect. unless Microsoft I always wait and see if there are issues.

 

[pawn]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mike Harry The only thing that was wrong with your lite on drive, you needed to download the last firmware from liteon. Had some problems until firmware upgrade. Use it to play Dvd, ripping Dvs & Cd,s. No matter what brand of Dvd drive, CD, even Hard Drv's, upgrading firmware can fix play back issues. I tried alot of different drive lite is the fast ripping drive I tired. Always check for latest drivers, software patch, ect. unless Microsoft I always wait and see if there are issues.

No offence, but this would have been useful advice 3 or 4 days ago when I first posted my problem and Nero results for the Liteon drive. Personally, I consider $90 for a new drive money well spent to fix the problem.