[geeks] DVD burner suggestions

[Joshua Boyd]

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 11:31:28AM -0500, Erie Patsellis wrote:
> I'm replacing an ailing LDW-811S, it sees CDR's, just fine, but insists 
> there's no media installed with a DVD-R or +R, I've tried a few 
> different brands and it acts the same regardless. While a Plextor or 
> similar would be my first choice, the finance committee has nixed 
> spending more than $100, so inexpensive is good.

Plextors used to be good, but it seems recently that they've decided to
rely on lawyers and obfuscation rather than quality to try to be
competitive.  For instance, performance features that can only be used
with their windows only software.  And they put authentication in the
hardware to verify that the commands are being send by their program
rathen then someone elses program who snooped the commands.  Then
sending layers after the people who figured out the authentication.  All
over something like a bit of extra burning speed or less noise.

While I still like my old SCSI plextor drives (not DVD burners so not
relevent to you), I refuse to buy any reasonably new Plextor stuff.