Hi!

Ive been using the NEC 3550A with the modified 1.7 firmware to enable bitsetting for over a year now and it has worked flawlessly. However, lately it has decided to throw a hissy fit so I believe it is time to upgrade to a new dvd burner. Can anyone advice of a descent burner which won't be creating too many coasters? Also, does bitsetting real matter that much?

Got a Pioneer 112D for £20, works VERY well, no coasters and burns better at 4x then at 2.4x (mechanic freak of nature!)

bitsetting does matter, i believe there was a fw where u didnt have to bitset anymore, but it does set the dvd to DVD-ROM booktype, so yes it is good to have

Although the Pioneers are great burners, i personaly wouldnt get another one.

Ive had 2 which didnt last very long at all, the last being a 111D, i must have got about 30 burns out of it before it died.

Nec drives on the other hand that i use seem to last forever. Currently im using an Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170S, which is a new version of NEC drives, its also SATA and not IDE. It gets my thumbs up for sure, never had a bad burn and my 360 backups burned at 4x using ImgBurn work flawlessly.

Hope that helps

Another vote for Pioneer here. Had 3 DVD Burners in the last 4 years and all were Pioneer (all but one was in perfect working condition, I just upgraded). I loved all of them Especially the 109 and my current 111D. Excellent quality burns on a variety of media and of course having the hassle of the booktype being taken care of for you automatically on DL burns right out of the box is a big plus. Yeah, the newer firmware makes it easier without having to set the booktype, but it still doesn't change the fact that the booktype setting is still essential for other applications.