Optical Disc Drive owners club

[mplayerMuPDF]

For all those who (still) own an optical disc drive, be it an old CDRW or combo CDRW/DVD (read) drive or a typical CD/DVD+-RW multi drive or bluray (multi) drive, or perhaps even a drive for a new, much less common format such as the Archival Disc by Sony and Panasonic, for whatever purpose (burning, playback and other reading, ripping (note that ripping typical commercial DVDs and blurays is illegal in the United States per the glorious DMCA and perhaps some other countries as well because it involves cracking the (A)CSS copy protection mechanism)). This is one of the least exclusive clubs on TPU, you can join for just $20 or even less if you are willing to go used (if you have a 5.25" bay, otherwise it will be slightly more expensive).

With the demise of the club.myce.com forums this year (although part of its content can still be accessed thanks to the Internet Archive) a lot of knowledge about optical disc technology for the average consumer has become inaccessible. Luckily I was reading these forums a lot in the last half of 2021, absorbing a lot of knowledge about optical media.

What I use my optical drives for:

• ripping pressed audio CDs (used CDs can be an excellent deal sometimes and with deceased or already extremely wealthy artists I do not personally feel to need to purchase the music new to support the artist; furthermore, some music can only be purchased on CD, used or new) as I do not like the idea of eternally relying on Spotify for access to my favorite music
• burning CD-Rs for use in my car player (much more convenient and reliable, in my opinion, than having to deal with some gadget to connect my iPhone Xr via Bluetooth and then having to fumble with Spotify when I have to go somewhere)
• burning CD-Rs and DVD+Rs for archival/backup purposes; I do not want to rely solely on SSDs and HDDs with potential for bit rot (not to mention general failure) for storing my most important data. Truly irreplacable data gets backed up on very high quality CD-Rs (and stored properly, of course!), while other stuff gets backed up on DVD+Rs (or not at all).

Drives I own:

• TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology, a joint venture between, as the name suggests, Japanese Toshiba and Korean Samsung; it was purchased by its South Korean (optical pickup unit or OPU) supplier Optis, however, before going bankrupt in 2016) SH-224DB CD/DVD burner (connected with a Startech USB 2.0 IDE/SATA adapter to my desktop), purchased open box from eBay in 2021; it is an excellent CD and DVD reader with its Mediatek chipset and said to be a great DVD burner as well; not sure how well it burns CDs. Sold as a "Samsung Super Writemaster".
• HL-DT-ST (Hitachi-LG Data Storage, a joint venture between, as the name, suggests Japanese Hitachi and Korean LG, still in business, although unfortunately quality has gone down the drain in an effort to keep costs low in the shrinking market for optical disc drives) WH16NS40 (it actually seems to be an NS50 based on its exterior design but for inexplicable reasons LG has been selling newer drives under the NS40 model code, which has led to great confusion) with firmware 1.03 (DO NOT upgrade this drive to the new firmware version 1.05 as you will brick it and LG will tell you to get lost if it is out of warranty) bluray burner in an OWC Mercury USB 3.0 enclosure (purchased prebuilt from Adorama years ago)

Blank media I own:

• PlexDisc (a Vinpower Digital brand) 16X DVD+R logo top 100-pack (Optodisc MID; made by an unknown (probably the huge CMC Magnetics) Taiwanese manufacturer (in Taiwan) as Optodisc allegedly no longer as its own plants anymore), purchased from eBay (runtechmedia store)
• Falcon Media/FTI 52X inkjet/hub printable, water repellent 80 min/700 MB 50-pack Premium line CD-R cakebox, purchased from Polyline Corp of Burbank, California
  • Japanese TDK ATIP (manufacturing equipment was purchased by FTI from TDK when they got out of the CD-R manufacturing business)
  • Made in Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
  • https://falconrak.com/product/premium-line-cd-r/
  • relatively expensive so I only use it for archival/backup purposes
  • made by what seems to be the only blank/recordable optical media manufacturer left that is not based in either the PRC (China) or ROC (Taiwan) so probably a good idea to support them if you love optical media and are worried about a possible China-Taiwan conflict in the future
• Piodata (a Vinpower Digital brand) 52X CD-R white top 50 pack (CMC Magnetics ATIP so almost certainly also manufactured by them, Made in Taiwan)
  • cheap so I use them for audio CDs that will be used in my car and therefore inevitably scratched up and exposed to unpleasant temperatures) and also for OS (Linux/*BSD) discs that will be used only once or maybe twice
• Verbatim DVD+R 16X 10-pack (CMC Magnetics M01 MID), purchased from some random person on eBay because I needed some DVD+Rs quickly and for a reasonable price. Not sure if it was my particular pack that I did not purchase directly from a reputable store or just this Verbatim product in general but they came with debris inside and visual imperfections and I got a terrible burn with one of them. Overall unhappy with these. Just get some PlexDiscs from runtechmedia instead!

Drives I want to buy:

• new old stock Sony Optiarc AD-7200S (or one of its "clone"s, i.e. rebadges); the legendary burner from 2008

Optical drive information:
TSST ('Samsung') optical drives table courtesy of Myce and CDRinfo.pl communities
PLDS ('Lite-On') optical drives table courtesy of Myce and CDRinfo.pl communities
HL-DT-ST (Hitachi-LG or 'LG') optical drives table courtesy of Myce and CDRinfo.pl communities
Sony Optiarc NEC optical drives table courtesy of Myce and CDRinfo.pl communities

Places to buy affordable and quality blank media (it will be a bit US/North America centric for now but suggestions for other parts of the world are more than welcome!):
Runtechmedia Store on eBay (I would not buy BD-Rs from any Vinpower Digital brand (e.g. PlexDisc, Optical Quantum, Piodata) from them though as I only trust Verbatim DataLifePlus BD-Rs (VERBATIMe MID))
mediawholesaleonline store on eBay (they sell HP and Philips branded discs, which are said to be a relatively good grade of CMC Magnetics made (Made in Taiwan) discs; they sell other stuff such as Sony and Verbatim as well but keep in mind that those are just brands and not (anymore!) the actual manufacturers of the discs; personally I would not use these for archival or serious backups but they are cheap and fine for general purpose use; they also sell Verbatim DataLifePlus and M-Disc bluray discs)
Polyline Corp CDs (they sell FTI/Falcon Media discs as well as Verbatim (DataLifePlus, i.e. their own ATIP rather than (rebranded) CMC) and CMC Pro with the legendary Japanese Taiyo Yuden ATIP discs)
Polyline Corp DVDs (they sell FTI/Falcon Media discs with TDK MIDs (you may want to avoid these as degradation has been reported for these with both the original TDK made as well as FTI made ones!), Verbatim (DataLifePlus, i.e. Verbatim/MCC/Mitsubishi Chemicals MID) discs and CMC Pro discs with the Japanese Taiyo Yuden MIDs)
Rima (they sell Ritek Pro (Japanese Maxell MID for DVDs, Ritek ATIP for CDs) and CMC Pro (Japanese Taiyo Yuden MID/ATIP) discs and also Verbatim DataLifePlus BD-Rs; I have personally purchased CD quad cases from them to store my archival CD-Rs)

<< I will continue updating this original post with more information over time >>

keywords of stuff to be added in the future: cdrecord, cdrskin, dvdisaster, opti drive control, PREMM2

 

[AusWolf]

Good post, let's bring optical drives back!

I have a Pioneer external BD-burner (chassis don't have slots for internal ones anymore). I use it for CD ripping, too. You can get awesome deals on albums at carboot / flea market sales. The other use is data backup. I also thought I'd use it for watching films, but there's no free software for BD, and I've got a BD player hooked to the TV in the living room, so there isn't much need.

I honestly miss the time when games came on optical media and didn't require Internet connection to install.

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

Good post, let's bring optical drives back!

I have a Pioneer external BD-burner (chassis don't have slots for internal ones anymore). I use it for CD ripping, too. You can get awesome deals on albums at carboot / flea market sales. The other use is data backup. I also thought I'd use it for watching films, but there's no free software for BD, and I've got a BD player hooked to the TV in the living room, so there isn't much need.

I honestly miss the time when games came on optical media and didn't require Internet connection to install.

I have read that Pioneer BD drives are one of the few currently produced drives that are still well-made and that burn pretty well. Personally, I would not use such as expensive drive for CD ripping though. Also, Mediatek chipset drives are generally considered to better readers (i.e. reading discs in relatively poor condition well and with good speed), while your Pioneer would be Renesas based. I would get a cheap Mediatek based DVD drive for that instead (avoid modern LG DVD drives and their ASUS rebadges though as they have terrible build quality). I can recommend some drives but I don't know what is easily and inexpensively available in the UK.

I rarely game anymore and for the last couple of years have almost exclusively used Steam but I certainly remember getting my first "real" (before that I was playing free crappy online Flash games) games: NFS Underground 2 (2*CD-ROM) and Colin McRae Rally 2005 (1*DVD-ROM). By then they were already years old but they were affordable with pocket money and they would run on the extremely crappy integrated (Intel GMA, pre-HD series) graphics of the laptop I had at the time. Then I got NFS Most Wanted (2005) too. Later I got a PS3 (around the Slim era) and got some games for that.

EDIT:
If you have the space then these should last you for quite a while: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223449200168 and they are great drives.

 

[AusWolf]

I have read that Pioneer BD drives are one of the few currently produced drives that are still well-made and that burn pretty well. Personally, I would not use such as expensive drive for CD ripping though. Also, Mediatek chipset drives are generally considered to better readers (i.e. reading discs in relatively poor condition well and with good speed), while your Pioneer would be Renesas based. I would get a cheap Mediatek based DVD drive for that instead (avoid modern LG DVD drives and their ASUS rebadges though as they have terrible build quality). I can recommend some drives but I don't know what is easily and inexpensively available in the UK.

I rarely game anymore and for the last couple of years have almost exclusively used Steam but I certainly remember getting my first "real" (before that I was playing free crappy online Flash games) games: NFS Underground 2 (2*CD-ROM) and Colin McRae Rally 2005 (1*DVD-ROM). By then they were already years old but they were affordable with pocket money and they would run on the extremely crappy integrated (Intel GMA, pre-HD series) graphics of the laptop I had at the time. Then I got NFS Most Wanted (2005) too. Later I got a PS3 (around the Slim era) and got some games for that.

EDIT:
If you have the space then these should last you for quite a while: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223449200168 and they are great drives.

To be honest, I only use this drive maybe once every half year or so and I'm absolutely happy with it. So buying another one just to read media would be a waste of money.

I have some writable BD M-discs waiting to be used for backup. I only have to arrange my photos and videos and see if I have 25 GB worth of them.

 

[mplayerMuPDF]

To be honest, I only use this drive maybe once every half year or so and I'm absolutely happy with it. So buying another one just to read media would be a waste of money.

I have some writable BD M-discs waiting to be used for backup. I only have to arrange my photos and videos and see if I have 25 GB worth of them.

In that case it absolutely makes sense to stick to one drive. If you are ripping a ton of discs then it makes sense to get a special drive for that. I actually got my WH16NS40 for BD backups but I grew disillusioned with bluray for backup/archival after a lot of reading on Myce. Basically it turns out that a lot of the promises with regard to stability/longevity of HTL bluray were only promises... On top of that the best bluray discs (Sony and Panasonic) are no longer manufactured and are very expensive. Pretty rapid degradation has been reported with the widely available and affordable CMC Magnetics BA5 discs. I think Verbatim discs (DataLifePlus, the ones they actually make themselves, not the cheaper ones that are just Verbatim branded BA5). Ritek BD-Rs should also be avoided due to severe degradation. M-Disc is a good option but expensive. In the end I decided to just go with CD-R and DVD+R instead as it is proven, there are more choices and drives are cheaper and more common as well.

 

[sam_86314]

Hell yeah, let's give optical media some love.

My main drive is an LG WH16SN40 that has been downgraded from firmware version 1.03 to 1.02. I downgraded it because a useful feature (unrestricted ripping speed) in my ripping software of choice relies on an exploit that was patched in 1.03, but not in 1.02.

I primarily use the drive for ripping Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs to my Plex server. It also comes in handy if I need to burn an OS install disk for an old PC that doesn't support USB boot.

I also back up all sorts of stuff to optical media, like games and family photos/videos. I forced myself to learn Inno Setup so I can effectively repack my games for personal use. I can spread the installers across multiple DVDs or BDs if necessary.

I use blank media almost exclusively from Verbatim. They have objectively superior BD-R discs to everyone else. I do have some DVD-R and CD-R discs from Memorex, Sony, and Philips that I use sometimes.

I also have an HD DVD/Blu-ray combo drive that I scored at a computer repair shop years ago, but the last time I used it I couldn't read DVDs with it.

 

[delshay]

My drive gets very little use. Inside sit's Windows 7 Disc ready for fresh install & to protect the disc. Win 7 disk never gets removed. it's been inside the drive for the best part of over 3-4 years. You can see that my drive is one of the most expensive drives ever built. Pioneer released later models not sure how expensive the newer models are.

I also have a soundbar with built-in Bluray drive which also gets very little use. This unit was made to hang on the wall. I think this is another rare drive this time by Panasonic. AFAIK this is the only hangable soundbar with built-in Bluray drive that mounts on the wall that was ever built. So this unit is also special & unique.


Anyway you can see my Pioneer drive in device manger below.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Interesting thread & nice to see interest in optical disk storage solutions. I still have about 10 CD/DVD players around my place, some old, some not so old. All designed to fit into computer cases of course but still have a media player in my lounge room that uses optical disk playback for blue ray & standard discs that I still use regularly.
One thing for sure though, with longevity of data storage, optical disk is still it. I have a TDK CD data disc from about 20 yrs ago that still holds all its data accurately like the day it was recorded.
Here's a quick screenshot of one of the Asus units I still have in a system here that I'm typing this from ...

 

[delshay]

Err I should have posted that I have a collection of external optical drives, all SCSI from my Amiga days. I have three slot loading DVD drives, two from Pioneer one from Toshiba. I also have two Yamaha CD drives.

I have a further three portable CD drives, two from Panasonic & one from Sony. But I have another very rare CD drive this is by AWIA ACD 300 another special & unique drive. It's made for computers but it can be used stand alone. You can see it here. Just a absolute beautiful drive just to own. AIWA ACD-300 External SCSI CD Drive (ami64.com)

 

[Tatty_Two]

I have a LG BluRay/HD Dvd rewriteable drive, it's still installed in my case but I suppose only for nostalgic reasons as I havent used it in about 3 years but I still move it over to any new builds

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Just a plug in Samsung BDwriter for backup's and random rip's.

No need to have it out on show since it's seldom used.

 

[P4-630]

I have removed the dvd-cd-rom-r-rw player from my PC quite a while ago.

I own a separate Sony Blu-Ray player connected to my 4K TV.

Got a new toy, which came with cd-player and can play all recent audio formats.

 

[paulwarden]

i have a Pioneer BD-RW BDR-S09

 

[bonehead123]

I have an old external Sanyo DVD burner but haven't used it in quite a while, the last time was when I made a bootable W10 Pro disk for relative who doesn't like flash drives for some reason....

Now if only I could sell all the blank discs that I have laying around, even for .50 each, I could probably retire tomorrow...

 

[Gumby]

I have backup of these drives also in case one breaks. I rip my 4K movies and still make cd's and dvd's.

 

[INSTG8R]

I have an ASUS External USB DVD/RW drive I keep for "emergencies"(Read old games)

 

[defaultluser]

i rip Blu-rays on pioneer external, and DVDs plus CD on my internal, only bother with CD if i cant buy it digitally through amazon

I stopped burning CDs once I swapped-out my car for a modern system that reads USB key drives (but I cheat, and use the exact same per-disc layout -just this time under numbered sub-folders)

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Am I the only one that stock piles optical drives?? Lol got more in a box somewhere round here...

 

[lexluthermiester]

I have a LG BluRay/HD Dvd rewriteable drive, it's still installed in my case but I suppose only for nostalgic reasons as I havent used it in about 3 years but I still move it over to any new builds

I use mine frequently, but many of you know I am an avid backups type of guy! I will never be without an optical drive unless something ground-breaking and less expensive hits the market.

Am I the only one that stock piles optical drives?? Lol got more in a box somewhere round here...

View attachment 263077

Nope, I have a bunch of spares too.

I have removed the dvd-cd-rom-r-rw player from my PC quite a while ago.

I own a separate Sony Blu-Ray player connected to my 4K TV.

Got a new toy, which came with cd-player and can play all recent audio formats.
View attachment 263036

Oh, that's it, rub your new-hotness in some more brah...

 

[mudfish]

Yea Optical! I put a LG WH16SN40 in the SFF mesh case, and the laptop has a Hitachi CD/DVD. Both have been reliable reader/writers. For new and old movie watching and old music CDs.

And just two spare LG DVD R/RW from 2004. Doubt i'll use them again but ya' never know.

 

[P4-630]

Wait, I almost forgot, I still have my CD-i player!!

And a defect 3CD changer stereo set...

 

[chrcoluk]

Own one, but currently disconnected (still in case).

What it was last used for was playing some old knightmare tv show episodes sent to me on dvd discs.

 

[bobbybluz]

I have no idea of how many optical drives I actually own. I know it's less than 40 starting with Plextor IDE drives at the oldest and Asus/Lite-On at the newest. The most recent new drive I purchased was an Asus from Newegg a few months ago. My best score though was a Lite-On iHBS-212 Blu-ray off Ebay last year for $5. It was being sold for parts/not working. The seller told me he'd bought it new several years ago and had burning issues with it and stashed it away. Since I already have two more of the same model in use I took a chance and snapped it up. A firmware update cured it (still had the original first release version it it) and it's working great.

I have several hundred blank CD's and DVD's in my inventory. For a while people on the local Craigslist were giving them away and I took all I could find (and still do). While I mainly use USB flash drives now I still burn optical disks once in a while.

 

[Canned Noodles]

I use an LG BP50NB40 external USB drive for most of my optical needs, due to the lack of 5.25" drives. It works great and it’s extremely helpful for my computers that don’t want to boot from a USB.

I was at Micro Center a couple years ago looking at their optical media, and stumbled upon this DVD-RAM drive for 5 bucks. I had heard of this type of disk and wanted to check it out but only later realized it was the early type that is in a housing. Unfortunately I do not have any drive that takes in these DVD-RAM cartridges but it’s still a very neat thing to have.

 

[P4-630]

I have a LG BluRay/HD Dvd rewriteable drive, it's still installed in my case but I suppose only for nostalgic reasons as I havent used it in about 3 years but I still move it over to any new builds

Mine had to make space for a 140mm fan..