[mythtv-users] recommendations for a DVD drive

[Rod Smith]

On Saturday 09 January 2010 09:19:55 pm Yan Seiner wrote:
> Anyone have any recommendations for a DVD drive?
>
> I seem to have suffered a rather inconvenient failure of all but 1
> DVD-ROM in my house.  My DVD-RW portable died on my last trip and I've
> been through the closet and everything else seems to be destined for the
> junkyard.
>
> I need something reliable, fast, and not region locked.  A DVD-RW is a
> must; I have to be able to burn a CD or a DVD.  Portable would be nice
> but certainly not a necessity.  Reliability and ability to read
> scratched DVDs is a must.

My best DVD drive so far is an ASUS DRW-2014S1T SATA drive that I bought about 
a year ago. Behind it come a couple of HP drives (one is a 1040r), then then 
close behind them a Plextor, then well behind it a couple of Optiarcs, and 
well behind them all a Sony. The Sony couldn't even read half the discs it 
burned; I returned it a week or two after getting it.

I don't think I've yet seen a DVD drive that's region-locked at the factory, 
although such things may exist. In my experience, they usually get set to a 
particular region by Windows DVD players. The Linux regionset program can 
change a DVD drive's region, including to no region ("region 0"), although 
most or all drives only permit a handful of changes, so you shouldn't do this 
very often.

-- 
Rod Smith