Best drive for reading dvd's

[Emperus]

Its time to upgrade my dvd writer.. And after using a Sony DRU-810A for close to 6 years, i am sure of going for another Sony drive (probably the optiarc AD-7260S).. The reason being that the write quality is very good and they operate without much noise.. However, i've experienced the Sony drives are very bad when reading media.. As soon as the drive is a bit scratched and/or has little write errors, they just fail to read them.. So i'd like to know which drive offers the best reading performance with even the worst condition media.? Doesn't matter what price it comes for.. I prefer it to be an internal drive though..

 

[Emperus]

Is that recommendation out of your own experience.? I did plenty research (both online and offline) and was thinking of getting either a Lite-On or a Samsung or a LG drive.. Dint cross paths with Asus..

 

[sminlal]

My personal preference is to buy a drive that can report raw error rates when reading a DVD. That lets you use software such as Nero DiscSpeed to report on burn quality:

Without being able to do this its a total crapshoot as to whether your burns are any good or not. You can't tell just by reading or playing a disc, as the ECC codes correct any errors on the fly. The problem is that without seeing the raw error rates you have no idea if the disk is well burned or whether there are so many errors that the ECC codes are just barely able to correct it.

I have a Sony Optiarc and it doesn't report raw error rates. I went and bought an LiteOn iHAS424 drive which does report raw errors and it's worked very well for me.

 

[Emperus]

Thanks for the info Sminlal.. I never worked with Nero DiscSpeed but i too am aware of Sony drives shortcomings when it comes to read operations.. Have had first had experience with them wherein unless and until the disc is absolutely error free, it fails to read on most of the occasions.. I read good reviews about the Lite-On iHASX24 drives.. Probably will try one out and report back.. I've got few discs lying around which, though they appear good, were not read by my current Sony drive.. Is there any particular model in that Lite-On series which you might recommend.?

 

[sminlal]

The one I bought was the iHAS424. I don't really remember what the differences are between the various models (I bought mine over a year ago), but I've been very happy with that one.

 

[Emperus]

Alright then.. I could not find the Asus model but got the Lite-On iHAS324.. The drive makes a Jet take off sound while reading/writing at full/high speeds.. It is seriously disturbing.. The Sony drive used to be super quite.. Anyway, the read strength is amazing.. It read every media regardless of brand and/or state pretty superbly.. If I can get over the noise factor, this is one purchase am very happy with.. Thank you both for your time and responses..

 

[Emperus]

I've been wondering as to why am i not able to select a best answer here.. My mistake, i have posted my query by opening a discussion thread.. Sorry to everyone.. Please do let me know if there is anyway around this..