Hi-Val DVD Kit DVD-ROM drive

Advantages: Fast, reliable.
Disadvantages: None

...: a headphone jack, volume control, power-on/busy LED and load/eject button. On the rear of the drive you have the usual IDE interface, power connection and analog audio output connector. Between the IDE and audio connector you have the jumper block for master, slave and cable select. On the right you have the digital out or SPDIF output. This is a definite plus is you are planning on hooking it up to the digital inputs on your soundcard or Dolby decoder. Keep in mind that the tray version of this drive, the DVD-116, does not have a SPDIF connector on it. While you don't see this as often anymore, many older DVD-ROM drives only worked in PIO Mode 4 or below. When using PIO Mode 4 it only had a maximum through put of 16.6MB/s. Pioneer's DVD-106S can reach a theoretical 21,600 KB/s when reading data DVD's. This is about 5,000 KB/s over... Read review

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Advantages: fast, looks great, multiregion capable
Disadvantages: a little noisy, not brilliantly priced at the moment

...I decided that it was time I got something to play DVD's on. As im from the UK , but dont mind ordering DVD's from the USA I thought id make sure I got a good multiregion drive. This drive has multiregion firmware avalible on the net, so you can flash upgrade it to be able to play any DVD in the world. It's a fairly simple, painless process and only needs to be done once. The actual drive is very fast, Its more than capable of playing anything the software decoder can handle. Its a bit noisy, this is probably because although the slot has hairs covering it it dosent block all the air / noise as well as a piece of plastic would. This isnt a reall problem, and the drive spins down to a much quieter rate fairly quickly. Ihave had no problems at all with this drive and would definatly recomend it. You might however want to cosider wether... Read review

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Advantages: Records to DVD's, Very fast
Disadvantages: No bells and whistles

.... --------------------------------- The Software --------------------------------- The software supplied is Nero Burning ROM and some other DVD playing / editing software. I haven’t had a chance to play with the editing software but it seems very simple and basic. However it does seem easy to use. As for Nero, it’s a perfect program. It detects all the settings automatically, you just stick in a disk and tell the very simple to use Nero what to do. I managed to backup our entire system in seconds (then it took about 30 mins to actually burn it) using Nero. The software supplied is easy to use and fantastic for using with the drive. ------------------------------------ Buyer Advice ------------------------------------ The cable supplied with this has 1 connecter only on it. So if you’re connecting 2 drives to 1 IDE port on your motherboard (which we, and most people... Read review

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