Advantages: Fast speeds, value for money
Disadvantages: none

...Lite-on are a well respected company that have been around for a while. LITE-ON oringinated from a team of scientist and engineers from ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Insitute) in 1995. LITE-ON Information Technology corportation are constantly devoloping anit-vibration mechanical design, advanced circuit design and increased performance. LITE-ON Information Technology Corporation (LITE-ON I.T.) this was a big part of the LITE-ON group which concentrated on the optical storage devices which then led to the creation on these fine CDROM drives we have today. This LITE-ON CD-RW is a very good drive and after purchasing one for personnal use I have purchased many more for computers I have built for friends and family. Very easy installation, driver support is excelent. With dvd-rw's coming down alot in price recently I... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, can be made multi-region. Works well. PC Pro Best Buy
Disadvantages: Doesn't alter the fact that dual layer media is not cheap! Possible dual-layer compatibility issues with home DVD players

...It's about three years since I first bought a DVD-writing machine for my main desktop PC. This was an NEC model 1300a and was one of the first to handle both DVD-R and DVD+R formats, without paying the somewhat inflated prices being bandied around by Sony at the time. Overall, I think it cost me around £130. Oh! How the mighty, (or prices, in this case) have fallen. I've just taken delivery of a LiteOn SOHW-1693 DVD writer that not only writes to everything that the NEC will, AND with its 16-speed write-velocity it's 4 times faster, but it will handle dual-layer writable DVD media too, and all for £29! Dual Layer? Yes, one of the limitations of early DVD writers is that they would only write around 4.8 gigabytes of information before becoming full. This might not sound like much of a limitation to those used to a CD-ROM's 700... Read review

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Advantages: Fast burning, can copy nearly anything
Disadvantages: Er.. boring fascia??

...I was looking to upgrade my 16x burner to something with a little more punch. My friend's dad had bought a Lite-On 24x speed burner and it came highly recommended. After a little more research, the 40x Lite-On seemed the way to go, and for a reasonable price. Once it had arrived, I opened the bright red box and peered in. Contained within was the drive itself, 4 screws to install in it your system case, an audio cable, an 80-minute CD-R, an 80-minute CD-RW, a CD containing Nero Burning Rom and the instruction manual (useless till you install the drive of course!), and a slip of paper containing basic installation procedures. No IDE cable is included with this drive, so unlike some manufacturers, Lite-On expect you to be replacing another CD drive, or have a spare connector already available. Installing the drive is no hassle... Read review

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Advantages: Price. Fast CD writer
Disadvantages: Poor sustained data transfer

...I bought this drive for about £45 which was the retail version so it included Nero and a couple of blank CD's. This i have to say is a bargain as i purchased it nearly a year ago now. I have written approaching 200 CD's with this now and had very few failures (the few that i have had were mostly my fault). Also the laser is showing no signs of wearing out as yet which is quite prone to happening with CD Rewriter drives. Installation of the drive is relatively easy if you have installed any other cd drive before, and the instructions are detailed enough to see beginners through. At 32X for write speed it is fairly middle of the range now, there are a number of manufacturers including Lite-On that produce 48X write and i think even 52X write drives. However i will think that most people will find it fairly difficult to find writable... Read review

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Advantages: Easy Backup from TV/SAT/VHS/MiniDV Camcorder - Features Timeslip / Edit Out Adverts / 160Gb Storage Capacity / Writes on both DVD+/- R and CD's
Disadvantages: Slow to boot up / Difficult to cut to exact frames when removing adverts

...and would copy onto and from almost anything. The convenience of not having to search for a disc and being able to record or back up video then edit out bits I didn't want, was just too huge an attraction. Unfortunate most of the machines I liked at the time with large hard drives cost £500 plus! Then I saw the LiteOn. I already used LiteOn CD writers in my PC's so new the name. Did some research and even found that LiteOn manufacture DVD drives for Sony of all people! Apparently they are one of the largest manufacturers of DVD drives in the world? So, this machine could write to DVD + and - R and CD's, it had a 160GB hard disc, allowed you to edit video and all for…£280.00! - Bargain! Of course it's now even cheaper, but even 6 months ago when I got mine it was still considered a bargain. 6 months on I am still not disappointed. I can... Read review

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Advantages: Good value, space saving, can be made multi-region
Disadvantages: Not a DVD-burner, but very little else at this price

...of your own Region. In theory, and having used up your 5 ‘lives’, it is possible to get the vendor to reset this by returning the kit to base, and it’s likely to be a particular nuisance to those with DVD collections sporting a mixture of imports and home grown disks. Even the vendor is limited to 4 resets of the 5 choices, leaving the machine practically unusable after 20 regions have been swapped……..or SO they’d like you to think. I downloaded a natty little utility purposely written for LiteOn machines called LTNRPC which comes in a zip file from www.rpc1.org. This not only allows you to reset the number of regional changes back to 5 every time it gets close to zero, (which in turn uses up one your precious ‘vendor resets’) but also allows you to regain the full number of vendor resets too! It does has a facility for making the DVD... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, Good quality, Can be made 'Region Free'
Disadvantages: No IDE cable supplied

...-ROM', then double click on your drive that is in the list, then click the 'settings' tab, this will display the firmware revision your drive has at present.. ** Conclusion ** I do not know the exact business politics involved, but for those that might find it useful, 'Lite-on' seem to have gone through a rebranding process, as this particular product has a 'JVC Lite-on IT' badge, and is connected with JLMS - A subsidiary of Victor company of Japan Limited (JVC). I must admit to having a fond soft spot for Lite-on, as this is my 3rd piece of kit from them and I have never been disappointed with their quality, and certainly not their price as they are one of the cheapest around. So in the end if you are playing a DVD game or watching your collection of movie DVD's, or want to spend time ripping discs, then you will not be disappointed... Read review

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Advantages: Mt Rainier compatible; Fast data transfer; Lots of writing speeds
Disadvantages: Loud; Poor performance with some discs; Small buffer

...In the race for fastest CD rewriter on the block, LiteOn released the 48125W, a beast of a drive managing 48x read/write and 12x rewrite. To get past the initial 40x write boundary they implemented a new technology called CAV - Constant Angular Velocity. Instead of varying the disc speed as the laser moves across it, the 48125W varies the data transfer rate instead, so it actually starts writing at 22x and finishes at 48x. ~Connections and Physical Appearance~ The drive comes with your usual backplate connections, such as IDE interface, power, master/slave/CS jumper and both analog and digital audio connectors. The front of the drive isn't anything special, but you'll notice it only has one LED. This lights green for reading operations, and red for writing operations. ~Installation~ I had no problems installing the 48125W... Read review

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Advantages: Fast Read Speed
Disadvantages: Usage and Reliability

...Today I got my first order for these magnificent and trendy 52 speed cd-rom drives. I couldn’t wait to receive this as it was my first hardware delivery of the week, apart from my new floppy disks. I ordered about 150 of these drive and what can I say they are much better than any other brand I have tried. Lite-On are a new group to me but they offer really good hardware for really cheap and not so nasty prices. The Cd-Rom drives that I ordered were normal 52x Cd-Rom drives with a new technology called Pure-Cav, I don’t know what this is but I guess that it is a new type of hardware added to the Cd-Rom drives. It has an IDE interface; this is used to connect the Cd-Rom drive to the motherboard. It has a power saving function. It supports PLUG AND PLAY, and also has an emergency Eject Button on it. You can read all types... Read review

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Advantages: everything about it
Disadvantages: nothing

...LiteOn HD-A740GX DVD Recorder. An excellent piece of equipment, brought mine on line a few months back, I had previously owned a LiteOn DVD recorder, but decided it was time to up grade to this newer version, because of it HDD (Hard Disc Drive) storage capacity, which is a very large 160GB. Cuts down on buying all those recordable disc, and pays for itself in no time. Very easy to install, easy to follow instructions, only takes a few minutes, simple connection via scart and follow the on screen instructions and away you go. Using the remote control, access the Guider button for on screen Menu, which are simple to follow, for all your recording needs, including DVD title browsing with thumbnails pictures, so you will know exactly, where you want to start the DVD playback. One touch recording. Simply select Guider, and follow... Read review

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