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Rating: 
Summary: No longer a Big disappointment after firmware upgrade...
Review: (EVALUATION REVISED SEE BELOW) I own the Lite On 411s (Firmware FS0F) and I also own the NEC ND-1300A. I tried to burn the exact same movie files in the same computer using the same software with each burner. I tried 2 burns with the Lite On and 1 burn with the NEC using the same Ritek media which is generally considered a very good brand and with which I have had much success. Both copies burned with the Lite On failed to play successfully and ultimately froze in 2 different set top players of recent manufacture (JVC XV-N50 & Panasonic DVD-F85). The one done on the NEC played flawlessly in both set tops.I use and love the Lite On CD-RW writers which is why I bought the 411S but its performance has been a big disappointment. I have read of other people having problems with this burner as well in news postings. These problems may be corrected with a firmware upgrade in the future but for the present time from my experience with it I cannot recommend this burner. UPDATE: January 20, 2004 after installing new Firmware (FS0H) and trying out same media (Ritek G04) and burns that I was unsuccessful with previously with this burner I have now successfully recorded DVDs that playback in the same set top players that they previously could not playback in. I am now cautiously optimistic that the problems with this recorder have now been resolved. I will continue to test.
Rating: 
Summary: Great burner
Review: I bought this burner in stores and it was the best dvd burner that i ever used, there is nothing wrong, as long as the firmware upgrade is on the computer, i highly recomend this burner
Rating:
Summary: A good DVD-RW for the money.
Review: I bought this unit two weeks ago which is a internal DVD-RW Model 1633S and came with Nero operating software. It and the software loaded up perfectly with the computer (PC Windows XP), reconizing the hardware and assigning a windows ROM drive engine to it. My gripe is the DVD will not drag and drop, send to or write on a CD-RW,CD-R or CD-ROM. I have contacted the tech-support for this DVD writer but have not been able to solve the problem. I am wondering if I have gotten a bad DVD writer... I have backed up some of my DVD movies and they come out perfectly, you can't tell them from the original ones. I am waiting for another email reply to my problem from tech-support, hope they have an answer.
Rating:
Summary: this will burn at 8x if you get the right firmware for it
Review: I have had this burner now for about a month. It installed very easily into my Dell PC and I was burning in no time flat. I started out using Maxell media to burn my files onto, and had no problems whatsoever. Then I moved to Memorex and frankly, couldn't get a dang thing to play in my DVD players...UNTIL I visited their site and found out they have had 6 Firmware updates since the manufactured date. So I downloaded and flashed the drive with the most recent firmware (dated 1/7/04 I believe)and bingo! the media is playing on every DVD player in my house: Xbox, Panasonic DVD-R and my $50 DVD player from WalMart. So, the key here is to check for the updated firmware often and you should be fine. Also remember that home DVD burning is still in the infancy stage here folks and not every burn will be successful. It may take some playing with (for example, I can burn video files straight to the Maxell DVD-R's no problem, however on the Memorex media, I have to create an ISO image first and then burn that before it can be recognized in my DVD players. Not sure why, just is.) I would have no qualms about purchasing this DVD burner all over again. The software it comes with is great for authoring DVD's and burning. I was compiling video (.wma, quicktime etc) and photos to burn my own family DVD in no time. Give it a spin, I don't think you will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: This is a fantastic burner...if you UPGRADE your firmware
Review: I have had this burner now for about a month. It installed very easily into my Dell PC and I was burning in no time flat. I started out using Maxell media to burn my files onto, and had no problems whatsoever. Then I moved to Memorex and frankly, couldn't get a dang thing to play in my DVD players...UNTIL I visited their site and found out they have had 6 Firmware updates since the manufactured date. So I downloaded and flashed the drive with the most recent firmware (dated 1/7/04 I believe)and bingo! the media is playing on every DVD player in my house: Xbox, Panasonic DVD-R and my $50 DVD player from WalMart. So, the key here is to check for the updated firmware often and you should be fine. Also remember that home DVD burning is still in the infancy stage here folks and not every burn will be successful. It may take some playing with (for example, I can burn video files straight to the Maxell DVD-R's no problem, however on the Memorex media, I have to create an ISO image first and then burn that before it can be recognized in my DVD players. Not sure why, just is.) I would have no qualms about purchasing this DVD burner all over again. The software it comes with is great for authoring DVD's and burning. I was compiling video (.wma, quicktime etc) and photos to burn my own family DVD in no time. Give it a spin, I don't think you will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the new customer grade DVD burners
Review: Mid-2003 DVD burners fell below the $200 price point. Really you now have only a hand full of companies manufacturing these burners and everyone else is repackaging these drives and stamping their name on them. This drive LDW-411S is a popular one and is repackaged under a different model number by Sony, BUSLink and other brands as well as the Lite-On brand sold here (note: Lite-On is the real maker of this drive, everyone else is rebranding, Optorite and NEC are other popular makers who drives get rebranded all the time). I've had my LDW-411S for about a month now and I have mostly postive things to say about this drive. It works great with popular backup software (DVDXCopy and DCDXCopy Express) it works great with author ware (MyDVD is commonly packaged with it, I've also used TMPEG DVD Author) it burns great will all media types I've trown at it, including: TDK DVD+R, TDK DVD+RW, Sony DVD-R, Memorex DVD+R, CompUSA (generic 2.4x) DVD+R, too many CD-R media types to count. I've made no coasters with the drive and so far I've burned about 20 DVDs (in contrast I owned an Optorite drive for about a week and made 5 coasters of the 7 DVD+R burn attempts, that drive was exchanged for this one). Only negative comment is regarding Nero burning ROM, if you want to use this program (and it is the most popular) you'll need to upgrade from version 6.0 to 6.3 (version 6.0 is the most current you can buy off the shelf), the patches are quite large to download and without them Nero 6 will not reconize this drive. Having said that, once you have Nero 6.3 you'll have no problems burning to whatever. Most of the problems you have with 4x burners are faulty applications that erronously try to burn at 4x speed to 2.4x media (this is often misunderstood to mean that some of these more inexpensive burners can only use the expensive media which isn't true) Nero 6.3 takes care of this problem for 99% of my DVD burning needs. Also watch it when burning CD-R's, this drive default's to 40x speed and most of the cheap CD-R blanks can't handle that, so you may need to bring it down to 24x or even slower, again use something good like Nero to burn your disc and there won't be a problem.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!!
Review: My family got this drive for my mother for Mother's Day. Well, I wish I had picked up two of them. It works flawlessly. It burns quickly and I've never seen it failing to print a disk out. Sometimes my Sony DVD recorder will mess up and then I'll try it on her drive and it works perfectly. I've become a Lite-On fan having gone out and purchased a DVD reader of theirs. When my Sony dies on me, it will be a Lite-On I replace it with. I'm happy with my mother's drive and my new one. Awesome!!!
Rating:
Summary: this will burn at 8x if you get the right firmware for it
Review: OK, I have had this drive for about two months now and it works great! THe best thing about this drive is that somebody actualy wrote a firmware upgrade for it that will cause your computer to recognize the drive as an 811 drive instead of a 411 drive. that means it will burn at 8x instead of 4x! I don't know how all this works but it does and I am now burning at 8x. If you look on the internet for firmware for this model you will find it yourself. Why spend more? Buy this and flash the new firmware!
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