NEC places orders of 200k-300k 16x DVD burners from LiteOn Posted by Seán Byrne on 11 August 2005 - 00:13

While NEC is well known for their high quality drives, apparently they have decided to start sourcing between 200k to 300k OEM 16x DVD burners from Lite-On IT.  Lite-On will start shipping the drives from the beginning of the next quarter and expects to ship this quantity each month there after according to sources.  NEC plans to start producing OEM slim-line DVD burners (such as for laptops).
Currently, Hitachi-LG leads the market with an average of 2 million DVD burners shipped per month, with NEC in second place with an average of 1.5 million DVD burners per month.  However, Lite-On has only just exceeded the 1 million mark for their first time last month, although this is likely to increase with the orders from NEC.

Lite-On IT has obtained OEM orders for 16x DVD burners from NEC and will begin shipments next quarter, according to industry sources. Lite-On IT declined to comment on the report.
The orders are for half-height models, with an initial monthly delivery volume of 200,000-300,000 burners, the sources indicated. NEC is also considering OEM production of slim-type DVD burners, the sources pointed out.
NEC currently ships 1.5 million DVD burners a month on average, and its second in the market after HLDS (Hitachi-LG Data Storage), which ships 2.0 million DVD burners per month, the sources added.
Lite-On IT’s monthly shipment volume of DVD burners exceeded one million units for the first time last month, according to the company.
During the time CD burners were still popular, Lite-On was well known for its write quality, however this seems to have changed when DVD recorders started gaining popularity.  Unfortunately, some NEC fans may be upset if they find their drive to be manufactured by Lite-On, considering some CD-R/RW quality issues with a few of its burners.

I think the engineers at NEC should have PURCHASED a few LiteOn's and tested them before they made this decision.  BYE BYE NEC!!!! Will be sad to see you join the worthless ranks of LiteOn.....

From Quality, to Boat Anchor!

Bye bye NEC...

Totally unacceptable, but this is business.

(in reply to MP3Mogul)

Incredible - not sure if it means they would be rebranded Liteons (Mediatek chipset), in which case, it would also bode ill for other drives that use NEC chipsets, or would Liteon be assembling drives with NEC chipsets.

The Mediatek chipsets for DVD writers have never reached the same peak that the CD-RW ones did - do Liteon stick with them through misplaced loyalty, and Liteon customers likewise?
To be fair, since the debacle that was the 1213S, later models have improved with later firmware, and the 1673S/93S (new version of the "3S") are the best of that series so far.

(in reply to Iggy)

I do agree, with you Matthew that they have improved, but they are not close to the competition, and liteon has basically stopped releasing firmwares on drives that are only 6 months old.  (Lots of support huh?). 

I still use a LiteOn DVD ROM because it's fantastic, but the quality of their writers has sure suffered. 

(in reply to Matthew)

They will be Half Drives allright. OT ..... I would like to see some body make a external enclosure for laptop burners with USB 2 and Firewire hook ups.

(in reply to MP3Mogul)

The Plextor 716 is already produced this way!

(in reply to G_IvanAwfulitch)

Well lets hope they just slam together NEC parts, rather then just making another Mediatek POS for them based on their own drives. My first really great quality fast drive was my 2500, after all the Herrie updates, even better. My 3500 is also good but right now my favorite is my 1620 and I'm still playing with the 1640 and waiting for updates.
The 811's I had were one of the most flakey drives I ever had the displeasure to try to burn with. My Sony 500a almost always worked, just not fast

(in reply to MP3Mogul)