I hear the LG 4040B is one of the best deals out there for $115 delivered in the US. IT records all formats including dvd ram. I've read great reviews at dvdrhelp and toms hardware. Anyone here have any insight? I would like to see a review here as well. I believe CD freaks were the only ones to give it a not so okay review.

From what I've heard it is a pretty good drive, although so far I don't think there is a way to test DVD-RAM quality... The only problem with it that I recall hearing is that it won't burn a lot of media at 4x, specifically the lower grade stuff... maybe there is a good reason for that?

(in reply to spruceland)

A friend bought the same drive just recently... and I'm buying mine within a month. Currently drive costs 159€ (bulk, as retail with crappy software is at least 20€ more expensive) here at local "El Cheapo" dealer... and because media costs fortunes, I'll try to check cheapest media first. Until then, I'm keeping my eyes open for any info about that drive. [^]

(in reply to spruceland)

I can't be certain it's the same way in Europe, but the Canadian OEM versions of this drive are bundled WITH that crappy software.

If you've gotten it to work at 4x with some media, could you please give some examples of what media? I've tried both expensive and cheap media, and I've yet to find anything that will burn at 4x.

I've tried DVD+R and DVD-R discs from EMTEC, HP, Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui, Princo, and Ritek. Same results on all. Only burns at 2x. I'd guess the first 4 wouldn't fall into the cheap media category.

(in reply to spruceland)

the HP media would deffinatly fall into cheap/crappy media! (it's made by CMC!)

(in reply to spruceland)

On 11/28/2003, Dolphinius_Rex wrote:

the HP media would deffinatly fall into cheap/crappy media! (it's made by CMC!)

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That kind of sucks, considering that HP was among the higher priced media in the bunch I listed. Glad I only bought one piece for testing.

If you don't mind my asking, how did you find out it's made by CMC?

(in reply to spruceland)

I'm on a first name basis with the only certified distributor of HP media in Canada (no joke).

(in reply to spruceland)

Ok... HP media is out of the question, then.

Uh, oh... only about week before I was about to march to shop to acquire long awaited drive and LG's websites are still a mess and contacting support seems to be next to impossible! With situation like we're having here, I would not like to buy incompatible media with outrageous prices. I was about to ask a few media/firmware related questions before buying the GSA-4040b, but maybe I should consider again?! Drive looks good at paper, but it don't mean squat if I can't either get it working correctly or find local supplier of reasonably priced working media for it... [:0]

Time to make a quick search for thoughts of domestic users from web sites and boards...

(in reply to spruceland)

I have this drive, and it is simply EXCELLENT!
So far I personally tried 2 types of media:
Verbatim DVD-R, burned successfully at 4x
and
Intenso DVD-RW, burned successfully at 2x

Checked the DVD-RAM playing capability, no problems whatsoever (I'm not into writing such media right now)

*DVD-R
Recommended 4x media for this burner:
Apple, Verbatim and TDK
Other 100% compatible media: Memorex, Traxdata and PrimeOn

*DVD+R
Recommended 4x media for this burner:
Traxdata, Emtec, Maxell
Other 100% compatible media: Verbatim

"100% compatible" means the disc will be perfectly playable in any drive capable of reading burned DVDs.
Recommended media are not only 100% compatible, but also have very low error rate (= live longer)


I can recommend this drive to anyone!

(in reply to spruceland)

Hi LG-Man, Welcome to our forum!

You may want to change your profile to let people know where your from... in this case it plays a major part in the topic of this discussion. You see, the only people that have reported being able to burn at 4x on the LG 4040B have been in Europe, like yourself. LG knows about this problem however, and blames tiny differences in media found within the European and North American markets as the problem... I don't buy into the answer personally, but that is what is said.

The next firmware update might solve these problems though!

(in reply to spruceland)

quote:

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Originally posted by LG-Man

I have this drive, and it is simply EXCELLENT!

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I surely hope so, as I just bought the same drive! [:p]
Price (bulk) was 139 euro's. Not much choice about blank disks (as christmas is coming and everyone seems to want same stuff as I), so I ended up with 10 disk box of Traxdata DVD-R disks (about 35 euro's!). I can only hope the drive will handle them well.

I had to remove old versions of burning softwares (Nero, Alcohol) and I'm starting to install new ones just now. Hopefully I'm not running into problems...

Edit: Traxdata DVD-R burned at 4x without any problems. Now if I could only get cheaper disks...

(in reply to spruceland)

Just got 10 TDK DVD-Rs for 2,80 Euro per piece.
Verbatim wasn't available anymore, but it costed me 2,20 Euro per DVD-R.

I personally will stick with Verbatim or TDK, depending on availability (preferably TDK).
Apple DVD-Rs are too expensive (about 5 Euro each), and aren't any better than TDK ones IMHO.

(in reply to spruceland)

quote:

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Originally posted by LG-Man

Just got 10 TDK DVD-Rs for 2,80 Euro per piece.
Verbatim wasn't available anymore, but it costed me 2,20 Euro per DVD-R.

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Well... you're lucky not to have such darn Mafia-like parasite as we have here in Finland in a form of "Teosto". A quick calculation tells me that they're robbing nearly full euro per empty DVD disk I buy! Regardless of use of the disks... [V]

Sorry for ranting... but having to pay such amount of extra for every disk while seeing a much better pricing in EU area... [B)]

Still, I'm happy with new drive. Now it's time to get the rest of softwares I'm going to use with it. [^]

(in reply to spruceland)

Hi all, I bought this LG drive recently and I hope it was a good choice, 'cause I'm completely new to DVD world. For now I successfully burned one LG DVD-R at 4x, and two DVD-RW, Maxwell and Philips, at 2.4x

(in reply to spruceland)

A friend just dropped by earlier at evening and brought a surprise! As he don't use DVD-RAM disk which came bundled when he bought his (earlier model) LG DVD-burner, he gave it to me. Oh, I guess I have to find out some time to try that Maxell disk. Maybe I can even figure out if it's actually useful? [:p]

Funny side note...
Very first thing that came into my mind when I saw the disk was something one of my friends said after seeing my new DVD burner: "Cool! Nice toy... but do you know how to use it correctly?"

Edit: Nice! Works like a big removable disk. Now my OS upgrade timetable got reason to speed up!

(in reply to spruceland)

So what about the writer
I bought some TY dvd-r 2x and my pioneer dvd-rw a05 refuse to write them.
I bought before two days the teac-dv50w for about 150€ and i am still not able to write the discs. I am able although to change it with the LG writer
any suggestions welcome

(in reply to spruceland)