I think the issue with LG drives is that if they don't recognize the media, they roll back to 4x support.  If you go with LG, you may want to look at MediaCodeSpeedEdit.  Still, do your best to get quality media: Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden.

Good luck in your search for the perfect burner... Again I'll suggest you avoid LITE-ON until they can put out a decent drive.

(in reply to Dimitris32)

What I'm still wondering about is why there is no reviews on the latest drives, comparing them against each other (e.g., LG vs LiteON vs NEC vs Plextor).  Such a review would have answered all my questions....

Incidentally, SithTracy, what do you think about my last question?

(in reply to SithTracy)

Well, I think I already answered it... if you want a good burn, avoid LITE-ON.  I would put more faith in LG, even more so today as Plextor announced they are bailing out of the ODD market.

(in reply to Dimitris32)

Hands down YES!

(in reply to Dimitris32)

I think I've made my decision, then, thanks to your unceasing input, guys!!  (Eventually... :)  )    It'll have to be a SATA LG drive.. 

I'll wait though until I read at least one review of the drive, just in case there are any bugs with its SATA implementation ....

(in reply to MP3Mogul)

Don't wait too long... at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if LG pulls from the ODD industry as well!!!  Just kidding!!!  This Plextor thing frustrates me.  I guess you wouldn't understand if you never owned one...  My first Plextor drive was not even a burner, it was simply a SCSI CD drive... Hell I can't even remember the model, firmware updates were done via snail mail with an EEPROM chip... But I do have an 40x UltraPleX SCSI reader in the basement.  I'll keep that forever as a reminder of the quality they conveyed.  Sure they were expensive... but worth every penny.

(in reply to Dimitris32)

Oh, yes, I remember those 40x UltraPleX SCSI drives... they were the very definition of all things optical.. :)  I never bought one due to its price plus having to load the system with the SCSI card, etc ... And, also, considering how slow pc systems used to be at the time, I was trying to install as few cards/devices as possible on the pc, in order not to overload it.... A friend of mine had one, though, and I have to say, I always wished to get one.... However, IDE drives / writers started becoming more popular than SCSI and then the UltraPleX was gradually forgotten...

(in reply to SithTracy)