I need to burn about 100-200 dvd's to hand out to people, and so I am looking for a quality burner that will be able to write discs without errors. I am a bit partial towards tayo yuden dvd-r media, but I can go with a different media type if it would work better with the drive. 
What about DVD-R vs DVD+R? DVD-R has better compatability doesn't it? This is a factor since I will be giving the discs out to people.
I would like to be able to burn at 16x due to the large quantity of discs, and I am also looking for a cheap price if possible.

What would be good for this situation?

If you plan on writing to -R media with Taiyo Yuden, a Pioneer DVR-112 (IDE) or 212 (SATA) would be good, and an LG GSA-H4x, H5x. or H6x would be a little better.

Pioneer has the advantage of better firmware development.

LG has the advantage to bitset/booktype +R media for... even better compatibility... Bitsetting your +R media to DVD-ROM is the most compatible.  Of course, I have several drives (three in each of my PC's)... Plextor's, LG's, Pioneer's, and BenQ's (DW1640 is still an outstanding drive 2 years later).

(in reply to Zarxrax)

Thanks for the suggestions. The pioneer drive was one of the ones that I was looking at. The information about the +R bitsetting is interesting though, I think I may go with a drive that can do that. I will look into those LG models and see if they look good.

(in reply to SithTracy)

Neither drive is a good scanner... I still have Plextor's and BenQ's, but for scanners now, about your only option is LITE-ON.

If you are doing any DVD ripping, the Pioneer does not have riplock, the LG does.  But for roughly 30 bucks a drive, it might not be bad to pick up an LG and a Pioneer.

(in reply to Zarxrax)

Hmmm... I do a lot of dvd ripping :(
I guess I could keep my current drive for ripping discs though, but it would be nicer to have it all in 1 drive. What is this "scanner" that you are talking about? I'm not familiar with this term.

(in reply to SithTracy)

Quality scanning... Plextor's, BenQ's, and LITE-ON's can do it with either PlexTools (Plextor), KProbe (LITE-ON), DVDInfoPro, or Nero CD-DVD Speed.

(in reply to Zarxrax)

Alright, I've been researching a bit more, and have narrowed down my choices.
I want a drive that can do DVD+R media with bitsetting, and I want one that can record at 16x or higher with very high quality.

I see the LG GSA-H50N and LG GSA-H42N drives, but I'm not sure what the difference is between them. Further, I don't see reviews for either of them here on this site, so I really don't know what I'm getting with either one.

The Lite-On SH-16A7S looks very nice from there review I saw on here, and I really like that chart on it that shows a huge list of media with "digital errors within limits" :)   Problem is, thats an SATA drive and  my current PC only has IDE. Is there an IDE version of this drive available?

(in reply to SithTracy)

Not a big fan of LITE-ON DVD burners, but I'm sure there is an IDE version of the drive you are looking for.  I'm a recent SATA bandwagon jumper guy... basically because my new motherboard uses a Jmicron IDE controller.

One option for you might be a Pioneer DVR-112 (the IDE version of the 212).  You should be able to cross-flash it with Buffalo firmware to add DVD-RAM and +R bitsetting support.  I had my issues with the DVR-212D, but I am using it more and more with -R media and CD-R burning... I am really starting to like it.  (note, you will lose your warranty if you cross flash a drive, but they are so darn cheap now... who cares!!)

(in reply to Zarxrax)

Hmmm, well I'm looking at the "burned media list" sections from the reviews of these drives, and what scares me about the pioneer is that not a single DVD+R media had digital errors within acceptable limits. Maybe I am putting too much weight onto this chart? Really, I just want to be able to have confidence that when I burn a lot of dvds and hand these out to people, they will be able to play them.

(in reply to SithTracy)

It was reviewed on an early firmware release.  Here is my thread on my intial thoughts on the DVR-212D.

(in reply to Zarxrax)

Alright then, I think I'll go with the Pioneer 112 and Verbatim media. Thanks for your help!

(in reply to SithTracy)

Are BenQs reallly that good? Would it be worth it to import one?

(in reply to Zarxrax)

BenQ's WERE that good, next to impossible to find s true BenQ (DW1620, DW1640, DW1650, DW1655)....  I still use a BenQ DW1640 in my kids system (A8N-SLI Deluxe).  It is pretty much used for scanning now.  Not sure I would pay to import one (if you could) one each of an LG and Pioneer can make up for burning quality and LITE-ON's are today's scanners.

(in reply to qz33)