Howdy all, My dvd burner just had the gear break to open the darn tray so I am in need of a new one. I'm putting this on my Best Buy card as cash isn't at hand right now. I am looking at the following models. Would you all be so kind as to tell me what you think? 1. HP DVD840RI 2. Pioneer DVR-710B5PK 3. Plextor PX-760A 4. Samsun SH-S182M/BSBN 5. Sony DRU-820A I know Plextor makes quality CD burners, but don't know anything of their DVD burners. I am replacing a Sony that made it a couple years before dying. I know nothing of the quality of the others. All input in welcome!

I would choose Lite-on but,I only see external. So.......I read the specs and the warranty and Pioneer at $49.99 wins.

Plextor is the Cadillac of all disc readers/burners, it doesn't matter what it is. You may a little more but they always run great. If you are going to have this burner for 3+ years then get a Plextor. Lite-On makes pretty good drives. The only fallback is that they are loud when they burn, but what do you expect for 30 or 40 dollars. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7900GT SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

I've been using a DVD630e for a couple of yrs and it works great, as well as a lite-on internal DVD and I really don't know about it making noise while it's burning DVD's....that's a new one to me I burn a lot of CD's and DVD's Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

Warning: incoming $0.02 If you're going for straight burn quality, the Pioneer is the best of those you listed on quality media, especially DVD+R DL. However, you will have to flash with an unofficial firmware to enable SL +R bitsetting, DVD-RAM writing, and LabelFlash capabilities. The drive will NOT overburn. It's a good ripper, but it isn't a reliable scanning drive. The Samsung also produces great burns, and it's a good ripper and scanner. It can hit 18x on select SL media with surprising burn quality. I think it will get even better as the firmware matures. The Sony DRU-820A is a rebadged BenQ DW-1670. It's a decent all-around drive. The PX-760A is a good all-around drive, but not for the price it costs or the failure rates of recent Plextor-manufactured DVD burners (the PX-716A immediately comes to mind). I have one in my work machine--it produces decent quality burns on a variety of media, but so do many drives that cost a third of its price. The HP is most likely a rebadged LG drive--both the GSA-4166B and GSA-H20L have been reportedly sold under the HP 480RI label. Both drives are solid if sometimes quirky. Whatever you buy, remember that most modern DVD burners will write well if you use quality media (Verbatim-branded MCC, Taiyo Yuden, etc.). That said, I would probably buy the Samsung and have fun. "If it ain't broke, upgrade anyway."

Yeah Samsung is coming up the pipe-lines really fast. They too make great burners. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7900GT SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

I'd like to thank everyone for their input. It is much appreciated! :-)