Steve Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 I was looking for a new DVD burner for my PC and I decided to take a punt on a brand that's unknown to me and buy an Optiarc AD-7200s burner. I have to say, it's easily the best DVD writer I've owned in terms of speed and error rates. It's also nice and quiet in operation. I bought the SATA version (hence the "s" in the name). Fitting it to your PC is a breeze, with just 2 cables to plug in. A SATA power cable wasn't supplied with the burner, but you can pick one up for £1 or so on eBay. Burn Speeds (up to): - 48X CD-R16X CD-RW 20X DVD+/-R 8X DVD+RW6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 8X DVD+R DL12X DVD-R DL As you can see, it offers some great burn speeds. Using 16X Taiyo Yuden media I can burn a full DVD in around 5 minutes, which is excellent. The burner supports dual layer media and bitsetting, so you can burn a DVD+R DL as a DVD-ROM. That's essential if you're burning Xbox 360 backups and very useful for good compatibility with other DVD players and readers. The drive comes region locked, but it can be made region free by flashing it with Dee & Liggy's custom firmware, available HERE. Ensure that you get the correct version for your particular drive and install it at your own risk. Official firmware updates are available HERE. Keeping up to date with firmware will ensure good compatibility with the latest media. Updating the firmware only takes a minute or two and is an extremely simple process. The Optiarc AD-7200s is available in three colours, black, silver and light gray. There are also versions with LightScribe or LabelFlash, although personally I think it's better to buy a printer that can print directly on to discs, as the blank discs are cheaper, quicker to print, and better looking. I bought mine for £15.95 from Ebuyer, which is a very reasonable price indeed for what I consider to be a first class burner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savwar Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 was just about to scope out Svp.co.uk . . i need a new burner i reckon.. cheers for the review... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted May 1, 2008 Author Share Posted May 1, 2008 If you buy from SVP regularly, check out this link: - http://svp.co.uk/hukd.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savwar Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 just read optiarc is a joint venture by NEC and Sony, so it's a good bet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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