Which Blu-ray drive to buy for HTPC?

[sam9s]

SONY, SAMSUNG ...... were at some point of time good drives (still not the best), but with demand came supply, and with that came dropped prices and reduces quality. I have used all sorts of drives..... SONY, SAMSUNG, LG, CREATIVE, Lite-On, Philips, HP ... you name it. and the worst were samsung. Creative at one point of time used to give quality drives, but then they went out of this market. At the end SONY and SAMSUNG were all that was left. ASUS was one of first few that came with SATA DVDRW, and I bought it then (around 3,4 years back) and that is the ONLY drive that has performed rock solid in all departments. Apart from Philips and my creative CD ROMS that I bought in the 90s.

Long story short, Sony, Samsung have degraded their quality too much. With samsung I am almost sure it would land in to tray problem with extensive use within 6-8 months. Sony is the same ..... I still have a sony in my bros computer, with tray issues and read issues as well

BD Drives are new in the market, and I have used only couple (LG and Lite-On) LG is my personal drive that has gone into tray problem with in two years of use. Lite On went in to read issues for DVDs ......... So Going with the past record I will recommend ASUS as that is the only drive among my long list that stayed rock solid even after 4,5 years of extensive use ...... Pioneer I only suggested by the company's track record .... I am sure you facing issue with their drive must be a secluded case ,......

 

[manniraj]

I am using asus dvd drive without any issue for last two years but all previous sony, samsung ones had tray closing issues. So decided to go with asus blu-ray drive.
I don't need a writer but a 3d will be preferred. Didn't find a 3d read drive till now locally

I believe that all the blu-ray drives with >4x speed are capable of 3d playback as the gpu is the one which does the rest. I read it somewhere (may be anandtech forum). Pls correct me if i am wrong

So if this is the case then it should not make much of a difference between a Asus/LG/Samsung/LiteOn as far as 3d is concerned.

 

[gigy]

If its so then its good news. Saw somewhere oem lg drives going cheap. have to check this.
Going through this link now.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/blu-ray-3d-3d-vision-3d-home-theater,2636-7.html

 

[spirovious]

Finally LG then asus will be the choice.LG has better hardware & many users are happy.

 

[gigy]

Between asus and LG ,
asus has bundled following software ( Cyberlink PowerDVD with Magic Cinema, Cyberlink Power2Go, Cyberlink InstantBurn, Cyberlink PowerBackup, E-Green) but no idea about LG.
asus is bit slower at 8x and LG is 10x.

 

[spirovious]

Between asus and LG ,
asus has bundled following software ( Cyberlink PowerDVD with Magic Cinema, Cyberlink Power2Go, Cyberlink InstantBurn, Cyberlink PowerBackup, E-Green) but no idea about LG.
asus is bit slower at 8x and LG is 10x.

As said earlier,my asus 4X is fast enough to start Bluray in 15sec around(I can see powerDVD loading).To ply Blury,one need minimal 2X speed & 8X is fast enough.

 

[manniraj]

Between asus and LG ,
asus has bundled following software ( Cyberlink PowerDVD with Magic Cinema, Cyberlink Power2Go, Cyberlink InstantBurn, Cyberlink PowerBackup, E-Green) but no idea about LG.
asus is bit slower at 8x and LG is 10x.

I believe that none of this bundled softwares play blu-ray disc and only play DVD discs. You can see from the reviews in Newegg/Amazon that even the bundled PowerDVD for blu-ray playback is a trial version and one needs to purchase the full version.

 

[gigy]

Anybody have links to lg/asus reader only locally?

 

[spirovious]

Ebay global has it-
LG Blu-ray + DVDRW SATA Burner Drive w/LightScribe NEW (Rs. 4458)
Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B 8X Combo Blu-ray Drive W/ Software (Rs. 5209)

 

[manniraj]

Anybody have links to lg/asus reader only locally?

I believe it is available on theitdepot.com and primeabgb.com but costly when compared to ebay global. You can also try 20north.com and get with duty free gift should be able to get at less than itdepot and primeabgb but costlier than ebay global. I brought the slim lg blu-ray drive thru 20north for around 5.7k