pioneer 109

[simoran1]

ok guys i need a dvd writer and was thinking of the pioneer 109 or the philios 1640 (i think). now i know this was covered a few pages ago, but does anyopne have any direct experience with either of these drives?? is one catagorically better than the other? cheers fellas

edit: -- actually ive been thinking about it and really i dont need the most top of the range one so if anyone can also suggest maybe a middle price drive thats good quality that would be great to.

edit-- o yeah one more thing. this is also gonna be the primary dvd drive for my pc, playing movies, games etc, so will there be any issues with the above models and these factors. cheers

[mackemansj1]

I have the pioneer and its fantastic mate. Has burned every disc i have used so far without a hitch. And the duel layer burning is top stuff no more dvd size worries. I have only ever used pioneer dvd drives as they havent let me down once.

[PeteJ]

I own the pioneer too, can't fault it

[superkully]

Pioneer have been great since the 1X cd reader days (them and Mitsumi, wherever they are nowadays).

But saying that I and people I know have had Liteon, MSI (my current) and LG and all of them do their job without any problems.

[simoran1]

ok guys ive bought it now got it for ?56 on ebay, not sure if this is a good price or not but ive done it now. justa couple of more questions. is this also gonna be ok for all other usage, dvd playback, games etc also will it burn cd's? cheers guys

[PeteJ]

Aye, does everything apart from wash the dishes. Or fly a kite.

Or walk a dog.

[yashiro]

Pioneer is a good choice my man. If you need to play multi region discs they can easily be hacked. Then you just run DVD Region Killer. It's less intrusive and less prone to errors than the other software hacks.

[wod]

i just flashed the drives firmware to multi region

[mmmonkey]

hey wod, was it the 109 you flashed? where did you get the firmware from for it?

ta
pete

[Valken]

In case you're interested in an alternative I'm using an NEC ND3520 after using a Pioneer 107 and it's a find drive too... supports pretty much everything I can think of and hasn't ****ed up on me yet despite me not taking too much care in setting things "optimally"

[simoran1]

ok cheers guys. one more thing, someone above mentioned something about flashing the firmware to get it to multi region. where do you get the firmware from and is it an easy process to flash? cheers guys

[$h@d0w]

You can get Pioneer firmware from here: http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.ph...&manufactor=25

There isn't a region free firmware out for the 109 yet, but there is a updated one from Pioneer themselves (version 1.09).

[wod]

its an easy process, i've flashed both of my dvd drives to multi region but there is a chance it could go wrong just like a motherboard bios flash.

i used the firmware from the above site but was on a pioneer 108 but it'll be the same for the 109 when the firmware comes out

[simoran1]

ok mods got all i need to know now. close this thread of you want

[nips]

Just to say, I've got the Philips 1640, and I think it's brilliant. I've had no problems with it at all, and it looks very nice, slightly more flasy than the pioneer, not that it affects performance

Tbh, I don't think you can make a bad choice. I've got the 1640, and my partner has the 108, and they are both brilliant.

Enjoy your drive