Replace LiteOn 5005 DVD burner, or the whole DVD recorder?
 

So my Liteon DVD recorder is acting up. The door will open up numerous times before it stays closed, and often takes a few times of opening and closing the door before it recognizes the blank DVD. I have about 150 tapes to copy, and I do not think its gonna make it.

I have read on some other forums that there are some other drives that can replace the existing Model DDW-451S, but I think most will require "modding' the drive. If so, what drive should I upgrade with? I can try looking for an exact replacement drive on ebay - Right now I believe there is a refurbished drive with a "buy it now" of $129. Or finally, I can look for a new DVD recorder with better output, Toshiba rdr XS35. I see a few asking $150-$199?

What should I do?

$129 seems stupid expensive for a replacement drive, especially since I think those are plain stock LiteOn drives of the era (4x-8x drives). And then you can flash your own firmware on it. That prices doesn't make any sense to me.

A Toshiba RDR-XS35 is nice, but not really for noisy VHS tapes. Commercial tapes are fine.

For $150-200 range, I'd look for a JVC DR-M10 or DR-M100 instead. You can get a good used one for that.

Thanks LS.

I think the seller justifies the extra cost because the drive itself is not exactly the same physically as a normal internal pc drive you can pick up off the shelf. Most drives would need "modding" to fit properly, otherwise yeah, $129 is sort of ridiculous. Not sure how he does it, but his units use the correct housing.

I actually found a supposedly new (unopened box) JVC DR-m10s on Amazon that should arrive today. I paid $300. As long as it doesn't have the dreaded "loading bug" I should be pretty happy. With this as my new primary recorder (since this is considered on of the best) I can figure out what to do the the other drive. I'm thinking of running to Microcenter and picking up a bare drive and see what I can do with it. I do not want to hack it up. Once I am done with my project, I would like to sell my equipment and recoup some of my costs. That's of course after I am sure I don't need the equipment any more.

Thx

I'm curious if that JVC was actually new, and how it's fairing since your last post.

Well funny you might ask. I was out of town for work the last 10 weeks. When I got home, I noticed the player flashing "loading tape". Was kind of bummed, but I guess not to be unexpected. I unplugged it for a few days and it went away. I am pretty sure it was "new". If not they did a pretty good job re packaging it. The box looked perfect. The box tape looked original, as well as the contents of the player (remote, user guide ect). Since I believe the issue is due to bad caps, I think I will drop it off to a local vendor that has been mentioned here (starlite tv in st. Clair shores MI). I am going to drop off a small bedroom tv- oddly enough with a bad power supply (yup - bad caps), so I will ask how much it might cost. I think it will be worth it, since I have plenty of vhs tapes that I need to capture. Stay tuned.

When you're gone for that long, you need to unplug it.

Also be sure the power saving mode is set to actually turn the machine off -- not leave it in a vampire mode. I forget if that's ON or OFF -- it's whatever the default isn't. I'd have to search the forum and read my own posts to see which is correct. So I leave that for you to do.

LOADING is almost always bad caps. And yes, it's worth it for that deck. :)