Hello!

I was thinking about buying the LG GSA-5120D as it supports DVD-RAM and DVD+RW DL. However, I have been told that it isn't possible to create movie DVDs with it, as it cannot change the book type. Is it true that I can only write data DVDs with it?

Anyways, what do you guys think about the product? Is it worth the 179 €?

Regards,
Sebastian Mares

I don't know for sure if it has a locked book type (probably it does, GSA-4120B too AFAIK), but it really is a marginal problem. Book type thing is just a few bits which define if the disc is a DVD-ROM, or DVD+-R/W, but very few players care about that - most of them (nearly 100% I'd say) will play the movie from any media, even from CD-R/W (miniDVD). Yesterday I tried to burn some movie with my GSA-4120B (on both DVD-RW & DVD+RW) and it plays back flawlessly on my pretty old stand-alone Philips DVD-player and internal PC DVD-drive. Besides, in case of problems, I bet that it's just a question of few days, and there will be firmware hacks available which will allow changing the book type (there already are for GSA-4120B), and probably there already are firmware hacks which make your DVD player not caring about book type

EDIT: You wrote that it supports DVD+RW DL, it doesn't - there's no such a thing as DVD+RW DL yet, only DVD+R DL and that's what is supported. And what do I think about the product? I have GSA-4120D since 2 days, and didn't find any bad sides yet. As for the cost, GSA-5120D is an external (more expensive) version of GSA-4120B, so if you can, buy the cheaper internal version. For now I'd say that it's definitely worth the money.

LG drives a bad for DAE. For DVD-R I would buy a Lite-On because there are so many tools out there for them.

Thanks for the information! As for DVD+RW DL, I knew they don't exist - I am wondering why I wrote that.

Anyways, I thought that the booktype thingy would be more dramatical for DVD+R DL, as my NEC 1300A cannot change the booktype either and all DVDs play back correctly in my Pioneer DVD player.



Thanks, but I won't use the drive for ripping audio. I already have my LITE-ON LTR-52246S for that.
However, I regret that LGs cannot analyze PI/PO errors for example and that sort of things. In the last c't (IIRC), the LITE-ON drive produced a lot more errors on the DVDs than the LG. Also, LITE-ON doesn't support DVD-RAM.

Do you think that the price for the device will fall (soon)?

Here in Poland GSA-4120D bulk costs about 120euro and the price swings slightly back and forth. I guess they'll get cheaper when there will be some faster drives, but I have no idea when (16x for DVD+R should be ready in a couple of months, and 16x for DVD-RAM is said to be available in half of a year).

I am wondering because the companies use to rise the prices after the summer.

I just flashed an A104 firmware and installed the newest Nero, and now it is possible to change the book-type