Hey, I'm planning on buying a BD-ROM drive but can't decide which one is right for me.
Aside from playing my future Blu-ray collection smoothly, the drive should have excellent ripping qualities (mainly CD Audio).
Although I haven't read any reviews yet, there are two drives I ran across: the LG GGC-H20L and the Plextor PX-B300SA. Both are able to play Blu-ray and HD-DVD though I don't really need the latter.

So can you recommend any of these drives (or even some other BD-ROM)?

Thanks

Customer reviews on NewEgg have been very favorable towards the LG-GGCH20L and it costs a reasonable $165.00 USD there.

Obviously both models you listed only play BR/HD discs, and don't burn them. To get a BluRay burner, you'll probably have to spend closer to $300 or $400 at this time.

yeah, I intentionally didn't choose any Blu-ray burner - I'd rather get another HDD before I spend my money on these overprized BR blank discs.

LG GGC-H20L costs about 90€ (~$142) here, the Plextor drive is listed at 122€ (~$192)
I'm willing to pay the extra bucks (or euros for me ) if it's really worth it. Can't tell though since I've never had any Plextor drive.

and thanks for your input

Personally, I would go with the LG model simply because they are releasing a stand-alone Blu-ray player that supports both HD formats. More than likely, it will include a drive very similar to the PC version (maybe even the same drive). I would also think that HD-DVD playback is a plus given that you can pick up many HD-DVD titles for less than $10 and most of them produce the exact same audio and video quality as the Blu-ray releases. In fact, some of the earlier HD-DVD releases were actually better than the Blu-ray versions. Training Day and Mission Impossible III are two examples where the HD-DVD version is superior as it uses either the mpeg-4 AVC or VC-1 video formats while the Blu-ray releases of those movies use the mpeg-2 video format. The mpeg-2 video format is fine especially at high bitrates but we all know that it has issues with water (mainly rain) and fire.

I'd go with the LG.

According to the following CDFreaks link, the Plextor is essentially a rebranded LG drive.

The listed OEM is Hitachi-LG.


http://www.cdfreaks.com/hardware/product/8...-PX-B300SA.html


Looking at the specs for both the LG and the Plextor, they are almost exactly the same. So, if you get a Plextor PX-B300SA, you may actually be buying a LG-GGC20HL with the Plextor name slapped on it.

Plextor stopped manufacturing own ODD drives, so the new Plextor units you see are rebranded models manufactured by other companies.