On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Joerg Schilling <joerg.schill...@fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote: > Neil Bothwick <n...@digimed.co.uk> wrote: > >> On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:38:16 -0600, Paul Hartman wrote: >> >> > I have a cheap Sony Optiarc (formerly NEC?) and it has worked fine for >> > me for ripping and burning audio CDs, DVD+/-R (single and dual layer). >> > It cost around $25 USD. I don't know if it is better or worse than any >> > other brand but it seems to work for me anyway. >> >> I've got a couple of these, one SATA one PATA, the SATA one works very >> well but the PATA one is slower at ripping discs. > > While NEC is not bad, my current NEC drive does not read hidden audio > tracks (like e.g. found on "13" Die Ärtzte). > > The answer can only be: "It depends..." > > Jörg >
Thanks Joerg. I sort of knew that would be the answer. Since I really needed something to build the machine and it isn't going to get much cheaper than $25 for an Optiarc I just ent ahead and got one. We'll see how it works. Is there any way to know ahead of time which drives will read the hidden audio track? Sort of related is that what about multimedia CDs - 8 tracks of audio and then a multimedia video. Any way to copy those with these drives? What's your opinion in the Libby and Dee firmware and/or flashing that firmware or Optiarc firmware updates using the binflash app? I'm in no hurry to do any of that but figured I'd learn a bit about it in the next week. Thanks, Mark
