LG officially discontinues the WH16NS60

[dbminter]

Just got the official word from LG.  They have discontinued WH16NS60 production.  They informed me that this current replacement they are making for my NS60 will be the last.  The NS60 has been discontinued and after they go through the current refurbished stock they have, there will be no more.

 

The NS40 is still available.  Amazon.com has 5 left in stock with more on the way, so the NS40 is still in production, it seems.  Which is a bit of a shame as the reason I stuck with the NS60 was because it properly wrote to BD DL media, unlike the NS40.  However, maybe after all these years, firmware updates have fixed this in the NS40.

[Dawn_fan]

Yeah I thought so because I originally was going to go for an NS60 when I wanted to buy my very first half height drive in an enclosure because I was previously using only slim drives. (They worked fine but I just wanted to try out a half height drive.)

Besides the BD-DL issue with the NS40, were there any other problems that the NS40 contained but the NS60 didn't have.

 

The latest firmware available for the NS40 is version 1.05 I believe, do you recall if anything has changed with that concerning burning BD-DL?

[dbminter]

Near as I remember, the only other issue with the NS40 was though it claimed its firmware supported writing Verbatim BD-R 16x at 16x, it actually only writes at 12x.  The NS60 did the same thing.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think LG publishes a list of firmware changes like Pioneer does.  So, there wouldn't be a way to tell if the BD DL issues were addressed without trying it out.

 

Even though Pioneer publishes lists of changes, they are often times vague and incomplete.  For instance, they will not say anything about DVD+RW changes, but a firmware update will bork writing to 8x DVD+RW.

 

[Dawn_fan]

Ah ok, I see what you're saying. I wish drive manufacturers will a bit more responsible behind their products. It's nice that pioneer does something like that. My two LG drives perform great but I am a person who is a bit more involved in the specifics and I like to know some good information. Without all of these specs, it's hard to pinpoint problems so I agree with you.

 

Any other good drive companies that are worth buying? Maybe plextor and/or lite-on for example?

[dbminter]

No.  LG is the best of the worst.  LG has the fewest issues.  The NS60 had its faults, but no fatal flaws, unlike everyone else.  Even LG's NS40 had that one fatal flaw.

 

Pioneer could POSSIBLY make the BDR-213 usable if they stop dicking around.  The 213 initially fixed the 8x DVD+RW issue after a decade... before they put it BACK in!  They took it out with the most recent firmware update, but it's still borked.  8x DVD+R DL that only writes at 2.4x.  8x DVD+RW that write at 8x but each subsequent rewrite on them is only 6x.

 

However, I will preface my initial statement with the caveat that it's about BD drives.  I've not used a non-BD drive for a long time.  The one BD I had from Lite-On was total trash.  Lite-On stopped making them shortly afterwards.  Never had a Plextor.  Lite-On used to make good DVD drives with one issue: they would randomly introduce skips in playback on DVD+R DL Video discs.  The Lite-On BD did it ALL the time; the DVD drives would only occasionally do it.

[Dawn_fan]

On 12/10/2023 at 10:14 PM, dbminter said:

No.  LG is the best of the worst.  LG has the fewest issues.  The NS60 had its faults, but no fatal flaws, unlike everyone else.  Even LG's NS40 had that one fatal flaw.

 

Pioneer could POSSIBLY make the BDR-213 usable if they stop dicking around.  The 213 initially fixed the 8x DVD+RW issue after a decade... before they put it BACK in!  They took it out with the most recent firmware update, but it's still borked.  8x DVD+R DL that only writes at 2.4x.  8x DVD+RW that write at 8x but each subsequent rewrite on them is only 6x.

 

However, I will preface my initial statement with the caveat that it's about BD drives.  I've not used a non-BD drive for a long time.  The one BD I had from Lite-On was total trash.  Lite-On stopped making them shortly afterwards.  Never had a Plextor.  Lite-On used to make good DVD drives with one issue: they would randomly introduce skips in playback on DVD+R DL Video discs.  The Lite-On BD did it ALL the time; the DVD drives would only occasionally do it.

Yeah I understand that LG is the best now. From both our experiences, I feel LG's firmware has compatibility with most of the discs. I have an ancient lite-on that is a DVD-RW. It burned Verbatim DatalifePlus CD-R beautifully but now it's not writing to them correctly anymore, maybe I have just exhausted it with all of the writing I did. It also burned my Sony DVD+R pretty good but it really wasn't able to perfect verify graphs anymore like it used to so I don't trust it anymore. So I use my LG GP65NB60 for that or my NS40 and they work fine.

Surprisingly, my lite-on also couldn't burn Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-RW since I think the format on those is way different and the dye is more advanced especially for older drives. Those discs will work on all of my other drives just fine. I have to use my 20 year old CD-RWs if I want the lite-on to write to some sort of CD-RW.

Then there's my Matshita which  is an internal slim drive in my lenovo thinkpad laptop which I believe is most garbage. The drive doesn't write properly to my Sony DVD+Rs and will introduce skips, it will always fail for Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-R at one certain place all the time where the OPC changes so it's not compatible with those discs. However, it writes just fine to Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-RW which I don't get but it works. And an extremely surprising fact is that it writes to the Verbatim Life Series CMC discs just fine but not the Mitsubishi Chemical Corp discs like the Verbatim DataLifePlus CD-R I have mentioned. Very quirky.

But every single disc I have used, every single type functions correctly the way it's supposed to on both my LG USB external slim and my NS40. This just goes to show me that LG is reliable for a majority of discs. Yes there are some minor issues like the ones you have pointed out but LG usually gets the job done so yeah.

[dbminter]

LG's are the best of what is available.  Everyone else has a fatal flaw.  The NS40 used to have that one fatal flaw of not writing to DL BD media.  Don't know if it's still present or not.  The NS60, while it had faults like only writing at 12x to 16x Verbatim BD-R, had no fatal flaws, just faults.  Well, Pioneer's BDR-213 doesn't have any fatal flaws on its current firmware.  Just a lot of faults that add up: writing 8x DVD+RW at only 6x, writing 8x DVD+R DL at only 2.4x, etc.  And, the 213 DID REINTRODUCE the 8x DVD+RW writing fatal flaw AFTER having removed it and THEN removed it again with the last firmware.

 

Sometimes you get things you can't explain.  I had a Pioneer that would write to 8x DVD+R DL that were inkjet printable but NOT to the branded discs.  BOTH were Verbatim DataLife Plus and BOTH had the SAME MID of MKM-003.  A firmware update eventually fixed it, but I can't explain HOW such a problem existed before or HOW it could have been cured.

[Dawn_fan]

18 hours ago, dbminter said:

LG's are the best of what is available.  Everyone else has a fatal flaw.  The NS40 used to have that one fatal flaw of not writing to DL BD media.  Don't know if it's still present or not.  The NS60, while it had faults like only writing at 12x to 16x Verbatim BD-R, had no fatal flaws, just faults.  Well, Pioneer's BDR-213 doesn't have any fatal flaws on its current firmware.  Just a lot of faults that add up: writing 8x DVD+RW at only 6x, writing 8x DVD+R DL at only 2.4x, etc.  And, the 213 DID REINTRODUCE the 8x DVD+RW writing fatal flaw AFTER having removed it and THEN removed it again with the last firmware.

Yeah, good luck with Pioneer 🤣

 

18 hours ago, dbminter said:

Sometimes you get things you can't explain.  I had a Pioneer that would write to 8x DVD+R DL that were inkjet printable but NOT to the branded discs.  BOTH were Verbatim DataLife Plus and BOTH had the SAME MID of MKM-003.  A firmware update eventually fixed it, but I can't explain HOW such a problem existed before or HOW it could have been cured.

You said MIDs could be faked potentially, is there a possibility that the branded ones were faked and the inkjet ones weren't? And maybe the firmware update fixed the ones that have been faked by using a different write strategy for them?

[dbminter]

I would say it's not a case of fake MID's.  It's easy to fake an MID, but not so much to fake the branding labels on top of the discs.  If you're going to fake an MID, you're trying to pass off cheap as quality in order to make money.  Faking the branding would dip into those profits.  It's most likely just a change in manufacturing process.  The firmware update reflected that change.  And it might have been possible had I had any of the inkjet discs that were manufactured at the same time as the branded, they would have failed, too.  Running changes during production are not uncommon.  Quality Verbatim MCC DVD-R were rendered useless on the NS60 at one point because of a running change in manufacturing that a firmware update fixed.

[Dawn_fan]

On 12/17/2023 at 10:28 AM, dbminter said:

I would say it's not a case of fake MID's.  It's easy to fake an MID, but not so much to fake the branding labels on top of the discs.  If you're going to fake an MID, you're trying to pass off cheap as quality in order to make money.  Faking the branding would dip into those profits.  It's most likely just a change in manufacturing process.  The firmware update reflected that change.  And it might have been possible had I had any of the inkjet discs that were manufactured at the same time as the branded, they would have failed, too.  Running changes during production are not uncommon.  Quality Verbatim MCC DVD-R were rendered useless on the NS60 at one point because of a running change in manufacturing that a firmware update fixed.

I understand now. I have never really had too many firmware updates on drives that fixed things because I couldn't get any updates since most of my drives are quite outdated but they work. And I don't use a variety of discs.

 

Also for the CMC Pro CD-R that I asked about a while ago, did you say they did have a MID of Taiyo Yuden or did they not? I am just asking because I just ordered a 100 pack from B&H PhotoVideo and I just wanted to clarify. I think I remember you saying that they read fine in your PS3 console too and that they burn well in your drives.

[dbminter]

Yes, CMC Pro discs should be Taiyo Yuden.  I don't remember if I used their CD-R or DVD-R, though.  I know what I did try a few years ago were quality Taiyo Yuden MID's and they burned and played fine.  Which leads me to believe the MID's weren't faked.  And one other user on these forums has had the same experience as they pointed out the CMC Pro discs for me to try.

[Dawn_fan]

4 hours ago, dbminter said:

Yes, CMC Pro discs should be Taiyo Yuden.  I don't remember if I used their CD-R or DVD-R, though.  I know what I did try a few years ago were quality Taiyo Yuden MID's and they burned and played fine.  Which leads me to believe the MID's weren't faked.  And one other user on these forums has had the same experience as they pointed out the CMC Pro discs for me to try.

Alright, thanks for clarifying.

The pack should arrive tomorrow if all goes well and I should be able to test them. Tomorrow is the last day of my mid term exams and my winter break will begin so I will have plenty of time to play around with them. I will definitely post back here on the forum with how everything goes so anyone interested in buying CMC Pro Media will gain some information.

[dbminter]

30 years ago, I was having my 2nd Christmas season in college.

[Dawn_fan]

4 minutes ago, dbminter said:

30 years ago, I was having my 2nd Christmas season in college.

Ha, that's nice. The Christmas season definitely brings back some good memories. I am actually in high school right now in 10th grade as a sophomore. If you don't mind me asking, what did you major in for college?

[dbminter]

10th grade Christmas for me was 1989.  The big Christmas gift I was waiting for was Robocop for the NES.

 

Well, what I majored in is a long story.  I can tell you what my degree is in, but it's not what I majored in.  I wanted a degree in computer science with a mathematics minor, but ended up with a mathematics degree and no minor.

[Dawn_fan]

1 hour ago, dbminter said:

10th grade Christmas for me was 1989.  The big Christmas gift I was waiting for was Robocop for the NES.

Ah yes, the classic.

 

1 hour ago, dbminter said:

Well, what I majored in is a long story.  I can tell you what my degree is in, but it's not what I majored in.  I wanted a degree in computer science with a mathematics minor, but ended up with a mathematics degree and no minor.

Ah ok cool, that's actually what I am planning to major in, computer science as well. I am currently taking AP Computer Science Principles and I think the course will help me on my journey. As for a minor, I think I could minor in a language such as Spanish as I am really strong in my Spanish classes too. I love math so a minor in mathematics would also be helpful. Plus, it correlates directly with computer science.

[dbminter]

I wish my alma mater had offered German courses as I took it all the way to German III in high school and I'm fairly comfortable in that language.  But, my college only offered French and Spanish.  So, I took French as the "closest" to German. 

[Dawn_fan]

20 hours ago, dbminter said:

I wish my alma mater had offered German courses as I took it all the way to German III in high school and I'm fairly comfortable in that language.  But, my college only offered French and Spanish.  So, I took French as the "closest" to German. 

Ah cool. I am in Spanish 3 right now and you can go all the way up to AP Spanish which I think is the route I am going to take, You could do IB Spanish as well but I feel that's slightly off track from the path I would like to take.