I was in the market for a new DVD burner for my PC, and after a LOT of research, a BenQ brand device was on the top of many reviewer's lists. Unfortunately, retailers never had them in stock. So I went for one model up which has LightScribe technology which allows you to actually etch an image or text or anything really on to the top side of the media. Cool idea that more and more drives are picking up.
Anyway, this drive is great and very solid in performance and specs. I would recommend it.
Oh, it is the BenQ DW1655 which should be readily available, and yes, it does dual layer (no extra compression when backing up your DVDs) to help extend the useful life of the drive too.
If you are using a site like Demonoid for torrents, those downloads (ignoring legality issues) of movies are 99% of the time recompressed down to fit on a single layer DVD or less, and depending on how they recompressed it, the quality is many times junk. Keep in mind that "free" isn't always better and many times isn't worth it. DVDs are already compressed and cutting that in half or even more really starts to show if you have a bigger screen. Again, all depending on how they hacked and sliced the downloadable (again, illiegal) copy.
I have had good luck with DVD Shrink and DVD Decryptor. I can still get better quality if I use other tools to convert to an AVI. I can get a higher quality 1.4GB AVI than a 4.7GB DVD Shrink, but the AVI file can only be played in Windows, and there are no menus or extras.
