"DVD, which once stood for digital video disc or digital versatile disc, is the next generation of optical disc storage technology. It's essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, better-than-CD audio and computer data. DVD aims to encompass home entertainment, computers, and business information with a single digital format, eventually replacing audio CD, videotape, laserdisc, CD-ROM, and video game cartridges."

Just in case if you have been living in the cave since the mid-1990s, DVD is supposed to replace the CD. It holds 7 times more data than a standard 74-min CD, thus offering clearer video, clearer sound, additional features like multi-language subtitles as well as both wide-screen and standard TV formats.

DVD-ROM drives, unlike CD-ROM drives, climb the speed ladder real fast with faster and faster DVD-ROM drives being released in the same year as the first DVD-ROM drive to be released. In just a few years, the DVD-ROM drives now spin 16 times faster than the first generation of DVD-ROM drives, which in other words, produces a transfer rate of 16 x 1.321 MB/s = 20MB/s!

Note that every DVD-ROM drive comes with a "feature" called region lock. DVD-Video discs have a byte of data on the disc that the player or drive checks for to verify if the region the disc is running at is the correct one. There are 8 regions :-

1. U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2. Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3. Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4. Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5. Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6. China
7. Reserved
8. Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

Region lock is used to prevent piracy in many countries, especially in East Asian countries, including Malaysia. So, a Region 2 disc will not work with a Region 3 drive. However, the Region 2 disc will work with an all-region drive. Likewise, an all-region disc will have no problem running on a Region 3 drive.

There are some region free DVD-ROM drives in the market, also known as RPC1 drives. Unfortunately, the Lite-On LTD-122 DVD-ROM is an RPC2 drive, which allows you to change region for a total of 5 times. After being altered for 5 times, the drive will become be a permanent region-locked drive, unless the manufacturer resets the drive.

Lite-On

LiteOn, while not well-known in the retail market, have been supplying their drives to a large portion of the OEM market. LiteOn is a Taiwanese company. I don't know much about them but I do know that they have been in the industry for at least 10 years.