So the mastering house I'm currently interning for uses Plextor drives to burn CDs, seems that Plextor is a bit of an industry standard, or at least popular with quite a few mastering facilities. I also have an extrnal Plex drive at home, and it's pretty rock solid.

I found that it's becoming increasingly difficult to get these drives. I remember reading that Plextor was going under awhile back... is this true? If so, what is going to replace them in the industry?

I have a Plextor drive. But I also use an LG without any problems.
With respect to compatibility I realized that the media make a huge, maybe bigger, difference. I found that there are shops that focus on supplies for small releases, like http://www.isp-proshop.de/ in Germany. The CDs I got there even worked in my old car stereo.

I do not mean to hijack the thread. But, what do you think about new approaches, like publishing on SD card, lossless compression, iTunes format with lyrics etc.?

Wilko

The PC store I always buy from in town, who built my rock-solid DAW, told me that LG is the way to go. I didn't know if I trusted the name, because the guys at the mastering house always snuff LG... but w/e works I don't care.

Yes, the media makes a bigger difference than the burner IMO. Totally agree 100%.

I can't comment on the other stuff you mentioned because I have zero experience with it. None of the clients that come through the door in my studio or the mastering facility care about any foreign formats other than the normal ones you see everywhere. That could change tho.

while plextor USED to be the only answer anyone who turns their nose up now at an LG is simply ignorant to the facts.
not to mention the plex tools is useless anymore.
sound forge, wavelab have the same (better) tools.

The thing is with LG / Samsung etc.. was they were doing work for other companies.. this used to make me laugh as people would buy certain brands just with a different logo, but the parts were actually LG or Samsung ones..

I used to use Plextor drives back in the old days, when SCSI had the edge over IDE cd drives etc , Scott probably remembers that. That changed thankfully.

much like my acer board is and OEM one ... by a 3rd party company.

I have a few an LG drive and a few Liteon ones.. .Liteon are another company who used to do parts for other companies in the past also (probably still do)

Exactly Plextor does not make their drives its who ever is selling them cheapest that month...
LG, Liteon, ASus, acer, pioneer etc etc

and yes i remember SCSI optical.... those were not cheap!

I have to tell you I have not had good luck with Plextor drives. I seem to go through them about once every year. It's not like I'm using them for mass production either. I recently switched to a LiteOn drive (with LightScribe) so time will tell.

Speaking of LightScribe - my first attempt to print on one ended up in heartache. I kept getting an error message saying it couldn't read the bar code on the disc or something like that. Why should it care about a code on the disc? (sorry to hijack the thread )

Id just go for a deal online but make sure to buy one with good user reviews. Lite On has not failed me yet!

I think what has happened is the drive cannot see the "code" that tells it where to line up the image. I got a bundle of LS media that had several CDs that would burn fine, but would not label.

BTW, have you installed the contrast utility? Without it your labels will be very light.

I have been building my studio from the ground up with "street smartz".  I started with a bunch of real expensive instruments that I wound up selling for money for tickets to stadium shows.  Now it has all come full circle. i am getting old!

I got my hands on a Roland AR-200 recorder. 
It is used to record elevator prompts, and can be hooked up in series with other AR's for hundreds of clips... but it has this great 16bit PCM linear mode, and it records on PCCards and SD cards, with the adapter I have installed.  A 6gig microSD adapter so there is not a problem with disk space. 
Frankly, I liked the sound I got from the 16bit pcm over the 24bit VS-890 I bought for my studio. 
The AR-200 interface is straight audio and midi I/O and a plethura of wire connections for the buttons in the elevator.  I am having so much fun with my 890, and all the effects, I almost forgot my AR. 
I am seriously concidering bypassing the studio manager tutorials on the VS and just doing my recording on the AR.
Now tell me oh great one....
is the Ensoniq SD-1 production sequencer midi, compatible with the VS-890 midi?   and...
is there a midi DAW that can control the 2 in a studio enviroment?