Another review of Sony's latest dual DVD RW drive can be found over at our friends from CDRLabs.com.
The Sony DRU-500A is the first drive to support both the DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW format and is also the first drive to hit the market with support for 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW speeds. Here's part of CDRLabs' conclusion:
The Sony DRU-500A has been really hyped up over the past few weeks. With its ability to read and write to DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW media, many people have held off buying a DVD writer until the DRU-500A started to ship. If you're one of those people, I will say that it was definitely worth the wait. While the DRU-500A has a few performance aspects that could have been better, it's still the top dog when it comes to DVD writers. |
When it comes time to write DVD's, the DRU-500A currently has no equal. Admittedly, the drive's DVD+R/RW writing performance was better than I expected. The DRU-500A completed our DVD writing tests in record time, coming in ahead of the second generation DVD+RW drives we've tested. When writing to DVD-R and DVD-RW discs, the Sony's performance was on par with the other DVD-RW drives we've tested, but should be much faster when 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW media finally ships. However, you shouldn't get rid of your DVD-ROM drive quite yet because the DRU-500A's performance was less than stellar when reading DVD's. While the drive was able to read DVD-ROM's at 8x, its speeds were considerably slower when reading other types of DVD's.
While the DRU-500A shares many of the features found on other DVD writers, Sony has added their own touch by giving it an impressive 8MB buffer, support for their Power-Burn technology and a great looking design. Unfortunately, the software package that came with the DRU-500A was a mixed bag. While I enjoyed using ShowBiz and MyDVD, I could have done without the Veritas software. While it will probably be adequate for most users, more advanced users will probably be wanting more.
If you're interested in reading the complete review on Sony's latest DVD-recorder then please head on over to CDRLabs.com If you want to discuss DVD-related subjects then check out our recently added DVD Hardware Forum.
Source: CDRLabs.com
