the competition scratching their head and wondering what they are going to
do about it. I figure this has happened at least twice this year:
1. The ATI Radeon 9700 Pro. I just wish I could validate the need to
upgrade to one.
2. The new Sony DRU-500A CD/DVD Recorder.
I just picked up one of these new Sony's yesterday at CompUSA. They were
released on Friday, October 11th so I was a bit suprised to see them have
them in stock so soon (though they didn't have a bunch). I think this drive
is going to be hard to keep on the shelf.
If you haven't heard of it, the Sony DRU-500A is the first drive on the
market that is basically future and format proof. It's the first truly
safe-purchase DVD Recorder made considering all the political bickering
going on concerning the DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW format wars. Microsoft
tossing it's hat into the DVD+R/RW ring for approval, even though it's the
least compatible and least mature of the two, only worsened the situation.
Why? Because the new Sony does _everything_.
CDR. CDRW. DVD-R. DVD-RW. DVD+R. DVD+RW. VCD. Etc...
The only thing I'm not sure about is Mt. Raineer... I'll have to re-check
the specs for that one. But, since that's a packet-writing format I'll
never use it (packet writing is a pain in the ass).
The first thing I did was back up my server. I used some Apple DVD-R discs
I picked up for my iMac. They worked perfectly, and it took five 4.7GB
DVD-R's to back up the important stuff I would need to restore quickly in
case of a server drive failure.
Each 4.7GB disc took approximately 30 minutes to burn at DVD-R 2x speed.
DVD writing speed is different from CDR speed. DVD-R 2x is equivelent to
just over 2700kb/sec. CDR 2x is 300kb/sec.
I don't much care for the writing software that came with it. RecordNow 4.5
is ok for beginners, but RecordNow Max is, IMHO, what they should have
packaged with the drive. RecordNow Max is actually pretty nice.
Unfortunately, Veritas (the writer of RecordNow/RecordNow Max) decided to
take on Stomp as it's OEM partner for these products, and that's the only
place you can get them. There is no version 4.5 of RecordNow Max, and the
current 4.1 version of Max does not support the new Sony (odd, yes). My
experience with Stomp's ability to keep the software up to date for new
recorders and there tech support has been dismal.
Fear not. The newly released version of Nero Burning Rom 5.5.8.14 supports
the Sony nicely, and since I also own Nero full compatibility was just a
download away.
The drive also comes with other software for movie editing and DVD-Movie
mastering, but I haven't used it yet. MyDVD is the name of the DVD
Mastering Software it comes with.
Here's the best part!
The drive is only $349. At that price they are not only providing a drive
that covers all formats in question, read AND write, but they are
under-cutting the retail price of most other single-format drives on the
market.
Killer stuff :)
-Larry