Exclusive: Sony DRU-700A Dual Layer Recorder
by Kristopher Kubicki on May 5, 2004 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Thoughts
Does DVD DL make sense right now? We can already burn 12X DVD+R5 discs at less than 7 minutes a piece. Thanks to the lack of session closing, we can burn 2 DVD+R5 discs in less than 15 minutes, or one DVD+R9 disc in 45 minutes. Speed is not an issue to die hard DVD9 advocates, but casual enthusiasts may find the 3x in speed and increase in write errors an issue.One misconception that we want to address is the notion that DVD DL software is not here just yet. Quite the contrary, pretty much any software we tried recognized the DVD+R9 disc properly and was quite capable. The bundled Nero software had no issues with software support. Other software like DVDDecryptor, Roxio Easy DVD Creator, and Alcohol 120% had no issues recognizing and burning the DL DVDs. In fact, software support seems almost transparent.
Unfortunately, even though the drives and software support are here, media certainly is not. We have heard from manufacturers that without decent media support, DVD DL will take a long road to adoption. Some drive manufacturers such as NuTech and MSI, claim that they will have DVD+R9 support in before July, but other manufacturers sound like they will not have reliable support or plentiful media until October.
There is no question that DVD+R DL (and DVD-R DL) will become the de facto standards for DVD recording eventually (before it is replaced by BluRay or HD-DVDR). We sit on a second cusp for Recordable Optical Storage technology; remember, only a year ago DVD recorders were still $250 items and 2X write descriptors were great. After media became more available, writing faster on discs was trivial. (We already write higher write descriptors than discs support with the Plextor 708A and NuTech DDW-082.) Once we see media start to hit shelves en masse, 4X and 8X DVD DL capabilities should come with relative ease. Kudos to Sony for solving the DVD+R9 "chicken or the egg" question.
Stay tuned for my Dual Layer madness. BenQ (Philips) has a dual layer drive on the way via the Nexperia chipset, and we will see if it can compete with Sony's latest offering.
Special Thanks to Sony and Verbatim for providing media for this review.
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Rumble - Thursday, July 29, 2004 - link
Will it work with XCopy?Rumble - Thursday, July 29, 2004 - link
Will it work with XCopy?KristopherKubicki - Saturday, July 17, 2004 - link
Dizan,I think it will be 4X DVD DL capable (not that there will be any media anyway).
You can probably still order it or the LiteON SOHW-832S from the US though.
Kristopher
DizanTar - Friday, June 11, 2004 - link
I asked Sony about if and when this drive will be available in Canada. Sony responded that this model will not be available, but the replacement drive will be in august. Anyone knows about a new model of this drive, except the external one?DizanTar - Friday, June 11, 2004 - link
fedrive - Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - link
Atomic holographic Storage using Ultra Violet Light should offer a challenge to Blu-ray.http://www.colossalstorage.net/colossal5j.htm
AbRASiON - Thursday, May 6, 2004 - link
I concur with Tim (post #15) - it would be nice to know we can control precisely where the layer change is.I'm also curious on the compatibility of a BURNT +R DL or -R DL disc on most DVD players - I bet it's quite a bit lower than non DL disc's
:(
Belzer - Thursday, May 6, 2004 - link
I think the DL burners eventually will be faster than 4x speed, maybe 6x-8x. Remember that it was not long ago that many said that DL burning would not be possible at all. Quote from the same article as you linked to: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/140#philips"For instance, one company (BenQ) mentioned to us that 4x would be the maximum recording speed for DL discs but the spokesperson for Philips said that it will probably go faster than that."
MysticMan1 - Thursday, May 6, 2004 - link
Also the DL format speed will max out at 4x speed because of the amount of power needed to burn a double layer disc.timmiser - Thursday, May 6, 2004 - link
I am concerned about software support specifically choosing when the DVD switches layers. In commercial DVD's, they purposely put the change to the second layer at a part of the movie where it will be less noticable. (The switch causes about a 1 second pause.).If I am burning a home movie onto a DVD DL and if I don't have control of where the dual layer switch occurs, it may occur in the middle of an undesirable moment in my movie.
I wonder if there will be any way to stipulate where this switch occurs?
-Tim