Sony DRU-510A DVD±RW review @ CDRLabs.com

July 23, 2003

GristyMcFisty spotted that CDRLabs.com has
posted a review of the dual-format Sony DRU-510A
DVD-recorder. The DRU-510A supports 4x recording of both DVD-R and DVD+R media
and, as one of the first in the industry, also supports 4x recording to DVD+RW
media, while DVD-RW media is stuck at 2x:

When it comes to movies, a sequel rarely lives up to the
original. Fortunately, this doesn't apply to DVD writers. With the
DRU-510A, Sony has taken their award winning DRU-500A and made it better
by giving it even faster reading and writing speeds.

Sony's improvements were most apparent in our DVD
reading and writing tests. The DRU-510A was able to write 4GB of data to
DVD+R and DVD+RW media in less than 14 minutes thanks to its 4x writing
speeds. The drive took a little longer with DVD-R and DVD-RW media, but
even then its performance was still pretty good. Sony also boosted the
DRU-510A's DVD read speeds to 12x. Unfortunately, this only applies to
single layer, data DVD-ROM's. Sony's new DVD writer was much slower when
reading other types of DVD media. Slow speeds weren't the only problems
though. The DRU-510A also had some very high seek times when reading
recordable DVD media.

Lastly, you have the DRU-510A's features. To prevent
buffer underruns, Sony has given their new DVD writer a huge 8MB buffer as
well as support for lossless linking and their own Power Burn technology.
The DRU-510A also has a look all its own with its silver colored tray.
However, some might not like the fact that the drive lacks a headphone
jack. As usual, Sony has come through in the software department. The
DRU-510A comes with a DVD full of software from VERITAS, Sonic, ArcSoft
and CyberLink. While I'm not a big fan of RecordNow DX, the rest of the
software is a great addition to Sony's new
drive.

The Sony DRU-510A drive gets an overall score of 8/10 and also
the Editor's Choice Award. However, the drive doesn't come cheap with a
price tag ranging from $ 270 upto $ 329. If you're interested in reading
the complete review, check it out here.

Source: CDRLabs.com