Yesterday CDRLabs.com
has posted a review of Sony's latest DVD recorder, the
DRU-530A. The drive offers 8x DVD+R recording speeds and 4x DVD-R recording
speeds. When it comes to recording CD-R(W) media the Sony DRU-530A can write
CD-R's at speeds of up to 40x and re-write CD-RW's at speeds of up to 24x.
Here's part of CDRLabs.com's conclusion:
 So is the DRU-530A the best DVD±RW drive currently available? Yes
and no. While the DRU-530A is a huge improvement over Sony's previous
DVD±RW drives, there were a few things that kept it from getting top marks
in our review.
Like the latest generation of DVD writers,
the DRU-530A features 8x DVD+R writing speeds. Unfortunately, it wasn't as
fast as some of the other drives we've reviewed. In our tests, Sony's new
DVD writer trailed the drives from Nu Tech and Plextor by almost two
minutes. The DRU-530A also lacks the ability to write to 4x DVD+R media at
8x. According to Sony, doing this could result in poor burning and
playback performance. However, this is something that many people will
probably miss, as 8x DVD+R media is currently hard to find, not to mention
expensive.
Otherwise, the DRU-530A did very well in
our DVD writing tests. When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 4x, it was
as much as a minute faster than its predecessor, the DRU-510A. The
DRU-530A also turned in some of the fastest times we've seen when
rewriting to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media. Reading DVD's wasn't a problem for
Sony's new DVD writer either. The DRU-530A was able to read single layer
DVD-ROM's at speeds near 12x and had some very good seek times. It also
reached a maximum transfer speed of 8.5x with dual layer and recordable
media. While this doesn't sound fast, it's better than what most drives
can do. |
The Sony DRU-530A gets an overall score of 8 out of a possible
10. If you are in the market for a new DVD recorder then the Sony might just be
what you were looking for. If you want to read more, then check out
CDRLabs.com's complete review here.
Source: CDRLabs.com
