Review: Sony DRX-S70U-W Reviewed by: Dee Provided by: Sony Optiarc Europe Firmware: 1.D4 Manufactured: August 2009

Sony Optiarc Europe were kind enough to send us their latest
slim line DVD writer for review, the DRX-S70U-W. The Sony DRX-S70U-W supports
8x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/DVD-RW, 5x DVD-RAM and 6x DVD+R DL and 6x DVD-R DL writing
technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.

In this review will check out the performance of the Sony
Optiarc DRX-S70U-W.

Company Information

Optiarc started as a joint-venture with
Sony and NEC but since December 2008, Optiarc is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Sony. If you would like to find out more about Sony Optiarc, please visit the
Sony Optiarc website.

Drive Specifications

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Packaging

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Let's now take a look at the packaging that the drive is
shipped in.

The drive that Sony Optiarc sent was the retail version, and
we can see the package and contents below.

Package

Box front

Box rear

Box left and right
sides

Box top

 

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what
the drive came shipped with.

Our package was the retail version.

The package contained the Sony DRX-S70U-W, Power supply,
Euro and UK power cable, USB cable, software disc, and instruction manual.

Now let’s take a look at the
drive.

Drive front

The front of the Sony DRX-S70U-W is sparse but stylish. We
can see an eject button, emergency eject hole, and a amber read/write LED.

Drive rear

We can see a power connector and USB connector. Note that
the unit can only operate with the power connector. The drive can't be powered
by USB alone.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of the drive we found one label and we can see
that the drive was manufactured in China during August 2009.

Now let’s head on to the next page where we can take a
look at the features of the drive….

 

Test machine

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For this review we will be using a computer with the
following configuration:

Hardware:

·         System: Fujitsu Siemens ESPRIMO
V5535 notebook

·         Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5400
1.5GHz

·         RAM: 2 GB DDR2

·         GFX: Onboard

·         Sound: Onboard

·         Hard disk: OCZ Apex 120GB SSD

·         Display: Onboard 15.6 inch LCD

·         Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium
(64 bit).

System setup:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was connected to a USB2 connector on our
notebook. The drive came shipped with firmware version 1.D4.

Included software package

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The Sony DRX-S70U-W came supplied with the Nero 8 Essentials
software package, which should provide a good platform for burning your CD-R
and DVD recordable media.

Nero 8 Essentials

Note: We did not install this software on our review
notebook or test it.

Installed software:

For conducting our various tests, we will be using the
following applications.

• Nero Burning
  Rom 9
• Nero
  DiscSpeed
• Slysoft
  CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy
• Opti Drive Control
• DVDFab

Our review notebook has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
installed.

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The Sony DRX-S70U-W supports automatic bitsetting and is
capable of writing DVD+R DL media with DVD-ROM.

Here is how you could check if your discs are really written
with DVD-ROM book type:

Start Nero DiscSpeed, click the Disc info button and you
should see something like this:

DVD+R DL with
BookType DVD-ROM

Another quick test is to start Nero DiscSpeed and look at
the disc information:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W does not
support bitsetting on DVD+R/RW.

Disc Quality Scanning

The Sony DRX-S70U-W can be used along with Opti Drive
Control or Nero DiscSpeed for Disc Quality Scanning.

The drive is able to scan for PIE and PIF errors on DVD R/RW
media, and C1 and C2 errors on CD-R/RW media.

DVD+R Disc Quality Scan

We scanned our test media at 8x. As we can see, we can't
compare results from this drive with our Lite-On iHAS422, but nonetheless this feature
is a useful one to have, and will give some indication if the disc is good or
bad.

CD-R Disc Quality Scan

We scanned our test CD-R media at the maximum speed the
drive would allow, which was 24x. Once again we can't compare this result with
the results obtained with our Optiarc AD-7201S, but again, this a useful
feature to have.

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology
used by the Sony DRX-S70U-W.

For these tests we used Nero DiscSpeed and Opti Drive
Control, and wrote a full disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses CAV (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average
speed of 18.28x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 3 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Sony DRX-S70U-W was one of the fastest
drive's when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This
gives an average speed of 14.71x and a total writing time of 6 minutes and 11
seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

We can see in the table above, that the Sony DRX-S70U-W was
the fastest drive when writing out CD-RW test media.

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses CAV (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed
of 5.54x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 14 seconds.

DVD-R

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses CAV (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average
speed of 5.53x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 8 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our table, the Sony DRX-S70U-W was above
average when writing our test DVD R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it should
be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

Note: Because of a bug in Opti Drive Control, we were unable
to burn a DVD+RW media. We used Nero DiscSpeed instead.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives
an average speed of 5.02x and a total writing time of 13 minutes and 25 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was about average when writing our test
DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives
an average speed of 4.25x and a total writing time of 14 minutes and 20
seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was about average when writing DVD-RW
media.

6x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 6x.

Note: Because of a bug in Opti Drive Control, we were unable
to burn a DVD+R DL media. We used Nero DiscSpeed instead.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 6x. This gives an average speed of
4.64x and a total writing time of 26 minutes and 4 seconds.

Note: Because of a bug in Opti Drive Control, we were unable
to burn a DVD-R DL media. We used Nero DiscSpeed instead.

6x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 6x. This gives an average speed of
4.61x and a total writing time of 27 minutes and 32 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was the fastest drive when writing our
DVD+R DL test media, and well above average when writing our DVD-R DL test
media.

5x DVD-RAM writing speed

According to the specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W, it
should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 5x.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 5x. This gives an average speed of
4.02x and a total writing time of 14 minutes and 46 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was the slowest drive when writing our
test DVD-RAM media.

Summary:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W has excellent writing performance on CD-R
media. Writing performance on DVD R media is also very fast for a slimline
drive.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will check
reading performance….

Reading performance

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For these tests we will once again use Nero DiscSpeed, and Opti
Drive Control to read various CD’s and DVD’s, including audio discs and
DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM 8x
• CD-ROM 24x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Roxio
media creator 7.5 that is slightly over 75 minutes in length. Below you will
see the produced result:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W reached 25.15x read speed.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio media
creator 7.5 CD. The disc we used was an unbranded 52x certified CD-R disc
manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W reached 25.33x read speed.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio media creator
7.5 CD; this time we used a Verbatim 24x CD-RW disc (thanks to Verbatim UK for
sending us this media).

The Sony DRX-S70U-W reached 25.56x read speed.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Sony
DRX-S70U-W, again we used Optic Drive Control to measure the transfer rate. The
audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests,
to be exact it’s just over 79 minutes in length (79:19:10).

The Sony DRX-S70U-W reached 26.02x when reading our test
audio disc.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a
last audio test, and this time we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature
in Nero DiscSpeed. For this test we used a CD-R, manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The extraction quality is excellent and supports the reading
of CD text and sub channel data. On the fly copy above 10x ripping speed was
reported as too slow, and read leadin/leadout was not supported.

DVD reading performance:

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Again, we will use Opti Drive Control to measure the reading
performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read
pressed single and double layer DVD-discs at 8x.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start
with Single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required
to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if
you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single
layer)

DVD Video (double
layer OTP)

The Sony DRX-S70U-W is Video_TS riplocked and read both our
single and double layer discs at 4x.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

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For this test we used a CMC 8x DVD+R and a Verbatim 8x
DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Sony DRX-S70U-W read our DVD+R and DVD+RW discs at 8x.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

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For this test we used a Sony 8x DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6x
DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

Once again the Sony DRX-S70U-W read our test DVD-R/RW discs
at 8x.

DVD±R DL discs:

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DVD+R DL:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W read our DVD+R DL test disc at 6x
reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W read our DVD-R DL test disc at 6x
reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

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The Sony DRX-S70U-W read our DVD-RAM disc at 5x using a
Z-CLV reading method.

Summary:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W has shown itself to be an excellent and
reliable reader. Our only negative is riplock on DVD-Video.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test
CD-R/RW writing performance……

The specifications of the Sony DRX-S70U-W state that the
drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at 24x. Let us find out how the drive
really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

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For our data writing tests, we simply burned a full disc
using CD-Speed (create data disc) function and burned the discs at the maximum
speed allowed.

Write quality:

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We will test CD-R discs from many different CD-R
manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the “create data CD”
function in Opti Drive Control. The discs were written at the maximum speed
that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used Opti Drive Control's Disc
Quality Scan and combined this with a Transfer Rate
Test to test if the resulting disc was readable. Also note that
different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained
when scanning the discs. We used an Optiarc AD-7201S and scanned the discs at
48X speed.

There is more than one way to handle C1 and C2 error

detection/correction,
but a simple and common way is to detect and correct up to two errors per frame
in each stage and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by
  C1 layer

The sum of these (per second) is called the Block Error
Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by
  C2 layer

Any E31 is un-correctable by the C1 layer and will result in
the bytes in that frame being redistributed into multiple frames which are
passed to the C2 layer.

Any E32 is un-correctable by the C2 layer and will result in
interpolation being used for Audio CDs or will result in third layer error
correction being used for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these
errors in a Disc Quality scan.  Lite-On CD-RW drives will report C1
and C2 errors this way:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

Here is an easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1
errors are easily corrected by the drive’s error correction capabilities. The
next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most
drive’s error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality
disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an
average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0
averages for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable
errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our analysis will be based on this guideline to
determine the quality of the burned disc:

CD-R/RW
quality scans guideline

Below are the obtained results:

An excellent result to start our CD-R tests.

The result is good..

The result is very good.

There is a spike of C1 errors near the start of disc, on inspection,
the disc had a slight flaw in the dye. The result is still very good.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

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The result is good.

Summary:

Both CD-R and CD-RW writing quality with the Sony DRX-S70U-W
is generally very good indeed, with really nothing to complain about.

Now let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD
recordable performance….

The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write
DVD±R at 8x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the writing
times for various types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on
write quality and media compatibility.

Write quality:

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Disc Quality Scanning -
PI/PO:

DVDs use an error detection and correction system (ECC)
which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the
"quality" of a disc by performing Disc Quality Scanning, which shows
how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers or stages of error detection and
correction on all DVD media; these are called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity
Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks containing rows and columns of user
data with additional columns of PI error correction and rows of PO error
correction.

An ECC block contains 32 KByte of user data with some added
control data, scrambled and arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an
additional 10 columns of PI error correction and 16 rows of PO error
correction.

The Parity Inner stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes
in a row can be corrected. Any row with one or more errors is counted as a
Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with more than 5 errors is considered
un-correctable and is counted as a Parity Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer stage is performed next and will detect and
attempt to correct any errors that are still left after the PI stage. Any
column that has errors is counted as a Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column
that has un-correctable errors is counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a
POF occurs the drive can sometimes re-read the problematic spot and correct the
problem; this happens only during normal reading and not during scanning,
however.

Disc Quality scanning is influenced by the drive performing
the test, and that's why different drives report different results and even the
same drive will report (slightly) different results when scanning the same disc
again. Please note that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc
quality and that other important aspects are not revealed.

But what is a good scan? That is a discussion that we don’t
think will end soon, as different drives report different amounts of errors,
some players are more picky about media than others, and so on. But as a
comparison we present you with scans from two pressed DVD discs:

The scan above shows the results from a pressed, Single
Layer DVD-Video disc (Goldeneye).

The above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer
DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

The Lite-On DVD burners used in this review report errors
as follows:

·        
PIE per 8 ECC blocks (rows with 1 or more bytes in error)

·        
PIF per 1 ECC block (rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as low error numbers as possible.
PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed DVD-discs above are well within the
standards if we ignore the single PIF spike in the DL scan.

If you want to look at the standards for yourself, download
the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the
ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-

international.org.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc
reflectivity, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of
a DVD disc – but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note is that we have scanned the discs at 4X
speed, by lowering the speed to 2X (DVD-R/RW)/2.4X (DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount
of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower
speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is a connection between the reported amount
of errors and readability of the discs we also include the reading curve from
an Optiarc AD-7201S DVD-Writer which by default is able to read DVD±R media at
16x speed. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good
discs, but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Jitter:

Jitter is a
very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to use
optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s
first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part
courtesy of Pioneer Electronics).

“The
DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the
specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the
worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error
rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good
enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since
the above target is for "after error correction," the error
correction capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between
error correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD
format was set to one ECC block per 32 KB. This requires a byte error rate
before correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback
mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of
the efforts on both sides.

As will be explained hereafter, it is difficult to make
the error rate a specification of the disc itself. Therefore, a jitter standard
is set by the DVD specifications. A simple calculation based on a normal
distribution requires that the jitter rate be under 15.4%, and experimental
results indicate that jitter must be under 16%, to achieve the required error
rate. Since the disc tilt varies within a revolution, it was decided to adopt
the design concept that jitter must remain within 16% at the instantaneous peak
value of tilt. Since it is actually very difficult to measure the peak value,
the concept became to measure the average jitter at under 15%, and the byte
error rate at under 5 x 10-3.”

What is
Jitter?

In basic terms, we could say jitter is a product of “pit and
land distortion” In other words, when the drive reading the disc has to
compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which constantly tries to move and refocus
the PUH lens for optimum tracking and tries to compensate for the imperfections
of pits and lands on the pressed or recordable media. This is further
compounded by the hardware used for recording and playback. Not only is the
record and replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it
is also horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject
to non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits
in nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly accurate. Anything which
causes variations in the sizes of the pits will produce jitter. A prime culprit
of this is sudden variations in laser power (laser noise). If laser power
varies, then the laser beam itself changes and will vary in intensity and
possibly focus. This will cause the pit length and width to also vary and we
now have jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser beam spot may
overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same track, or if
the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced by the
adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol
interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter
and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit
lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by the laser beam
spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely random
contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the highest
frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with which the
crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some
other factors to consider

There are
many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We are
now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also
consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home
market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are
unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now let’s
look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to measure
jitter.

If there
is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source noise,
circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter -symbol
interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighbouring tracks.

Next we
consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase
the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt
margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the
jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How we
will measure jitter.

We will be
using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Nero DiscSpeed and
Opti Drive Control at
4x scanning speed.
In the screen shot below we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the
purple graph in the lower window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now, let's
find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate that 8%
average value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD specification.
That does not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad. In fact, many
optical drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with jitter values
of more than 14% average without any problems. Other drives, including
standalone DVD players may begin to struggle reading discs with average jitter
values above 10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable values. One
must test their own playback devices to see what they can cope with.

However,
for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we
present a rating system for average jitter values.

·        
Less than 8% (average) = Very good

·        
8% - 9% (average) = good

·        
9% - 12% (average) = average

·        
Above 12% (average) = poor

Here is an easier explanation on how to read the test results

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to
look for in your Nero DiscSpeed/CD-Speed Quality Scans?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

·        
PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8
errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.

·        
PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4
PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.

·        
Jitter: An average jitter value of 8% or less is considered very good.
You should not worry too much if the average value is slightly above this
figure.

And as always; lower is better

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

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In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with
firmware 4L11 along with Optic Drive Control to measure the disc quality. We
will also be using the Optiarc AD-7201S with firmware 1.09 along with Opti
Drive Control for our read-back tests.

An excellent result, PI and PIF errors are low and the
jitter average is excellent.

The result is very good.

A very good result from this 8x media manufactured by Taiyo
Yuden. Jitter average is once again good.

An excellent result from this Daxon media. Jitter average is
also excellent at 6.1%.

The result is very good, with exceptionally low jitter
level.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

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We used the same test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Note: Because of a bug in Opti Drive Control, we were unable
to burn DVD+RW, instead we used Nero DiscSpeed instead.

Below are our obtained results.

PI levels are extremely high at the start of the disc, and
out of specification, PIF errors on the other hand are extremely low, and our
read back test is perfect. The result is ok but could be improved.

Summary:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W writes DVD+R with mostly excellent
writing quality. Write speed is also reasonably fast for a slimline DVD writer.

On our tested DVD+RW media, writing quality could be
improved.

Now let’s look at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the
next page….

DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

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In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with
firmware 4L11 along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be
using the Optiarc AD-7201S with firmware 1.09 along with CD-Speed for our
read-back tests.

The result is very good, although there are a few PIF
spikes. Once again, jitter is very low indeed.

The result is extremely good.

The result is good, with nice jitter average and smooth read
back curve, although PI and PIF error levels are quite high.

The result is very good.

There is a single PIF spike, but the result is still
extremely good.

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality:

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For this test we used the same testing procedures as in our
DVD-R tests.

Considering this a re-writable disc, the result is
excellent.

Summary:

The DVD-R writing quality was very good to excellent, with
no problems to report with our tested media.

On our tested DVD-RW media, writing quality was excellent.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD R
DL writing performance and quality……

DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality:

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The Sony DRX-S70U-W supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for
writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing
speed of 6x.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we wrote an image file of a DVD-Video compilation
of as near full capacity as possible with Nero DiscSpeed. We then used a
Lite-On iHAS422 along with Nero DiscSpeed to test the disc’s quality; we then
finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A.

PIE errors on the second layer are quite high at the end of
the disc, PIF errors are low and we have a perfect read back test. The result
is ok.

DVD-R DL:

The result is very good.

Summary:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W writing quality on our tested DVD±R DL
media seemed to be something of a mixed bag. Writing quality on our tested
DVD-R DL media was very good, however writing quality on our tested DVD+R DL
media was ok, but could be improved.

Now let's look at DVD-RAM writing performance on the next
page....

 

DVD-RAM writing performance:

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The Sony DRX-S70U-W is a so-called Multi drive, meaning it
also supports the DVD-RAM format.

This drive is one of few drives that also supports the
DVD-RAM format. Let us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can
see it has differences from the other DVD+R/W/R9 DL and DVD-R/W discs.

We can see a very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These
tick marks are "address information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header
Field") which are embedded onto the disc. This is header information in front
of data sector area, and is the same format as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM’s disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
• UDF 1.02
• UDF 1.50
• UDF 2.00
• UDF 2.01
• UDF 2.50

By formatting a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a
removable hard drive and all writing will be done as “background processes”.
Meaning you do not have to wait for it to finish, you can start or work with
other applications while the DVD-RAM is working without noticing any “hangs” or
CPU slowdowns.

DVD-RAM has error correction, but also has error replacement
to spare sectors as a "defect management" function. This gives higher
reliability than other DVD formats.

Another advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be
formatted/erased/written at over 100,000 times before it will/can cause/report
any errors. Let’s try to read back the disc that we wrote:

Let us take a look at the media we are going to use in these
tests.

Verbatim 5x rated DVD-RAM media

As we can see, the Sony DRX-S70U-W wrote our 5x DVD-RAM
media at its rated speed of 5x in 14 minutes and 46 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Sony DRX-S70U-W can read our test disc.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W had no problems in reading our test disc
at 5x.

We then ran CD-Speed’s Scandisc function to check the disc for
errors.

As we can see, the disc has no errors.

Summary:

There were no problems to report with DVD-RAM and our tested
media. Interestingly, the Sony DRX-S70U-W uses a Z-CLV for reading and writing
DVD-RAM media.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with
some real world and advanced tests....

Real world tests:

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Introduction:

On this page, the author of the review has the freedom to
run tests that she/he thinks will enhance the review. These tests are unlike
our standard tests, which we try to keep consistent throughout the whole review
team, so that our reviews are as consistent as possible. This page gives the
reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced and real world tests that other
review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

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Real world tests are designed to simulate what normal users
might use their drives for in everyday use. For example, writing discs with a
burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the
audio to our hard drive. According to EAC the Sony DRX-S70U-W does not support
caching, but it does support Accurate Stream and C2 Error Info.

Below are the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Sony DRX-S70U-W performed well in the “Burst mode” test
but a little slower in the “Secure mode” test.

Nero Burning Rom:

In the following tests we
will burn discs from the main media groups with Nero Burning Rom.

CD-R:

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation
of 703MB using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At
Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc”
enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the
highest speed. (48x)

The Sony DRX-S70U-W burned our test CD-R at 24x in 5 minutes
and 18 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

As yet, we have no other data to compare.

DVD R:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R
discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO compilation containing 4483MB of
data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W burned our test DVD R at 8x in 11
minutes and 11 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

As yet, we have no other data to compare.

DVD DL:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R
DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO DVD-Video compilation
containing 8103MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W burned our test DVD R DL at 6x in 27
minutes and 39 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

As yet, we have no other data to compare.

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping tests:

Most modern DVD burners don’t have Video riplock and in most
cases will read a pressed DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives
use a CSS riplock when it comes to extracting data from the disc. If you
attempt to rip a pressed DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then
the ripping speed may be locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

Of course, running this test on a slimline drive, we can
expect the results to be much slower than running the tests on a modern full
sized internal DVD writer. However, we felt that this would be an interesting
and useful test.

We should point out, that ripping and compressing a DL
DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite CPU intensive. The more power your
system has, the less likely your system power will affect the results. The PC
used in this review is equipped with a fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast
hard drives. We checked to make sure our review PC was not having an impact on
the results.

For this test we will use Fengtao software DVDFab.

DVD-Video single
layer “Goldeneye”

DVD-Video double
layer “The Green Mile”

Thanks to Fengtao software – For providing a full DVD
Fab license.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W is video_ts riplocked, so this test was
always going to take quite a long time to run.

To compare with other drives, we present the table below.

As yet, we have no other data to compare.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility test:

For this test, we played our DVD±R DL Video's created during
our testing, and checked if our stand alone DVD/BD player/recorders could play the
complete disc. Below is a list of the players/recorders used in these tests.

• Panasonic DVD-RV32
• Panasonic SA-HT520
• Proline DVDP350
• Panasonic DMR-E50 recorder
• Sony PS3

Compatibility results:

Our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media burned
by the Sony DRX-S70U-W without any problems.

However, some of our DVD Standalone devices had problems
with our burned DVD-R DL media, failing at the layer break, or simply not able
to read the disc at all.

We would like to mention, that the compatibility issue with
standalone DVD Players/Recorders and the DVD-R DL media format is caused by
incompatibilities with the standalone devices used in this review, and not the
Sony DRX-S70U-W or media format used.

Advanced tests:

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To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on
the Sony DRX-S70U-W. These tests are: “Sheep Test”, and some special disc
tests.

For this
test, we will use the Sheep tests made by Alexander Noé. Why is it called sheep
test? That’s because the logo of the first 1 to 1 copy program called CloneCD
is a sheep. When looking at supported writers, you will notice that the feature
list has sheep to indicate if a feature is supported or not. In this case we
are interested in the writer’s ability to backup/write weak sectors. Also
called: “Correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns”.

• No sheep: Can’t backup any safedisc 2 versions without the
  help of software tricks
• 1 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2 up to version 2.4x without
  software tricks
• 2 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2, including version 2.5x
• 3 Sheep: Can write all possible weak sectors, few if any
  writers could do this.

One of our forum moderators Womble; has written
a guide concerning the “Sheep Test” that can be found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Sony
DRX-S70U-W supports everything.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which
basically means, it can write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

Sheep old test

Sheep 251 test

Sheep 290 test

Sheep 3 test

As we can see from the results, the Sony DRX-S70U-W is a
zero sheep burner, it was unable to read any of our created discs with copy
protection.

CD-R Over-burn test:

For this test, we used Nero DiscSpeed and an 80 minute CD-R.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W reported a maximum over-burn capacity of
82:17.51 We then setup a test burn with CD-Speed of slightly less than maximum
and burned the disc, 82:10.15 to be exact.

As we can see, the Sony DRX-S70U-W failed to write the disc.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Sony DRX-S70U-W
is capable of writing and reading mini DVD-RW discs with a capacity of 30
minutes/1.46 GB.

The Memorex media is made by CMC Magnetics.  Thanks to
Memorex Europe for sending us this media.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W had no problems in writing our test mini
DVD-RW disc. Now let’s check if the Sony DRX-S70U-W can also read back our test
disc.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W read back our test mini DVD-RW disc without
any problems.

Video-CD disc:

For our final test we wanted to see how the Sony DRX-S70U-W
would read a Video-CD, for this test we created a Video-CD with Nero Burning
ROM 8, and used Nero DiscSpeed to read the disc back. Below is our result:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W had no problems in reading our test VCD.

This concludes our Sony DRX-S70U-W review. To read the
conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• Generally good/excellent DVD±R/RW writing quality.
• Generally excellent CD-R writing quality.
• Sleek and stylish design.
• Excellent reading reliability.
• Supports 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW writing speeds.
• Excellent build quality.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R DL.
• Good community support here at MyCE.com.
• Good software bundle.
• Small size and portable.
• Read and writes to Mini DVD Recordable media.

Negative:

• DVD+R DL writing quality could be better.
• DVD+RW writing quality could be improved.
• Requires mains power to operate.
• DVD-Video riplocked.

Conclusion:

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Let us summarise the most important positive and negative
points below:

The main positive points:

The Sony DRX-S70U-W was able to burn all our tested CD-R
media with excellent/very good quality..

The Sony DRX-S70U-W wrote our tested DVD+R/RW media with
very good/excellent quality.

The software bundle is also of a high standard and should
provide all the essential tools for burning CD and DVD media.

Reading performance and reliability was excellent.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W is small and easily portable.

Our retail drive was also supplied with Nero Essentials 8,
and should be very capable of meeting most people's media burning requirements.

The Sony DRX-S70U-W is beautifully designed and has a very
sleek look, and the build quality is excellent.

The main negative points:

There are not many negative things to say about the Sony
DRX-S70U-W. The drive can't function without a mains power supply. It would
have been nice if the drive could have run via USB power.

Writing quality on our tested DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media
could be improved.

DVD-Video riplock on a slimline drive, really doesn't make a
lot of sense, although Sony are following the guidelines laid down by the movie
makers, so we shouldn't really complain too much about this.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Sony DRX-S70U-W is beautifully designed and
reliable, it has a good feature set. It’s small, portable, and it performs very
well”.

Thanks to:

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