Perhaps they should have named the story: A Few Hardware Sites in the Arena, from the slashdot-effect-as-a-benchmark dept. And after only 10 posts the Overclocker Cafe was already kicked out of the ring! Whos next? Stay tuned!
Solyaris vs. Solaris
on
Review: Solaris
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm wondering did they cut out the first 30 very slow paced minutes from the original Solyaris. I'd especially like to know if the car ride from Solyaris where you see a car driving through tunnels for 10 minutes without anything happening.
But knowing the attention span of the regular hollywood movie viewer it was probably cut to 10 seconds.
After Vanilla Sky, The Ring (and surely many more i've forgotten) yet another hollywood remake. They surely run out of ideas don't they?
seems like someone over at MS just lost his job. maybe some MS employee secretely rooting for the Apple Switch campaign. If Steve Balmer needs a reason to jump up and down like a crazy monkey again, here is it!
the music i buy is not distributed by any of the major labels so this doesnt affect me at all. maybe all the idiots listening to britney spears and all the other teen hookers (hello christina aguilera) though will get annoyed enough and stop buying their CDs.
maybe we should start a movement or sth.: buy any copy protected cd, 30minutes later return it saying it doesnt play in your car player. take another copy protected cd instead, and 30minutes do the same. come again the next day, and the day after and maybe someday your friendly clerk will be annoyed enough and will stop ordering them.
buy then why should we have the work when it seems that BGM has already dug their own grave! relax everyone, soon everything is over:)
seems that cellphone-wise the US is third world. available in africa but not in the US? sth. is backfiring here and i know what it is.
on the other question: you can write your own applications, games, whatever and upload them to your phone. i can only speak for siemens phones but yes there are APIs to access almost everything of the phone, even vibration.
someone still has to write a midlet that uses the IR port to use the phone as a tv remote:)
Sony has done a nice job with this drive. As you could see, there are good results with the drive. The software that came with the drive works, but i would suggest an other recording program. RecordNow is way to limited. The bad side of the drive are the DVD read speeds. 2x DVD.... you will hate this if you try to rip a movie. If you just want to watch a DVD, than the 2x is enough. This low speed makes the drive very quit. However, i prefer faster reading speeds. Maybe Sony will come with a firmware upgrade. Till that time, i won't replace your DVD-Rom by this recorder and make sure you have an additional DVD-Rom when you need some DVD read speed.
The other dark side is not really the drive itself, but the availability of high-speed DVD media. I have only 1 brand which supports 2x at the moment, and haven't seen (or tested) any 4x certified media yet.
The CDR recording speed is good. At this point, the Sony is the fastest DVD recorder on the market with CDR speeds. The good-old Pioneer A04 records only at 8x, and the new A05 only at 16x. With it's 24x, the Sony wins this point.
For this moment, I can suggest this drive. It is almost the same price as the Pioneer A04, which has not such results, and is slower. Also does the Pioneer not support DVD+R/DVD+RW. Maybe the new NEC combo drive will beat this Sony, but that will take some time, since that drive is delayed till somewhere in December or so.
Addictions Concerning the media there are many questions and problems. Most media will work at only 1x (DVD-R). Older Verbatim 2x DVD-R discs are known to have problems with the Sony drive: See verbatim.com. On the VCDHelp.com forum is a thread with some user experiences with various media. Meanwhile, Pioneer has released it's A05 drive. This one records DVD-R at 4x. The drive seems to be available in Japan now. (see Akiba). The drive has a price of 29800 Yen. (about $240).
With this drive, Pioneer has also released 4x media (picture). This media is priced about 800 Yen, which equals to about 6,59 EUR. ($6,45). This price is found on a forum, so i don't know it for sure. Let's hope the 4x media will become mainstream now, so I can test it with the Sony drive!
For all of you who already own this drive: At Sonic Japan you can register for a free upgrade to Sonic MyDVD as soon as it's available.
omg only 7 comments and their server is already choking!
here is the review since this will be/.'ed in 5 minutes or so:
Sony DRU-500A DVD-R/+R review
DVD recording is gradually catching on with consumers, but confusion over the two leading formats, DVD+RW and DVD-RW, has hampered sales. Analysts say potential buyers don't want to buy an expensive device--often costing upwards of $500--that could soon become a market also-ran.
Sony's solution is simple: the consumer electronics giant will sell an internal and an external PC drive that reads and writes to DVD+RW/+R and DVD-RW/-R discs.
Now, the drive is available... and time to be tested.
The specifications for this drive (source: sony.com):
2.4X max. DVD+R Write; 2.4X max. DVD+RW Write; 4X max. DVD-R Write; 2X max. DVD-RW Write; 8X max. DVD-ROM Read 4X, 12X, 16X, 24Xmax. CD-R Write; 4X, 10X max. CD-RW Write, 32X max. CD-ROM Read Random Access Time: DVD: 200ms CD: 160ms Buffer Memory: 8MB Buffer Underrun Protection Technology Supported disc format: DVD-ROM, DVD R, DVD RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM (XA), Video CD, Photo CD (multi-session), CD Text, CD Extra and others. Software Contents: Veritas RecordNow: Recording Software Vertias DLA: Packet Writing Software Sonic MyDVD: DVD Authoring Software Cyberlink PowerDVD: DVD-Video Playing software Vertias Simple Back-Up: Back-Up and Disaster recovery software MusicMatch Jukebox: Play, Record, and Organize your personal music. System Requirements: Pentium III 400 Mhz (MyDVD: Pentium III 700 Mhz) or faster PC recommended. Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows XP Home or Professional 64 MB of RAM (MyDVD: 128 MB) and 1 GB (MyDVD: 5 GB) free HDD space is recommended.
But how is this drive really? Does it perform as promised? Does it write any media? Does it read discs well? We will see in this review if Sony has done it!
I just received the drive (finally!). My drive was ordered from Retail Express (Resellers only). The drive comes in a retail box. This box includes the drive (duh!), an Sony DVD+RW disc (4.7Gb), some paperwork (Quickstart guide, both drive and software, a user guide of the drive, some information about specific OS versions / DVD media and some warranty information.) Also included is an IDE flatcable, and some software. The software comes on 2 discs, supporting many languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch and on the second disc: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese. I couldn't find any mouning screws...... For me not a problem, i have many of them, but maybe i'm just unlucky and will they usally with the drive, i don't know.
On the front of the drive there are off course the symbols of the standards the drive can write: DVD R/RW, Compact Disc Rewritable (high-speed) and a DVD+RW logo. There is only 1 button on the drive: Eject. A very light push is enough to eject the tray. There is 1 led on the front, and an emergency hole. (to open the tray by hand). No headphones or volume or whatever, just plain basic.
On the back of the drive the connectors: a power supply connector, an IDE connector,the usual master/slave jumpers, a digital output, and an analog audio-out. Nothing new, just as any drive. The recorder does not have any specific cooling. (no fans like the Pioneer A04 for example)
The inside of the drive looks also just simple, like any drive;) (I couldn't resist it to open the case;)
Sony DRU-500A - Software
The drive comes with some Recording software and tools. All software is bundled with the retail version of the recorder and supports multiple languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch and on the second disc: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.
These include Veritas Record Now, Veritas DLA, Veritas Simple Backup, MusicMatch Jukebox, Sonic MyDVD and Cyberlink PowerDVD. Also contains the disc both software manual and user guide in HTML format. Online manuals and guides are also in multiple languages.
VERITAS RecordNow RecordNow is the main CD/DVD mastering program included with the DRU-500A. Along with the ability to make backup copies of CD's and DVD's, this program allows the user to starting creating their own custom discs within minutes thanks to some easy to follow wizards. The version of the included program is 4.50
Sony will allow users to download a free upgrade to RecordNow DX sometime in November.
VERITAS Simple Backup Simple Backup is a fast and easy way to backup your computer. The interface allows you to backup and restore your entire system thanks to its easy to follow wizards. The full system backup protects your computer's data and registry at the click of a button. If you don't need to backup everything, you can manually select the files and folders you want to protect through the custom backup. Simple Backup also offers more advanced backup features like compression and spanning. With the built in compression option, you can fit up to 1.2GB of data onto a CD.
Arcsoft ShowBiz For video editing duties, Sony has included Showbiz from Arcsoft. ShowBiz allows you to drag and drop your video footage directly onto the editing timeline. From here you can add transitions, background music, special effects or custom text. Once you're done you can customize the sample rate and frame size and export your video to AVI or MPEG format. You can also turn it into a QuickTime or Windows Media movie to get it ready for internet streaming. Otherwise, you can export it to a MyDVD project for further customization.
Sonic MyDVD 4.0 MyDVD allows you to create your own VCD's and DVD's quickly and easily. Sonic has revamped the interface for version 4.0. Right from the start, MyDVD gives you a variety of options including the ability to create a DVD, a Video CD or edit video. The main interface is very different from what we saw on earlier versions of MyDVD. The "toolbar" is gone and has been replaced by a much nicer layout. The main functions of MyDVD are still easily accessible. From here you can start new projects, open existing projects or save the one you're currently working on.
Adding movie clips to your current project is as easy as drag and drop. MyDVD lets you take any MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI or QuickTime video clip and add it to your project. Of course there is a trade off here. Even with a fairly fast computer, MyDVD can take a good amount of time to convert the clips into a usable format. MyDVD also allows you to make your own custom menus and will even let you add your own pictures, icons and sound effects. Unfortunately, version 4.0 still doesn't let you place the menu icons where you want them. Need to capture some video clips from your VCR or other video source? No problem, MyDVD can do that too. You can also start the record direct-to-Disc wizard from here. This wizard allows you to easily transfer video directly from a DV camcorder to disc if you have the right hardware.
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.1 This is a popular utility to create, manage and organize all sorts of multimedia audio files, including MP3s. Once you've created the perfect play list they can then be burned to CD. Unfortunately the number of burns is limited to only five. Once you've gone beyond this, you will need to upgrade to MusicMatch Jukebox Plus.
CyberLink PowerDVD 4.0 XP CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market now. PowerDVD offers a complete set of navigation commands, including advanced features like multi-angle viewing, multi-language and subtitle selection, digital zoom and even parental control. As the name might suggest, version PowerDVD 4.0 XP fully supports Windows XP. It is also compatible with files created by Microsoft's Windows Media products. The PowerDVD version on the disc is for Sony only. It won't install on a system without a Sony DVDRom
Sony DRU-500A - Installation
The drive is easy to install, just like any CD writer or DVD player or whatever. Simply set the master/slave jumper, and connect the power and IDE cable, and optionally the audio connector(s). The testsystem (Gigabyte 8IDML, Intel Celeron 1700, 256Mb, 30Gb 7200rpm, WinXP Pro SP1) recognizes the drive as a DVD-R station. Windows accepted the drive without problems, and automaticly turned on DMA for the drive. Next step: Run Nero Infotool (1.03.2) to see what the drive supports. As you see, the drive seems to support overburning also. We will test this later.
As you can see, the drive supports almost all functions;) Nero (version 5.5.9.17) is installed on the test PC.
The Veritas Recordnow software recognizes the drive also offcourse (it's bundled with the recorder). The program works, but I won't recommend to install it. It only can copy 1:1, and make a new complilation. That's all, only the very basic functions. I prefer Nero. The latest version (5.5.9.17) does support the Sony DRU-500A.
Sony DRU-500A - Reading CDs
Now its time to do some tests. How does this drive perform while reading a normal CD? I used Nero CD speed to do this tests.
Pressed CDs
The first test: Read a pressed CD (the CD that came with the drive, containing the software)
As you can see, the drive performs very good, at the end the 32x speed is reached. The avarage speed while reading is 24.44x as you can see. This is a little slower than the Philips DVDRW228 (as tested on dvdwriters.co.uk. However, using CAV, the drive is able to reach it's maximum speed of 32x, while the Philips couldn't get >28x.
The seek times have been tested also: Random seek: 193 ms 1/3 seek: 211 ms Full seek: 268 ms The spin-up time of the drive is reported at 2.93 seconds. Spin-down time is 3.37 seconds.
The same test as above. This time using a CDR disk. (A new Platinum 80-min, with a fresh-burned NFS HP2 ISO, recorded on my 12x Sanyo writer)
As you can see, the drive reads without problems and does perform simular to a pressed CD.
Audio CD (DAE)
What does this drive do with an audio CD? How does extract audio cd's? Time to test!
The read speed of the drive is very good. It is faster than the Philips 228 DVDRW, and faster than the Pioneer A04. The Pioneer A05 performs almost equal at this point. The drive does not support reading CD Text, however, i'm not sure about it, since the CD which is used in this test didn't have CD-Text on it. (i couldn't burn it with nero cdspeed).
The read speed of an audio CD (an old MTV Audio CD, Pressed (but not legal;)):
Also here: Very good results. The drive reads audio cd at an avarage speed of 23.79x
CDRW
Reading CDRW is offcourse not a problem for the drive.
Sony DRU-500A - Reading DVDs
The drive should read DVDs at a speed of 8x. Now we will see if the drive really can do this.
Pressed DVDs
In this test i will try to read a pressed DVD. (Twilight 74)
As you can see, the drive starts at 3.3x, and ends at 8.01x. So reading pressed DVD's is no problem for the drive, only the CPU load goes up to 80% @ 8x reading.
Recorded DVDs
Now the same test as above, but this time a recorded DVD (A copy of a MP3 Collection DVD. Burned on an Arita DVD-R with a Pioneer A03 writer)
This is bad... As already mentioned on some forums, the drive seems to be locked at 2x max... It just won't read DVD-R above 2x. The drive can write DVD-R at 4x (with the right media offcourse) but can't read it that fast;)
Pressed DVD-Video
Reading a DVD movie: Payback. Region 2, DVD-5 format (Single Sided, single layer)
Also bad performance. The drive won't read above 2x. Enough for playing a movie, but way too slow for ripping or whatever. DVD-Video (pressed) has also been tested with SmartRipper, but also: 2x max reading:( Lets hope Sony will fix this issue with a firmwareupdate. For this moment (and maybe forever) an additional DVD-Rom is not a bad idea.
DVD+RW
The last DVD read test: How does the drive read a DVD+RW disc? (The one which is included with the drive)
The drive reads DVD+RW disc at the same speed as it can write them: 2.5x. The error on the end is due to a bad record, i have screwed my DVD+RW and don't have another one to test it again;). Don't blame the drive for that!
Sony DRU-500A - Recording CD-R
The drive has a recording speed of 24x. This is faster than the Philips, Pioneer, or any other DVD writer. Now the drive will be a real replacer for your current writer. The Pioneer for example records only at 8x, so you most likely will need/want an additional writer for the normal CDs. This Sony has solved this, by writing CD-R at 24x. Not as fast as the current recorders (40/48x) but most of the time fast enough.
Recording CD-R
Writing an image from the harddisk to a Platinum CDR (40x certified).
Writing goes ok. Nero (5.5.9.17) supports the drive. As you can see, the CD was finished in 3min 45.
Recording CD-R - CLV speed
See how the recorder actually records. (using Z-CLV)
As you can see above, the Sony DRU-500A writer uses Z-CLV to record a disk. Starting at 16x, going 20x, and finish the CD at 24x.
Recording CD-R - Overburning
What does the Sony DRU-500A think of big CDs? 90min, 99min, and even 100min? This test will see what it does. I used some white-label 100min CD-R for this test. Nero CDSpeed identicates the media as "Plasmon"
The drive is not good at overburning. As you can see, the Sony can only overburn up to 80.42.53... Not that much, but not a real problem.
Recording CDRW
The Sony is able to rewrite CDRWs at a speed of 10x using high-speed media.
Nero rewrites the disk at 10x without problems. The full cd is written at 10x.
Sony DRU-500A - Recording DVD-R / DVD-RW
The drive supports both DVD-R and DVD+R standards. At DVD-R, Sony supports up to 4x write speed. Time to test the performance while recording DVD-R.
All tests are done by burning about 4.3Gb from another data-DVD in a LG 16x DVDRom. (Twilight 76). No image file is used, recordings are on-the-fly
The drive has a medialock. This means: The drive determines its max recording speed which should be used for the specific media. The Pioneer has also this lock, but with a hacked firmware you can force a recording at 2x, while the media isn't 2x approved. For the Sony... at the moment no hacked firmware.
Thats Write! DVD-R Spindel
As you can see, the drive detects the disc as a 1x DVD-R, and records it succesfully at 1x.
Princo 1-2x DVD-R DVD-Box
This disc is succesfully written at 2x.
I did also test some other media: Nashua DVD-R Thats Write! DVD-R DVD-Box Arita DVD-R DVD-Box They all recorded at 1x.... For this moment, the Princo DVD-R is the only one which is able to record at 2x. I'm going to test more brands later this week, and hope to find some 4x media (if they are already available)
Recording DVD-RW
I don't have any DVD-RW disc at the moment, so this test will be added whenever i have them
since this alpha seems to be heavily optimized for the R300 aka ATI9700 (or more precisely: not optimized AT ALL for any other card) it might have been leaked on purpose so the FramesPerSecond-Whores (hello Kyle Bennett) out there run to the shops to get theit 9700 to play the shiny new Doom3.
or maybe it was leaked just in time for the NV30 to demonstrate that it does kick the 9700's butt in Doom3. sure it was leaked by an ATI employee?
tomshardware als has some pages about Quakecon 2002.
Especially interesting is JC's keynote in which he, among other things, mentions that they will make special backends for nVIDIA/ATI/3DLabs chips but most likely not for Matrox/S3 chips!
sometimes it makes sense to read the article before you comment. (i know the chance is smaller to get modded up...). the article says: Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM
It's simple: in Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand etc... you only pay to call someone, not to receive a call. I understand most Americans are reluctant to give out their cellphone numbers because you pay to receive calls as well.
This is stupid.
you must be joking! that doesn't make any sense at all. why should you pay when you receive a call? that really has to be changed.
over here in europe you can buy cell phones with pre-paid cards (for about 70$ - card+phone) with about 30 free minutes included. then you can either recharge the card and if you choose not to you still can be called for 12months on that phone! so that costs you 0.00$! that kind of contract especially popular among kids here .
Name: John Carmack Email: Description: Programmer Project:
June 25, 2002 ------------- The Matrox Parhelia Report:
The executive summary is that the Parhelia will run Doom, but it is not performance competitive with Nvidia or ATI.
Driver issue remain, so it is not perfect yet, but I am confident that Matrox will resolve them.
The performance was really disappointing for the first 256 bit DDR card. I tried to set up a "poster child" case that would stress the memory subsystem above and beyond any driver or triangle level inefficiencies, but I was unable to get it to ever approach the performance of a GF4.
The basic hardware support is good, with fragment flexibility better than GF4 (but not as good as ATI 8500), but it just doesn't keep up in raw performance. With a die shrink, this chip could probably be a contender, but there are probably going to be other chips out by then that will completely eclipse this generation of products.
None of the special features will be really useful for Doom:
The 10 bit color framebuffer is nice, but Doom needs more than 2 bits of destination alpha when a card only has four texture units, so we can't use it.
Anti aliasing features are nice, but it isn't all that fast in minimum feature mode, so nobody is going to be turning on AA. The same goes for "surround gaming". While the framerate wouldn't be 1/3 the base, it would still probably be cut in half.
Displacement mapping. Sigh. I am disappointed that the industry is still pursuing any quad based approaches. Haven't we learned from the stellar success of 3DO, Saturn, and NV1 that quads really suck? In any case, we can't use any geometry amplification scheme (including ATI's truform) in conjunction with stencil shadow volumes.
CDs and sexy? you gotta be kidding me. they are fscking steril no emotion involved, nada. vinyl however is sexy. when you put nice vinyl on your turntable that is a totally different experience than putting a cd in your cd-player. especially because vinyl quality may become less over the years or if you don't threat them right.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps they should have named the story: A Few Hardware Sites in the Arena, from the slashdot-effect-as-a-benchmark dept.
And after only 10 posts the Overclocker Cafe was already kicked out of the ring! Whos next? Stay tuned!
I'm wondering did they cut out the first 30 very slow paced minutes from the original Solyaris. I'd especially like to know if the car ride from Solyaris where you see a car driving through tunnels for 10 minutes without anything happening.
But knowing the attention span of the regular hollywood movie viewer it was probably cut to 10 seconds.
After Vanilla Sky, The Ring (and surely many more i've forgotten) yet another hollywood remake. They surely run out of ideas don't they?
seems like someone over at MS just lost his job. maybe some MS employee secretely rooting for the Apple Switch campaign.
If Steve Balmer needs a reason to jump up and down like a crazy monkey again, here is it!
GIVE ME MORE! waste your moderator points on me!
i have plenty of karma to spare! muhahahaha!
you fucking assholes! i will hunt you down and stick a stick in your ass.
mod me down, i have PLENTY of karma to spare muahaha!
1. BMG Stops Producing CDs
;)
2. Gnutella2
3. problem solved!
4. ???
5. profit
the music i buy is not distributed by any of the major labels so this doesnt affect me at all.
:)
maybe all the idiots listening to britney spears and all the other teen hookers (hello christina aguilera) though will get annoyed enough and stop buying their CDs.
maybe we should start a movement or sth.: buy any copy protected cd, 30minutes later return it saying it doesnt play in your car player. take another copy protected cd instead, and 30minutes do the same. come again the next day, and the day after and maybe someday your friendly clerk will be annoyed enough and will stop ordering them.
buy then why should we have the work when it seems that BGM has already dug their own grave! relax everyone, soon everything is over
seems that cellphone-wise the US is third world. available in africa but not in the US? sth. is backfiring here and i know what it is.
:)
on the other question: you can write your own applications, games, whatever and upload them to your phone. i can only speak for siemens phones but yes there are APIs to access almost everything of the phone, even vibration.
someone still has to write a midlet that uses the IR port to use the phone as a tv remote
forgot to add the conclusion, here we go:
Sony DRU-500A - Conclusion
Sony has done a nice job with this drive. As you could see, there are good results with the drive. The software that came with the drive works, but i would suggest an other recording program. RecordNow is way to limited.
The bad side of the drive are the DVD read speeds. 2x DVD.... you will hate this if you try to rip a movie. If you just want to watch a DVD, than the 2x is enough. This low speed makes the drive very quit. However, i prefer faster reading speeds. Maybe Sony will come with a firmware upgrade. Till that time, i won't replace your DVD-Rom by this recorder and make sure you have an additional DVD-Rom when you need some DVD read speed.
The other dark side is not really the drive itself, but the availability of high-speed DVD media. I have only 1 brand which supports 2x at the moment, and haven't seen (or tested) any 4x certified media yet.
The CDR recording speed is good. At this point, the Sony is the fastest DVD recorder on the market with CDR speeds. The good-old Pioneer A04 records only at 8x, and the new A05 only at 16x. With it's 24x, the Sony wins this point.
For this moment, I can suggest this drive. It is almost the same price as the Pioneer A04, which has not such results, and is slower. Also does the Pioneer not support DVD+R/DVD+RW.
Maybe the new NEC combo drive will beat this Sony, but that will take some time, since that drive is delayed till somewhere in December or so.
Addictions
Concerning the media there are many questions and problems. Most media will work at only 1x (DVD-R). Older Verbatim 2x DVD-R discs are known to have problems with the Sony drive: See verbatim.com.
On the VCDHelp.com forum is a thread with some user experiences with various media.
Meanwhile, Pioneer has released it's A05 drive. This one records DVD-R at 4x. The drive seems to be available in Japan now. (see Akiba). The drive has a price of 29800 Yen. (about $240).
With this drive, Pioneer has also released 4x media (picture). This media is priced about 800 Yen, which equals to about 6,59 EUR. ($6,45). This price is found on a forum, so i don't know it for sure.
Let's hope the 4x media will become mainstream now, so I can test it with the Sony drive!
For all of you who already own this drive: At Sonic Japan you can register for a free upgrade to Sonic MyDVD as soon as it's available.
omg only 7 comments and their server is already choking!
/.'ed in 5 minutes or so:
;) (I couldn't resist it to open the case ;)
;)
;)):
;)
:(
;). Don't blame the drive for that!
here is the review since this will be
Sony DRU-500A DVD-R/+R review
DVD recording is gradually catching on with consumers, but confusion over the two leading formats, DVD+RW and DVD-RW, has hampered sales. Analysts say potential buyers don't want to buy an expensive device--often costing upwards of $500--that could soon become a market also-ran.
Sony's solution is simple: the consumer electronics giant will sell an internal and an external PC drive that reads and writes to DVD+RW/+R and DVD-RW/-R discs.
Now, the drive is available... and time to be tested.
The specifications for this drive (source: sony.com):
2.4X max. DVD+R Write; 2.4X max. DVD+RW Write; 4X max. DVD-R Write; 2X max. DVD-RW Write; 8X max. DVD-ROM Read 4X, 12X, 16X, 24Xmax. CD-R Write; 4X, 10X max. CD-RW Write, 32X max. CD-ROM Read Random Access Time:
DVD: 200ms
CD: 160ms
Buffer Memory: 8MB
Buffer Underrun Protection Technology
Supported disc format: DVD-ROM, DVD R, DVD RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM (XA), Video CD, Photo CD (multi-session), CD Text, CD Extra and others.
Software Contents:
Veritas RecordNow: Recording Software
Vertias DLA: Packet Writing Software
Sonic MyDVD: DVD Authoring Software
Cyberlink PowerDVD: DVD-Video Playing software
Vertias Simple Back-Up: Back-Up and Disaster recovery software
MusicMatch Jukebox: Play, Record, and Organize your personal music.
System Requirements:
Pentium III 400 Mhz (MyDVD: Pentium III 700 Mhz) or faster PC recommended.
Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows XP Home or Professional
64 MB of RAM (MyDVD: 128 MB) and 1 GB (MyDVD: 5 GB) free HDD space is recommended.
But how is this drive really? Does it perform as promised? Does it write any media? Does it read discs well? We will see in this review if Sony has done it!
I just received the drive (finally!). My drive was ordered from Retail Express (Resellers only).
The drive comes in a retail box. This box includes the drive (duh!), an Sony DVD+RW disc (4.7Gb), some paperwork (Quickstart guide, both drive and software, a user guide of the drive, some information about specific OS versions / DVD media and some warranty information.) Also included is an IDE flatcable, and some software. The software comes on 2 discs, supporting many languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch and on the second disc: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese. I couldn't find any mouning screws...... For me not a problem, i have many of them, but maybe i'm just unlucky and will they usally with the drive, i don't know.
On the front of the drive there are off course the symbols of the standards the drive can write: DVD R/RW, Compact Disc Rewritable (high-speed) and a DVD+RW logo. There is only 1 button on the drive: Eject. A very light push is enough to eject the tray.
There is 1 led on the front, and an emergency hole. (to open the tray by hand). No headphones or volume or whatever, just plain basic.
On the back of the drive the connectors: a power supply connector, an IDE connector,the usual master/slave jumpers, a digital output, and an analog audio-out. Nothing new, just as any drive. The recorder does not have any specific cooling. (no fans like the Pioneer A04 for example)
The inside of the drive looks also just simple, like any drive
Sony DRU-500A - Software
The drive comes with some Recording software and tools. All software is bundled with the retail version of the recorder and supports multiple languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch and on the second disc: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.
These include Veritas Record Now, Veritas DLA, Veritas Simple Backup, MusicMatch Jukebox, Sonic MyDVD and Cyberlink PowerDVD. Also contains the disc both software manual and user guide in HTML format. Online manuals and guides are also in multiple languages.
VERITAS RecordNow
RecordNow is the main CD/DVD mastering program included with the DRU-500A. Along with the ability to make backup copies of CD's and DVD's, this program allows the user to starting creating their own custom discs within minutes thanks to some easy to follow wizards.
The version of the included program is 4.50
Sony will allow users to download a free upgrade to RecordNow DX sometime in November.
VERITAS Simple Backup
Simple Backup is a fast and easy way to backup your computer. The interface allows you to backup and restore your entire system thanks to its easy to follow wizards.
The full system backup protects your computer's data and registry at the click of a button. If you don't need to backup everything, you can manually select the files and folders you want to protect through the custom backup. Simple Backup also offers more advanced backup features like compression and spanning. With the built in compression option, you can fit up to 1.2GB of data onto a CD.
Arcsoft ShowBiz
For video editing duties, Sony has included Showbiz from Arcsoft. ShowBiz allows you to drag and drop your video footage directly onto the editing timeline. From here you can add transitions, background music, special effects or custom text.
Once you're done you can customize the sample rate and frame size and export your video to AVI or MPEG format. You can also turn it into a QuickTime or Windows Media movie to get it ready for internet streaming. Otherwise, you can export it to a MyDVD project for further customization.
Sonic MyDVD 4.0
MyDVD allows you to create your own VCD's and DVD's quickly and easily. Sonic has revamped the interface for version 4.0. Right from the start, MyDVD gives you a variety of options including the ability to create a DVD, a Video CD or edit video.
The main interface is very different from what we saw on earlier versions of MyDVD. The "toolbar" is gone and has been replaced by a much nicer layout. The main functions of MyDVD are still easily accessible. From here you can start new projects, open existing projects or save the one you're currently working on.
Adding movie clips to your current project is as easy as drag and drop. MyDVD lets you take any MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI or QuickTime video clip and add it to your project. Of course there is a trade off here. Even with a fairly fast computer, MyDVD can take a good amount of time to convert the clips into a usable format. MyDVD also allows you to make your own custom menus and will even let you add your own pictures, icons and sound effects. Unfortunately, version 4.0 still doesn't let you place the menu icons where you want them.
Need to capture some video clips from your VCR or other video source? No problem, MyDVD can do that too. You can also start the record direct-to-Disc wizard from here. This wizard allows you to easily transfer video directly from a DV camcorder to disc if you have the right hardware.
MusicMatch Jukebox 7.1
This is a popular utility to create, manage and organize all sorts of multimedia audio files, including MP3s. Once you've created the perfect play list they can then be burned to CD.
Unfortunately the number of burns is limited to only five. Once you've gone beyond this, you will need to upgrade to MusicMatch Jukebox Plus.
CyberLink PowerDVD 4.0 XP
CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market now. PowerDVD offers a complete set of navigation commands, including advanced features like multi-angle viewing, multi-language and subtitle selection, digital zoom and even parental control. As the name might suggest, version PowerDVD 4.0 XP fully supports Windows XP. It is also compatible with files created by Microsoft's Windows Media products.
The PowerDVD version on the disc is for Sony only. It won't install on a system without a Sony DVDRom
Sony DRU-500A - Installation
The drive is easy to install, just like any CD writer or DVD player or whatever. Simply set the master/slave jumper, and connect the power and IDE cable, and optionally the audio connector(s). The testsystem (Gigabyte 8IDML, Intel Celeron 1700, 256Mb, 30Gb 7200rpm, WinXP Pro SP1) recognizes the drive as a DVD-R station. Windows accepted the drive without problems, and automaticly turned on DMA for the drive. Next step: Run Nero Infotool (1.03.2) to see what the drive supports. As you see, the drive seems to support overburning also. We will test this later.
As you can see, the drive supports almost all functions
Nero (version 5.5.9.17) is installed on the test PC.
The Veritas Recordnow software recognizes the drive also offcourse (it's bundled with the recorder). The program works, but I won't recommend to install it. It only can copy 1:1, and make a new complilation. That's all, only the very basic functions.
I prefer Nero. The latest version (5.5.9.17) does support the Sony DRU-500A.
Sony DRU-500A - Reading CDs
Now its time to do some tests. How does this drive perform while reading a normal CD? I used Nero CD speed to do this tests.
Pressed CDs
The first test: Read a pressed CD (the CD that came with the drive, containing the software)
As you can see, the drive performs very good, at the end the 32x speed is reached. The avarage speed while reading is 24.44x as you can see. This is a little slower than the Philips DVDRW228 (as tested on dvdwriters.co.uk. However, using CAV, the drive is able to reach it's maximum speed of 32x, while the Philips couldn't get >28x.
The seek times have been tested also:
Random seek: 193 ms
1/3 seek: 211 ms
Full seek: 268 ms
The spin-up time of the drive is reported at 2.93 seconds. Spin-down time is 3.37 seconds.
The load-eject test:
Eject time: 1.46 seconds
Load time: 1.32 seconds
Recognation time: 7.16 seconds
Recorded CDs (CD-R)
The same test as above. This time using a CDR disk. (A new Platinum 80-min, with a fresh-burned NFS HP2 ISO, recorded on my 12x Sanyo writer)
As you can see, the drive reads without problems and does perform simular to a pressed CD.
Audio CD (DAE)
What does this drive do with an audio CD? How does extract audio cd's? Time to test!
The read speed of the drive is very good. It is faster than the Philips 228 DVDRW, and faster than the Pioneer A04. The Pioneer A05 performs almost equal at this point. The drive does not support reading CD Text, however, i'm not sure about it, since the CD which is used in this test didn't have CD-Text on it. (i couldn't burn it with nero cdspeed).
The read speed of an audio CD (an old MTV Audio CD, Pressed (but not legal
Also here: Very good results. The drive reads audio cd at an avarage speed of 23.79x
CDRW
Reading CDRW is offcourse not a problem for the drive.
Sony DRU-500A - Reading DVDs
The drive should read DVDs at a speed of 8x. Now we will see if the drive really can do this.
Pressed DVDs
In this test i will try to read a pressed DVD. (Twilight 74)
As you can see, the drive starts at 3.3x, and ends at 8.01x. So reading pressed DVD's is no problem for the drive, only the CPU load goes up to 80% @ 8x reading.
Recorded DVDs
Now the same test as above, but this time a recorded DVD (A copy of a MP3 Collection DVD. Burned on an Arita DVD-R with a Pioneer A03 writer)
This is bad... As already mentioned on some forums, the drive seems to be locked at 2x max... It just won't read DVD-R above 2x. The drive can write DVD-R at 4x (with the right media offcourse) but can't read it that fast
Pressed DVD-Video
Reading a DVD movie: Payback. Region 2, DVD-5 format (Single Sided, single layer)
Also bad performance. The drive won't read above 2x. Enough for playing a movie, but way too slow for ripping or whatever. DVD-Video (pressed) has also been tested with SmartRipper, but also: 2x max reading
Lets hope Sony will fix this issue with a firmwareupdate.
For this moment (and maybe forever) an additional DVD-Rom is not a bad idea.
DVD+RW
The last DVD read test: How does the drive read a DVD+RW disc? (The one which is included with the drive)
The drive reads DVD+RW disc at the same speed as it can write them: 2.5x. The error on the end is due to a bad record, i have screwed my DVD+RW and don't have another one to test it again
Sony DRU-500A - Recording CD-R
The drive has a recording speed of 24x. This is faster than the Philips, Pioneer, or any other DVD writer. Now the drive will be a real replacer for your current writer. The Pioneer for example records only at 8x, so you most likely will need/want an additional writer for the normal CDs. This Sony has solved this, by writing CD-R at 24x. Not as fast as the current recorders (40/48x) but most of the time fast enough.
Recording CD-R
Writing an image from the harddisk to a Platinum CDR (40x certified).
Writing goes ok. Nero (5.5.9.17) supports the drive. As you can see, the CD was finished in 3min 45.
Recording CD-R - CLV speed
See how the recorder actually records. (using Z-CLV)
As you can see above, the Sony DRU-500A writer uses Z-CLV to record a disk. Starting at 16x, going 20x, and finish the CD at 24x.
Recording CD-R - Overburning
What does the Sony DRU-500A think of big CDs? 90min, 99min, and even 100min? This test will see what it does. I used some white-label 100min CD-R for this test. Nero CDSpeed identicates the media as "Plasmon"
The drive is not good at overburning. As you can see, the Sony can only overburn up to 80.42.53... Not that much, but not a real problem.
Recording CDRW
The Sony is able to rewrite CDRWs at a speed of 10x using high-speed media.
Nero rewrites the disk at 10x without problems. The full cd is written at 10x.
Sony DRU-500A - Recording DVD-R / DVD-RW
The drive supports both DVD-R and DVD+R standards. At DVD-R, Sony supports up to 4x write speed.
Time to test the performance while recording DVD-R.
All tests are done by burning about 4.3Gb from another data-DVD in a LG 16x DVDRom. (Twilight 76). No image file is used, recordings are on-the-fly
The drive has a medialock. This means: The drive determines its max recording speed which should be used for the specific media. The Pioneer has also this lock, but with a hacked firmware you can force a recording at 2x, while the media isn't 2x approved. For the Sony... at the moment no hacked firmware.
Thats Write! DVD-R Spindel
As you can see, the drive detects the disc as a 1x DVD-R, and records it succesfully at 1x.
Princo 1-2x DVD-R DVD-Box
This disc is succesfully written at 2x.
I did also test some other media:
Nashua DVD-R
Thats Write! DVD-R DVD-Box
Arita DVD-R DVD-Box
They all recorded at 1x.... For this moment, the Princo DVD-R is the only one which is able to record at 2x.
I'm going to test more brands later this week, and hope to find some 4x media (if they are already available)
Recording DVD-RW
I don't have any DVD-RW disc at the moment, so this test will be added whenever i have them
since this alpha seems to be heavily optimized for the R300 aka ATI9700 (or more precisely: not optimized AT ALL for any other card) it might have been leaked on purpose so the FramesPerSecond-Whores (hello Kyle Bennett) out there run to the shops to get theit 9700 to play the shiny new Doom3.
or maybe it was leaked just in time for the NV30 to demonstrate that it does kick the 9700's butt in Doom3. sure it was leaked by an ATI employee?
the airplane pic is also faked.
hello i am agerman and i really cringe here about what this guy just told you. first class troll. please adjust his rating accordingly, thanks.
tomshardware als has some pages about Quakecon 2002.
Especially interesting is JC's keynote in which he, among other things, mentions that they will make special backends for nVIDIA/ATI/3DLabs chips but most likely not for Matrox/S3 chips!
it may be a cool thing, it looks like crap! i cant believe he put more than 2 hours into this.
vinyl is all about the FEELING. vinyl is sexy.
sometimes it makes sense to read the article before you comment. (i know the chance is smaller to get modded up ...). the article says:
Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM
jesus christ! 33cents per minute! sounds like you live in alaska :)
over here in europe you can buy cell phones with pre-paid cards (for about 70$ - card+phone) with about 30 free minutes included. then you can either recharge the card and if you choose not to you still can be called for 12months on that phone! so that costs you 0.00$! that kind of contract especially popular among kids here .
Name: John Carmack
Email:
Description: Programmer
Project:
June 25, 2002
-------------
The Matrox Parhelia Report:
The executive summary is that the Parhelia will run Doom, but it is not
performance competitive with Nvidia or ATI.
Driver issue remain, so it is not perfect yet, but I am confident that Matrox
will resolve them.
The performance was really disappointing for the first 256 bit DDR card. I
tried to set up a "poster child" case that would stress the memory subsystem
above and beyond any driver or triangle level inefficiencies, but I was
unable to get it to ever approach the performance of a GF4.
The basic hardware support is good, with fragment flexibility better than GF4
(but not as good as ATI 8500), but it just doesn't keep up in raw performance.
With a die shrink, this chip could probably be a contender, but there are
probably going to be other chips out by then that will completely eclipse
this generation of products.
None of the special features will be really useful for Doom:
The 10 bit color framebuffer is nice, but Doom needs more than 2 bits of
destination alpha when a card only has four texture units, so we can't use it.
Anti aliasing features are nice, but it isn't all that fast in minimum feature
mode, so nobody is going to be turning on AA. The same goes for "surround
gaming". While the framerate wouldn't be 1/3 the base, it would still
probably be cut in half.
Displacement mapping. Sigh. I am disappointed that the industry is still
pursuing any quad based approaches. Haven't we learned from the stellar
success of 3DO, Saturn, and NV1 that quads really suck? In any case, we can't
use any geometry amplification scheme (including ATI's truform) in conjunction
with stencil shadow volumes.
brilliant! :D
did daddy forget to fuck you up the ass tonight? thank you for your opinion, i appreciate it.
another quote from the same interview: Fans are very opinionated, and that's good. But I can't make a movie for fans
Lucas in a TIME interview: Fans are very opinionated, and that's good. But I can't make a movie for fans
CDs and sexy? you gotta be kidding me. they are fscking steril no emotion involved, nada.
vinyl however is sexy. when you put nice vinyl on your turntable that is a totally different experience than putting a cd in your cd-player.
especially because vinyl quality may become less over the years or if you don't threat them right.
vinyl lives. cd's are dead.