The most recent articles from PC Magazine

LiteOn SDW-431SX

Simon Crisp — 2004-06-07T14:26:11.000Z

Simon Crisp, PC Magazine, Monday 7 June 2004 at 14:26:11

A compact and lightweight DVD burner.

If you're looking for a easily portable DVD burner, or you're a mobile user whose notebook doesn't have a DVD burner option, then LiteOn's Dual format SDW-431SX should fit the bill nicely.

The unit weighs a meagre 600g including the diminutive power supply and is small enough to fit into a large pocket, including the power supply, so carrying it around presents no problem.

The SDW-431SX uses a USB2.0 interface, has a 2MB buffer and burns both DVD-R and DVD+R discs at 4X while the DVD-RW and DVD+RW performance is a slower 2X. It reads DVD-ROMs at 8X, while its CD/R/RW performance is rated at 24X 10X 24X.

Built into the SDW-431SX is Smart-Burn technology, which provides buffer underrun protection, and Smart-X technology, which provides stable audio CD, VCD and DVD playback as well as smooth data extraction.

Bundled with the drive is a copy of Sonic's MyDVD Suite and Cyberlink's PowerDVD, plus a disc in both the 4X DVD-R and DVD+R format.

Contact: Micro Direct (0870) 444 4456

www.microdirect.co.uk

Asus DRW-0402P/D Dual Format DVD burner

PC Magazine Team — 2004-02-04T15:43:47.000Z

PC Magazine Team, PC Magazine, Wednesday 4 February 2004 at 15:43:47

A dual format DVD burner from ASUS.

The latest product in Asus' lineup of optical drives is the dual format DRW-0402P/D internal DVD burner. As with the vast majority of optical drives it comes with a 2MB buffer and a quoted access time of 140ms for DVD-ROM. The drive writes DVD+R and -R discs at 4X speed and re-writes DVD+RW at 2.4X, while DVD-RW discs are burned at 2X. DVD-ROM performance is 12X while the CD-R/RW performance is a little on the slow side at 16X/10X/32X.

Bundled with the drive are just two pieces of media: a 4X DVD-R and a 52X CD-R. The burning software is a surprise, not the usual Nero suite, but Sonic's Record Now and Sonic DLA. You also get copies of Ulead Movie Factory and the Asus DVD player.

Contact: Dabs

www.dabs.com

Philips DVD CD-Rewriter Combi

Roger Kirkwood — 2002-06-20T11:22:25.000Z

Roger Kirkwood, PC Magazine, Thursday 20 June 2002 at 11:22:25

A high-performance combination drive.

The Philips DVD CD-Rewriter Combi is a drive that reads and rewrites CD media and reads DVDs.

The drive's main interest is provided by blue LEDs and a 3.5cm strip that illuminates in blue when reading and orange when writing. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack and thumb wheel volume control, while the large eject button has blue highlights and a manual eject hole. It's bundled with Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum for CD authoring, power and E-IDE connecting cables.

Philips has included two technologies to help ensure successful writes to CD-R/RW media. It has Seamless Link buffer underrun protection to go along with its 2Mb buffer, as well as a newer technology called Thermo Balanced Writing.

This does a test burn on CD-R media and analyses the result, altering the laser power and write speed accordingly. In this way, Philips claims that the drive can adjust to varying media quality.

Although it's a combination drive, the device's performance is not compromised.

A CDRom WinBench 99 score of 1,870 puts it ahead of AOpen's CRW2440, a 24/10/40 CD-RW drive. The maximum transfer rate of 3,610Kbps and access time of 86.4ms are also impressive.

However, it's very noisy, to the extent that it could prove distracting during quiet DVD-Video scenes.

Price £183.48 (ex. VAT)

Specifications:

Read speed: 40X

Write speed: 20X

Rewrite speed: 10X

DVD read speed: 12X

Software: Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum.

Contact: Philips 0800 896 324

www.philips.co.uk

Panasonic DVD Movie Studio

Laurence Grayson — 2002-06-18T14:20:57.000Z

Laurence Grayson, PC Magazine, Tuesday 18 June 2002 at 14:20:57

A complete solution for capturing, editing and DVD authoring at an attractive price.

Panasonic's DVD Movie Studio is a collection of hardware and software that offers a complete solution to digital video (DV) camera users. It comes with an IEEE 1394 interface card, a DVD-RAM/R drive and a set of applications for capture, edit and output.

However, there are limitations to both the hardware and software that should be considered before purchasing this system.

The supplied OHCI-compliant IEEE 1394 card is relatively nondescript. It uses a 32-bit PCI slot and provides three six-pin ports (two external and one internal) for connecting DV cameras or other IEEE 1394 devices.

The capture software supports analogue video input, but you'll need to add your own analogue I/O card if you don't already have one.

Panasonic has chosen its own drive, the LF-D311DMS, as the DVD recorder for this system. Unlike DVD-RW or +RW drives, which can write and rewrite to both DVD and CD rewriteable media, the LF-D311DMS is a DVD-RAM/R drive.

This means that the rewriteable media is limited to DVD-R (4.7Gb general) and DVD-Ram discs (up to 9.4Gb). There's no CD-R support. It's also slower than newer rewriteable DVD products, with 6X DVD-Rom reads, 24X CDRom reads and only 1X (1,350Kbps) for DVD-R writes.

With that said, you're less likely to experience compatibility problems with DVD-Rom or consumer DVD players with the DVD-R media this drive supports, while DVD-Rams are highly suited to archival and system backup roles, as they can be overwritten up to 100,000 times and offer full drag-and-drop file copying.

Rather than using a single application for capture, edit and DVD-authoring (like Ulead Systems' VideoStudio 6.0), Panasonic has enclosed two separate packages.

The first is Pinnacle Systems' Studio SE 7.06 which covers capture, edit and export to file, with Pinnacle Express 1.03 covering the DVD-authoring stage of your project. Studio SE follows a familiar format, with a fixed resolution workspace providing a linear workflow from capture to output.

Unlike some batch capture utilities, it doesn't create separate AVI files from the time code information of your DV tape, but captures a single continuous file.

Start and finish points from scenes within this clip are stored as sub-clips in the library pane, allowing thumbnails to be dropped onto the clip sorter or the more conventional timeline view, which also includes tracks for audio, title, narration and background music.

You can record your own narrative or rip CD audio tracks onto the timeline, as well as adjust gain for each audio channels, with rubber band control for controlling audio fades.

A wide range of transitions are included as standard, including 74 standard transitions, 52 alpha key effects and 16 3D effects. The biggest limitation of Studio SE is the lack of certain key features, including timeline track locking, all-colour and contrast correction, as well as speed and strobe adjustment.

Once finished, you can export the project back to your DV camera or save it as an AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, RealMedia or Windows Media file. What you can't do is create DVD-Video files and folders for burning directly to DVD-R with the supplied Prassi PrimoDVD burning software, nor can you transfer your project timeline directly to Pinnacle Express.

Instead, you must use it to capture directly from camera or import an AVI created with Studio SE 7.06, so you'll have rendered your project twice before burning it to DVD, which is time consuming.

The pre-set menu pages are fairly basic and might not appeal to serious users. You can use Pinnacle Express to merge clips or change thumbnails, but you can't add background music, an intro or customise the menus with images or layouts of your own.

Although the supplied hardware is sound, it's let down by the choice of editing and authoring software. That said, Panasonic's DVD Movie Studio provides a complete solution for capturing, editing and DVD authoring at an attractive price.

Price: £382.97 (ex. VAT)

Minimum requirements: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP; 350MHz Pentium; 64Mb Ram; 300Mb hard drive space.

Contact: Panasonic 0870 535 7357

www.panasonic-industrial.com

Odixion Uno DigiCopier

Alex Cruickshank — 2002-06-11T11:58:10.000Z

Alex Cruickshank, PC Magazine, Tuesday 11 June 2002 at 11:58:10

Copy up to 12 CDs per hour with no connection to a host PC.

Even with the latest burn-proof CD-RW drives, CD duplication using a PC can be time consuming. At the very least, it ties up the host PC, which isn't a problem when creating original content or the occasional duplication, but is unsuitable for larger copy runs.

Anyone needing to distribute software samples or documents and images to several people will find a standalone CD duplicator like this is more appropriate.

The Odixion Uno DigiCopier consists of a 16-speed Burn-proof CD-RW drive and a Plextor UltraPlex 40-speed CDRom drive housed in a metal case with an LCD and a selection of buttons. It can be used to copy up to 12 CDs per hour with no connection to a host PC, although a SCSI interface is provided.

The duplicator belongs to the robust school of engineering design. It weighs 4.5kg and is constructed from thick metal sheeting. Much of the weight is accounted for by the built-in mains power supply. It's also easy to use.

Inserting an original CD into the reader and a blank CD-R or CD-RW into the writer will initiate the copying process. There's no need to even press a button although, if you want to simulate the write process first to check for errors, this can be done. The Verify button will, once the copy process has finished, check that the copied CD matches the original.

Other than the noise from the built-in cooling fan, the unit is unobtrusive in use. It ejects each finished CD and starts copying again when a new one is inserted. Other features include a CD-RW erase button and a fit button, which will squeeze oversized audio CDs onto standard 74-minute media.

In addition to the built-in 2Mb data buffer and 512Kb in the reader, the unit's motherboard has an extra 16Mb of memory. This has no effect when a SCSI adapter is attached to the unit, though. At that point, the motherboard's features are disabled and the machine acts simply as a CDRom and CD-RW drive with two separate SCSI identifiers.

What this unit lacks is the ability to create localised CD images and copy them at high speed without leaving the original in the drive. This feature is available in two of the other models in the range: the DigiCopier Quatro (£2,089 ex. VAT) and Octavo (£2,379 ex. VAT).

For short duplication runs, the Uno is a dependable solution. If you need more copies at a time, though, the Quatro or Octavo might be a better option.

Price: £799.99 (ex. VAT)

Specification:

CDRom speed: 40X

CD-RW recording speed: 16X

Number of copies per hour: 12

I/O: SCSI, 2x3.5mm headphones

Media compatibility: CD-R, CD-RW, 8cm CD-R Business Card CD-R

Contact: Odixion 0033 233 890 500

www.odixion.com

AOpen RW5120A

Laurence Grayson — 2002-05-24T10:49:44.000Z

Laurence Grayson, PC Magazine, Friday 24 May 2002 at 10:49:44

The RW5120A is an attractive product with a good collection of utilities.

The AOpen RW5120A is one of the latest DVD+RW drives to hit the market and is a rebadged version of the Ricoh MP5120A. As such, it shares the same specification, as well as the advantages, of the DVD+RW format.

The rear panel contains the familiar collection of analogue and digital audio, E-IDE and power connectors, while the front is a light grey fascia that contains a 35mm headphone socket and thumbwheel volume control.

Like all DVD+RWs, it uses constant linear velocity operation with a maximum write speed of 2.4-speed for DVD+RW media, equivalent to 3.32Mbps, while constant angular velocity is used for reads, allowing the AOpen RW5120A to reach 32-speed on CDRoms.

Our tests showed erratic performance at higher speeds, which is probably due to the different firmware of this drive. High-speed CD-Rs can be written at up to 12-speed, with CD-RW rewrites up to 10-speed.

A 2Mb internal write buffer works with JustLink buffer underrun prevention during CD writes to avoid data corruption.

As the RW5120A is a DVD+RW drive, it uses a higher frequency track wobble than DVDRam and DVD-RW formats. This allows for data positioning to within 1nm and quick formatting (where only a portion of the disc is formatted) without losing compatibility. By comparison, DVD-RWs need to be formatted entirely before use.

One 24-speed CD-R, one 10-speed CD-RW and one 2.4-speed DVD+RW are supplied.

Bundled software includes CyberLink's PowerDVD and PowerDirector for video editing and DVD-Video playback, Nero 5 and InCD, as well as Ulead System's DVD PictureShow.

AOpen's RW5120A is an attractive product with a good collection of utilities, but its shaky CDRom read performance takes the edge off an otherwise strong product.

Price: (as reviewed, ex. VAT) £388.99

Contact: Dabs.com (distributor) 0870 429 3010

www.aopen.com

Hewlett Packard DVD 100i

Laurence Grayson — 2002-05-23T13:46:27.000Z

Laurence Grayson, PC Magazine, Thursday 23 May 2002 at 13:46:27

A flexible, well-rounded internal DVD+RW drive with a full set of utilities.

Hewlett Packard is a recent recruit of the DVD+RW development group, but has wasted no time in bringing to market a drive using this standard. Its product, the DVD 100i, is an internal drive with an ATAPI interface that provides rewriteable functionality on DVD and CD-based media.

A comprehensive manual and quick installation guide are provided, as well as a video on the driver CDRom to further clarify installation.

Screws and cabling are included, as well as one DVD+RW and drivers for Windows 98, ME and 2000 (Windows XP has built-in support). The drive's grey bezel is unlikely to match non-HP PCs, but has more character than most, with a blue eject stud alongside the 35mm headphone socket and thumbwheel volume control.

The drive writes DVD+RW media at 2.4-speed (maximum 3.32Mbps), which is a step above the 2-speed write speed of DVD-R drives on branded media.

It reads DVD-Roms at 8-speed, while CDRom handling is equally impressive at a read of 32-speed. The CD-RW functions are slower, though.

The software bundle is comprehensive and helps to justify the difference in price between this and other DVD+RW drives. In addition to CyberLink's PowerDVD, utilities such as RecordNow, Simple Backup, MyDVD and Drive Letter Access allow the DVD 100i to be used for data and audio disc burning, system archival and packet writing.

For connection to your soundcard, both analogue and S/PDIF connectors are provided, but the box only contains an analogue cable. If you're concerned with DVD+RW's potential incompatibility with DVD-Rom drives and consumer players, a list of compatible products can be viewed at HP's website.

While the DVD 100i is a well-rounded product there are less pricey DVD+RW drives available that are faster at writing CD-RWs.

Price: (as reviewed ex. VAT) £424.68

Contact: Hewlett Packard 0990 474 747

www.hp.co.uk

LaCie StudioDrive CD-RW

Jonathan Bennett — 2002-05-21T13:32:48.000Z

Jonathan Bennett, PC Magazine, Tuesday 21 May 2002 at 13:32:48

A removeable media drive for both Macintosh and PC owners.

Both Macintosh and PC owners can use the LaCie StudioDrive CD-RW USB 2.0 removeable media drive. It's supplied with software for both platforms, but isn't really portable enough to move between offices comfortably.

While you can get the same features and performance for less money using an internal drive, the ability to swap this unit between systems is its greatest strength.

The drive is rated at 24-speed write, 10-speed rewrite and 40-speed read.

You'll need a USB 2.0 interface to achieve these speeds, though, since the limited bandwidth of USB 1.1 prevents the drive working at full pace: only four-speed write, four-speed rewrite and six-speed read are possible.

The drive features BURN-Proof technology to prevent buffer underruns, so even if you have a slower USB 1.1 interface, or other peripherals attached to it, you shouldn't get failed disc writes.

BURN-Proof works by stopping writing if it looks like the drive's internal buffer is about to empty, but at a more convenient point than if the drive waited until the buffer emptied.

The styling of the device is identical to others in La Cie's StudioDrive range, so it can stack up with other units. The front panel features an open button and it drops down when the drive tray opens.

This leaves you unable to press the button again, so you'll have to push the drive tray to close it. If you remove the outer front panel completely, you get access to the front panel of the drive inside, which includes a headphone socket and LEDs that indicate read and write activity.

Power and USB cables are supplied, as well as a blank CD-R and a CD-RW. A copy of Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5 Basic for the PC and Toast for the Mac also accompany the drive. Easy CD Creator includes a CD-copying utility and CD-RW formatting software.

The StudioDrive CD-RW provides an easy way of adding rewriteable media capabilities to your PC without opening its case. However, it's too bulky if you need a portable device and its performance is bettered by most of its rivals.

Price: (as reviewed, ex. VAT) £209.99

Contact: LaCie 020 7872 8000

www.lacie.co.uk

Plextor PlexWriter S88TU

Mark Fowler-Child — 2002-05-17T10:28:10.000Z

Mark Fowler-Child, PC Magazine, Friday 17 May 2002 at 10:28:10

Plextor's first portable CD-RW drive is ideal to share between desktop PCs in different locations.

The Plexwriter S88TU is Plextor's first portable CD-RW drive. Housed in an attractive silver case little larger than two stacked CD jewel cases (2 by 14 by 17cm) and weighing just under 500g, the S88TU makes an ideal travelling companion.

It has a USB 2.0 interface and supports 24-speed read, 8-speed write and 8-speed rewrite. However, if your system is only equipped with USB 1.1, this drops to 6-speed read and 4-speed write and rewrite. It has its own 2Mb buffer and also incorporates BURN-Proof technology. The drive includes a headphone socket and a hardware volume control.

Power is supplied via a palm-sized mains adapter and the drive comes with a blank CD-R, a blank CD-RW, documentation and a utilities CDRom.

The utility supplied is PlexTools, a useful program that will interrogate and identify your system's IDE, SCSI and USB buses and any storage devices connected to them. A copy of Nero 5.0 is also included.

The S88TU's performance was average when we tested it with a variety of media, but its small size makes it very easy to transport. It would be an ideal drive to share between desktop PCs in different locations.

Price: (as reviewed, ex. VAT) £219.99

Contact: Computer 2000 (distributor)

01256 463 344

www.plextor.be

LaCie Network CD Box

Matthew Moore — 2002-04-24T10:24:26.000Z

Matthew Moore, PC Magazine, Wednesday 24 April 2002 at 10:24:26

An excellent way for multiple users to access CD information over a network.

Lacie's Network CD Box is designed to allow you to access CD content via a network, without the trouble of locating commonly used CDs for individual machines. It could be useful if you're a small to medium-sized business that needs to install and update software from CD-ROM. It would also fit well in a small document management system.

The product comprises of a 40-speed CD-ROM with a headphone jack, rotary volume control and eject button. Rather than read a single CD-ROM from the drive, images are cached to a 60GB hard disk drive. There's also an LCD that shows system and user information.

LEDs indicate power, activity and network status, while there's also a six-button control panel with four cursor keys, and select and enter buttons.

Upon connecting the Network CD Box to a 10/100Base-T network, it selects its IP address via DHCP, although you can disable this and enter another if required. You can also enable/disable the Server Message Block (SMB) master.

Other functions available from the front fascia are the ability to delete or retrieve information about the images stored on the hard disk drive - whether they're a public or a private share, HFS, ISO 9660 or hybrid images.

You can also view and change the name of the server, version of the Linux kernel (2.2.17 on our review unit), BIOS and application versions. You can also shut down the system from the front.

You can administer the system via a web browser by entering the box's IP number. This lets you set up user and administrator accounts and duplicates the network and server information accessible via the front panel. You can also update or change the archiving application resident on the device.

In general, the interface is easy to navigate, the only point of confusion being that the small icons next to items in the menu are clickable in some screens and purely informational in others.

Support for network protocols is wide - you can set the SMB server name and string, as well as stipulating whether the Network CD Box is an SMB master. In the HTTP screen, you can set the port to be used, timeout and the maximum number of clients. It also supports AppleTalk, so is suitable for mixed environments. The only problem is that its fan and CD-ROM drive are noisy.

Any client systems wanting to access the CD-ROM server must map it to a logical drive or access it via network places to view data, although there are some restrictions.

The Network CD Box provides an excellent way for multiple users to access CD information over a network. It comes complete with a power cable, RJ-45 Ethernet cable and three CD-ROMs containing System Software 1.0, a user's manual and Check Disk 1.0. It's also backed by a one-year, swap-out warranty.

Contact

LaCie: 46 Gillingham Street, London SW1V 1HU

Tel 020 7872 8000, Fax 020 7233 8338

www.lacie.co.uk

Teac CD-W28PU

Alex Cruickshank — 2002-04-19T10:20:01.000Z

Alex Cruickshank, PC Magazine, Friday 19 April 2002 at 10:20:01

Speed, portability and compatibility.

Teac's USB 2.0 CD-RW drive is one of the slimmest and lightest we've seen - its dimensions (132 by 15 by 146mm and 250g) aren't much bigger than those of a CD jewel case. The USB 2.0 specification means it's fast too, rated at 8-speed write, 8-speed re-write and 24-speed read.

Although compact, and accompanied by one of the shortest USB cables available, it requires an external mains adapter (supplied), which hints at the extra power required by high-speed USB 2.0 drives such as this.

That aside, the CD-W28PU works well. There's a line-out port for audio and the two LEDs tell you all you need to know about the drive's operating status.

When used with USB 1.1 connections the performance of the drive falls considerably. The maximum it will achieve in read mode is 6-speed, while write or re-write operations are limited to 4-speed.

The 110ms claimed access time means read operations are swift, while the drive's Write Proof system prevents loss of data through buffer under-runs.

The drive comes with applications that include CD-ROM benchmark tools, a 'virtual CD' utility, drivers for all key operating systems and firmware upgrades.

Despite the annoying necessity for an external power transformer, this is a well-built drive that combines speed, portability and compatibility with older PCs.

TEAC 5 Marlin House, The Croxley Centre, Watford, Hertfordshire WD18 8TE (01923) 819630 Fax (01923) 236290 www.teac.co.uk

Plextor PlexWriter 24/10/40U

Alex Cruickshank — 2002-04-18T13:42:25.000Z

Alex Cruickshank, PC Magazine, Thursday 18 April 2002 at 13:42:25

A reliable external USB 2.0 CD-RW drive.

Although this is an external USB 2.0 CD-RW drive, it isn't really portable. It's a conventional 5.25in ATAPI CD-RW drive contained within a metal and rubber case.

It connects to the host PC via the USB 2.0 interface and has a read/write mechanism that's rated at 24-speed write, 10-speed rewrite and 40-speed read. There's a socket at the back for the mains power connector, along with an on/off switch, as well as a pair of audio output connectors that can be used, if you have the right cable, to play audio CDs.

The headphone socket and volume control sit at the front, along with an activity LED and eject button.

Although the quoted speeds are only valid when the CD-RW drive is connected to a USB 2.0 host system, it can be used on older USB 1.1 machines. But operating speeds will drop to 4-speed write, 4-speed rewrite and 6-speed read.

Most CD formats are supported and there's a 4MB data buffer plus BURN-proofing to help prevent loss of data during the write process. The access time of 140ms is respectable for read operations. Ahead Software's Nero 5.5 authoring software is also supplied.

If you're after a reliable external USB 2.0 CD-RW drive backed by a two-year RTB warranty, and aren't too concerned about portability, then Plextor's PlexWriter 24/10/40U should fit the bill perfectly.

Contact

Distributed by Computer 2000: Hampshire House, Wade Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 8NE

Tel 01256 463344, Fax 01256 479461

www.plextor.be