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External SONY DVD Burner and Sager 8887-X

post #1 of 33
2/28/03 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
Well, it came today. My DVD über-burner:

SONY DRX-500UL with the following specs:
2.0x DVD -RW
2.4x DVD +RW/+R
4.0x DVD -R
10x CD-RW
24x CD-R

Firewire & USB2.0 combo, external.

Came with (1) DVD+RW disc, manual/guides, cables, etc.

First impression: What CHEAP-ASS paper for the drive's quickstart and user guide! It's like NEWSPAPER stock!

The software quick-start guide is on normal paper stock, however.

Didn't use any of the software, and don't really plan on it... but here it is (in Sony's words):

RecordNow - RecordNow is a CD/DVD writing application that makes it easy to create your own CD's and DVD's! Just follow the instructions in the wizard.

DLA - DLA allows you to use your CD recorder as you would a floppy or hard disc drive. Open the explorer and Drag and drop files and folders directly to the drive letter. Get DLA from the web site. Please click download bottom.
(yes, that's how it is written! - except for the moon...)

Veritas Simple Backup - Simple Backup makes it easy to backup and restore your system. Backup and restore your whole OS or simply files and folders.

MUSICMATCH - Sony version of MUSICMATCH Jukebox offers exciting new ways for listeners to play music in various format, create custom CDs, discover new artists, and organize and customize their music experience. (This version of Jukebox does not support MP3 encoding function. Please refer to MusicMatch web site for other software download).
(yes, grammatical errors included!)

MyDVD - With its wizard-based Direct-to-DVD recording, drag-and-drop DVD design, motion-video menus, DVD photo slideshows, and easy video editing, MyDVD provides the tools needed to make professional quality DVDs. Send video clips to ArcSoft ShowBiz to remove unwanted scenes, add special effects, and enhance videos with music, sound effects and narration.

PowerDVD - CyberLink PowerDVD features unrivaled functions allowing users to view high quality video and media-rich DVD contents on the personal computer. Together with its robust hardware integration and compatibility, as well as low CPU consumption, PowerDVD offers higherst performance video playback.
(yep, "higherst")

I like the totally crippled MusicMatch... I didn't even know that existed. Why the hell have MM if it doesn't do MP3's? This should go on the Worst-Ever thread in the off-topic section. Who's surprised a music company giant would thwart mp3's in any way possible?

Needless to say, I plugged the power in, plugged the firewire in (I will not ever use the USB2.0, most likely), and turned the drive on....
Edit: Even though the drive has it's own power supply, it does not power the Firewire bus!

No sound-notification (that I heard) or anything... I though, "Hmmm that's odd, it didn't do a new hardware found or anything..." then I went to Device Manager, and sitting in the DVD/CD-ROM drives section was "SONY iLINK DRIVE IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device"

Cool! Fire up NERO... selected the DVD, and it was all working like the drive had always been there! I love firewire.

I'll see about getting some pictures up tomorrow (I'll e-mail them to Adam tonight/tomorrow morning) with it, as well as continue the review and how it does with my Hybrid 8887-X.

Sorry for the teaser, will post more shortly!

-myrkat
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post #2 of 33
3/3/03 at 1:32pm
just curious.
why going for the external sony DVD burner when sager released an internal one a few days ago???
was your choice influenced by the fact that MS join the DVD+ group (or whatever they call it) a few weeks ago???
thanks




d.
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post #3 of 33
3/3/03 at 2:03pm
Have you tried burning at the 4x speeds ? WHat different speeds/times have you tried ?
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post #4 of 33
3/3/03 at 3:29pm
Thread Starter 

no pictures, but more info

I have burned -R +R, -RW and +RW (basically everything but the CDR/RW!)

1x is very slow, IMHO
2x is not bad
4x is managable

Mainly this is because the times are similar as CD burning (4x will burn a disc in around 20 minutes or so), I guess it's MUCH MORE impressive than CDR simply because the AMOUNT of data in the same time (say, 15 minutes) is LOADS different.

Coolest thing was firing up NERO and selecting the DVD option, then seeing the space-graph-thing at the bottom of the screen (advanced mode) go from 0 to 5000MB instead of the 0 to 800MB for CDR.

I chose the SONY for two main reasons:
1) It burns EVERYTHING, no worries.
2) It is external
3) It is Firewire.

OK, THREE... three reasons are:
Burns everything, external, firewire, and USB2.0

FOUR... four reasons...

Jeeze, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition

The sager internal is not as fast nor as portable (ironically). As I can use my desktop (or anyone's desktop/laptop that has firewire/usb2.0).

The price was only slightly higher than the sager internal option (I paid $426 including the tax and shipping!)

-myrkat
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post #5 of 33
3/3/03 at 4:44pm
I have a question about firewire... some people say the firewire port is "not powered." What does that mean, and what do I do about it? How will that affect me? Thanks, I've never used firewire!
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post #6 of 33
3/3/03 at 5:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by atbear
I have a question about firewire... some people say the firewire port is "not powered." What does that mean, and what do I do about it? How will that affect me? Thanks, I've never used firewire!
The firewire ports in LAPTOPS are not powered. Desktop's have powered firewire.

What this means: Well, like USB and PS/2, devices which connect to Firewire ports can get power (electricity) directly through the same cable as the data transfers, thus eliminating the need for a power supply / plug. This is both clean and convenient (only 1 cable needed!)

However, many external devices have their own power sources anyway. For devices that don't need an external power source (or it's optional, like the 2.5" HD enclosures) they will not be "turned on" when connected to a laptop unless they are given power from somewhere else (like another external device with it's own power source, or a PS/2 power-tap).

-myrkat
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post #7 of 33
3/3/03 at 6:46pm
All apple laptops ship with POWERED firewire.
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post #8 of 33
3/3/03 at 8:27pm
If you used the USB2 option for the drive, would it be powered? Have you tried that?

In this case, USB2 would not make a difference in terms of speed because the drive itself is only capable of a certain speed and that speed is less than the theoretical max for both firewire and USB2.

Glad to hear you got this drive... I would get it if I had the money, lol. It sounds sweet!
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post #9 of 33
3/5/03 at 3:18am
Quote:
Originally posted by BazooDJG
All apple laptops ship with POWERED firewire.

What is this "a" word you speak of? thats devil-speak where i come from :-P

anyways good choice, i wouldnt get the internal sager DVD burner, if im going to spend that much money on a dvd-ram drive i want it to kick some arse, and that firewire is rather handy, i've been considering the internal one, but maybe it'd be worth it to have the external, easy to get some files from a friend and such.....hrm *thinks* theers a big difference though, 330 for the internal, 100 more for portability? i guess i can see this being worth it, yeah, instead of transferring the 5 gigs from my laptop to my desktop then burning i could directly burn off my laptop...and same with friends computers....ya know, you may have just made me spend an extra $100 DARN YOU!!!!
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post #10 of 33
3/5/03 at 2:37pm
I agree about that... I would rather have the drive that can be used on any computer with a firewire or USB port.. USB1 or 2, lol, which means that you can use it on even old as heck systems still on Windows 95 if you can get the USB to work properly :-) That's one of the biggest problems I had when moving files from my old computer to my new one... The system had no NIC, no burner, no zip drive... so I had to transfer files over the internet by email if they were too big to fit on disks (in other words I used attachments) and otherwise I had to use floppy disks... 40 disks. Actually, it was just a few disks but I used them multiple times. Not fun. NOT fun. :-)
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post #11 of 33
3/6/03 at 1:36am

Re: no pictures, but more info

Quote:
Originally posted by myrkat
I have burned -R +R, -RW and +RW (basically everything but the CDR/RW!)

1x is very slow, IMHO
2x is not bad
4x is managable

Mainly this is because the times are similar as CD burning (4x will burn a disc in around 20 minutes or so), I guess it's MUCH MORE impressive than CDR simply because the AMOUNT of data in the same time (say, 15 minutes) is LOADS different.


-myrkat
Yeah dvd write speeds are calculated differently than cd write speeds dvd speeds are 9x higher
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post #12 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:23am
Heck i would consider 1x DVD write speeds to be fast as anything, i mean c'mon taking 5 gigs of data and putting it into the palm of your hand to take over to your friends house in an hour...thats pretty darn impressive, or backing up files before a format, no longer need to organize stuff into 700 MB packets, just throw it all in...i can't wait, still, darn you for putting that idea of firewire into my head....argh
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post #13 of 33
3/6/03 at 2:08pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by Mellman99
Heck i would consider 1x DVD write speeds to be fast as anything, i mean c'mon taking 5 gigs of data and putting it into the palm of your hand to take over to your friends house in an hour...thats pretty darn impressive, or backing up files before a format, no longer need to organize stuff into 700 MB packets, just throw it all in...i can't wait, still, darn you for putting that idea of firewire into my head....argh
I would agree were it not for external firewire HDs... I carry 40GB in my shirt pocket, and it writes a lot quicker.

However, in those rare occasions that someone doesn't have firewire, the DVD is sweet. My next project is to put all the Futurama episodes on DVD w/ menu's, etc. (like I have for Family Guy).

-myrkat
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post #14 of 33
3/6/03 at 2:25pm
Yeah, just out of curiosity where did you get it? I found it on pricewatc for 380 shipped, not much difference with the 425. As for the firewire enclosures, since the hard drive enclosures just use an IDE drive, would it make sense that i could buy an internal DRU-500a, and use it in a firewire/usb 2.0 enclosure? makes sense to me but not sure if there's anything different, or if it would even save me any money.
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post #15 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:03pm
That would work... You just need to make sure you get an enclosure that will fit a 5.25 inch drive and has an open face so you can put dvds into it, lol. Some enclosures are made to only hold hard drives (the face is closed because there's no need to have it open). Best of luck to you!
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post #16 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:06pm
Quote:
My next project is to put all the Futurama episodes on DVD w/ menu's, etc. (like I have for Family Guy).
DUDE!! Would you make a copy of that for me???? I love both!
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post #17 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:29pm
yeah i actually found ide-firewire converters online for like 40 bucks, so i figure i can just make an enclosure out of plexiglass, might even look kinda cool! (i made my case out of plexiglass all custom, so it could match up)
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post #18 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by Mellman99
yeah i actually found ide-firewire converters online for like 40 bucks, so i figure i can just make an enclosure out of plexiglass, might even look kinda cool! (i made my case out of plexiglass all custom, so it could match up)
The $425 was for the external drive, they (www.newegg.com) had the internal for $360 or something. I figure a decent external 5.25" enclosure would cost about $80 or so (plus the Sony has USB2.0 and Firewire AND is quite attractive).

It was close, and I do have several external enclosures that are firewire, but I thought I'd just fork over the extra for Sony's external case.

-myrkat

PS: NO I will not share... there's LOTS of GB worth, too big to just put up on FTP... Look for them, they are "out there"
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post #19 of 33
3/6/03 at 3:50pm
How many DVDs are they on (Family Guy)?
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post #20 of 33
3/6/03 at 4:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by atbear
How many DVDs are they on (Family Guy)?
Five.

Some have pretty lousy (lossy!) compression, however, they are unedited versions (i.e. some have cursing).

-myrkat
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