Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD Writer - Lite-On or NEC Design

[Ian]

Any thoughts on whether Sony Optiarc's 24x DVD writer is an NEC or Lite-On design? Initially I thought it was going to be based on the iHAS324 but it has features like Auto Strategy and Adaptive Self Tuning which were on the NEC based drives and not the Lite-On ones.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/News/sony-optiar ... riter.html
http://www.cdrlabs.com/Optical-Drives/S ... riter.html

[Dartman]

I'm hoping it's a NEC and that sounds like it very well may be. Always had good luck with their drives

[Scour]

I think it´s a Liteon. NEc don´t have a chipset for 22x-writers imho and Liteon is the first manufacturer that have 24x-writers showed.

And the newer Liteon have the emergency-hole over the eject-button, like this Sony. Last NEC-based drives have emergency-hole more on the left side

[Ian]

I should have one in the next week or so. As soon as I do, I'll find out.

[DrageMester]

I think it´s a Liteon. NEc don´t have a chipset for 22x-writers imho and Liteon is the first manufacturer that have 24x-writers showed.

NEC has 24x capable chipset for DVD burners:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/News/nec-electro ... iters.html

I'm not aware of definitive proof either way regarding the new Optiarc drives, whether they are NEC or MediaTek based.

[Ian]

I'm about 80% certain its an NEC design.

[Scour]

Still not sure, but I hope u r right because nobody needs rebadged Liteon that´s more expensive than the original.

And it let me hope that we see soon new Pioneer 24x

[DrageMester]

It's confirmed to be a NEC chipset design:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f86/nec-optiar ... ost2243352

[Scour]

Nice

Hope we will see this drive soon on market

[Ian]

I wish Optiarc would hurry up and ship mine. I'd like to get it before I have to head out to Redmond.

[Dartman]

Well I may have to give one a shot then, haven't had a NEC since my 4550/51 drive. They started playing with the hacked firmware to lock out certain cross flashes so I gave up on them for a while.
Pioneer uses the same chipset usually so my last NEC based drive was a Pioneer 111, it was a OK drive all around but my BenQ and LG were better in my opinion, though it did nicely to DL disks.
I don't know why we bother sometimes though, Blu ray is coming up and soon when those prices fall DVD burning to a dvd only burner may fade away, but I do like cheap new toys...

[SithTracy]

I'm not happy with DVD's or CD's for long term storage, and I fear Blu-ray will be much of the same.

[Dartman]

Well that may be true but hard drives aren't perfect either if you use em long term 5 years or more later they start to die. I've got stacks of DVD's I burned when I first got my dvd burners and some CD's too. ought to go through em now and see how some of the oldies are doing, of course most are just stacked in old cake boxes so not the best way to store but I just never tossed most of the first ones out.
One guy on Freaks all ready got his and did some test burns, nothing awful but not godlike yet either...
I went ahead and ordered one just a bit ago to feed my habit, hope it learns like the BenQ's did, got some great burns here and there with horrid media with them...

[Ian]

Any idea what chipset the drive uses? That picture is kind of blurry.

[Dartman]

It's their newest low power 24x chipset and it is a NEC chip. the press release you posted had something about or maybe it was the sony official site or something but it's latest gen chip and does everything but BD I guess.

[Ian]

The MC-10045?

[Ian]

According to Fedex, my drive should be here tomorrow.

I did get some info from Optiarc though. If you want to write at 24x, you'll need 16x rated media from Verbatim and TY.

[DrageMester]

If you want to write at 24x, you'll need 16x rated media from Verbatim and TY.

Not much of a surprise, I'd say.

[Ian]

Wow.. this thing is LOUD. 20x and 22x DVD writers are quiet in comparison.

[Ian]

Okay, Verbatim 16x DVD-R and DVD+R media is not supported at 24x. Only 20x.

[Ian]

I think I got a lemon. I can't get mine to write at 24x. Even if I select that speed, it tops out at only 20x.

[Dartman]

Well it may be deciding it doesn't like the media your using, if it truly learns maybe it has found it not good at anything faster.
My tracking says mine will be here the 30th but it's only 1 state away in California so they must be pushing the truck
Freaks is starting a thread that's for quality results, so far mostly good to very good, but everyone makes a lemon once and a while, hope yours isn't one of them.

[Ian]

Who knows... Optiarc is sending me another one though.

DVDInfoPro screenshot..

Optiarc AD-7240S DVDInfoPro.png (103.39 KiB) Viewed 13553 times

[Ian]

I tried the drive again at home and now it works fine. The system I had it in before was a fully loaded Dell Optiplex 760 so I'm wondering if it was an issue with something like AHCI, Vista or the fact that it was 64 bit. Screenshots coming later tonite...

[Ian]

Holy shit balls this thing is fast. Less than 4 minutes to burn a full DVD.

Optiarc AD-7240S CD Speed DVD-R Write WM.png (27.41 KiB) Viewed 13545 times