In House Review - Sony DRU-500A Dual RW DVD±RW

[VEFF]

You are all talking about the neat features on the DRU-500A

None of you are talking about the DRU-500As incompatibility and failure to work with all brands of media except sony, tdk and kodak

THIS DRIVE IS REALLY NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

You should be careful about posting incorrect information and making such a strong statement in all caps!

I own the drive and have personally burned 2 types of media that you didn't mention:
(Prodisc 2X and DVDPro 1X (DVDPro is actually not supposed to work).
All four types of media I had on hand (TDK, Prodisc, DVDPro and Sony) worked. I didn't have any others to test...

The following media are reported to have successfully been used with the DRU-500A (list from vcdhelp.com forums):
Note that Princo, while on the list, is not supported according to the vendor
I ordered my Prodiscs from.
Then again I have burned DVDPro (which is on the INcompatible list)
successfully.
Maybe it was the software, since many people who got coasters with Nero 5.5.9.15 are now getting good burns on the SAME media with 5.5.9.17

Sony DVD+RW (included with drive)
Sony DVD-RW
Sony DVD-R
Memorex DVD+RW
Accu DVD-R
BEALL DVD-R
Princo DVD-R
Verbatim DVD-R
TDK DVD-R
TDK DVD+RW
TDK DVD-RW
Fuji DVD+RW
Verbatim DVD+R
CompUSA DVD-R
Imation DVD-R
GQ DVD-R
LAC DVD-R
Meritline DVD+RW
Ritek DVD-R
Prodisc 2X DVD-R

So that is a heck of a lot more than the 3 brands you mention

I am not saying the drive is perfect, and indeed Sony could maybe have made the drive compatible with some of the cheap media that is not on the list. (Still Ritek, which works, is reasonably priced; and the very cheap Princo is on the list, although I have my doubts about Princo).
The vendor is sending me one free sample od Princo 2X with my Prodisc order, so I can test it for him (and for me).
Also some types of Memorex don't seem to work too well. Then again those may have been burned with the old Nero.

[Kennyshin]

Another Sony DRU-500A review by a VCDHelp.com forum member.

http://www.djsmiley.com/review_sony/

[DVDepressed]

It only writes the three most expensive brands... ask sony!

[quote="Ian"]The drives primary use is to write DVD's and it does that well. Reading DVD's.. that could have been better, but the drive's specs made this pretty clear so this should be a surprise to anyone.

When reading and writing CD's, its definitely not in the same class as some of the CD-RW drives out there. If you're comparing the drive's reading, writing or DAE speeds to one of those drives, the DRU-500A will be blown away every time. However, if you compare it to the current crop of DVD+RW and DVD-RW drives, its performance definitely earns an 8.[/quote]

[DVDepressed]

I stand by my statement - I blew through $50 worth of memorex and maxell disks before sony would admit they only spec it to work with TDK sony and kodak disks. Any others are just luck.

Take it back for a refund and buy a memorex drive - never saw any post about it rejecting any brands.

[quote="VEFF"][quote="DVDepressed"]You are all talking about the neat features on the DRU-500A

None of you are talking about the DRU-500As incompatibility and failure to work with all brands of media except sony, tdk and kodak

THIS DRIVE IS REALLY NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME [/quote]

You should be careful about posting incorrect information and making such a strong statement in all caps!

I own the drive and have personally burned 2 types of media that you didn't mention:
(Prodisc 2X and DVDPro 1X (DVDPro is actually not supposed to work).
All four types of media I had on hand (TDK, Prodisc, DVDPro and Sony) worked. I didn't have any others to test...

The following media are reported to have successfully been used with the DRU-500A (list from vcdhelp.com forums):
Note that Princo, while on the list, is not supported according to the vendor
I ordered my Prodiscs from.
Then again I have burned DVDPro (which is on the INcompatible list)
successfully.
Maybe it was the software, since many people who got coasters with Nero 5.5.9.15 are now getting good burns on the SAME media with 5.5.9.17

Sony DVD+RW (included with drive)
Sony DVD-RW
Sony DVD-R
Memorex DVD+RW
Accu DVD-R
BEALL DVD-R
Princo DVD-R
Verbatim DVD-R
TDK DVD-R
TDK DVD+RW
TDK DVD-RW
Fuji DVD+RW
Verbatim DVD+R
CompUSA DVD-R
Imation DVD-R
GQ DVD-R
LAC DVD-R
Meritline DVD+RW
Ritek DVD-R
Prodisc 2X DVD-R

So that is a heck of a lot more than the 3 brands you mention

I am not saying the drive is perfect, and indeed Sony could maybe have made the drive compatible with some of the cheap media that is not on the list. (Still Ritek, which works, is reasonably priced; and the very cheap Princo is on the list, although I have my doubts about Princo).
The vendor is sending me one free sample od Princo 2X with my Prodisc order, so I can test it for him (and for me).
Also some types of Memorex don't seem to work too well. Then again those may have been burned with the old Nero.[/quote]

[mike_s104]

I have been reading a lot about the mead that will and will not work with the Sony DRU500. Granted, I have only tried Maxell DVD-RW and Sony DVD+rW. There is something that everyone has to understand. We have to have the newest and greatest gizmos that are out there. The price way pay is the testing of our new toys is testing them out. I knew full well that I might run into the media issue, but I wanted the drive bad enough that I was willing to pay for that learning curve. I could have waited a few more months, but I wanted it now. It was like I was a kid at Christmas sneaking downstairs to check out the presents and when my mom caught me, she let me have one.

Look at the drive as a car. Even though the new Corvette you just bought is EXACTLY like the one down the street, it's not. There is no way that anything can be exact. You Corvette might run best with Exxon 93 Octane where as the one down the street, which was made at a different plant but is the SAME car, runs best on Shell 93 Octane. It might not even be the gas, but the driver. If you peg the tach to redline every time the light turns green and leave a smoke trail 2 blocks long, your gas mileage is going to suck. The old man down the street that babies his new toy and hasn't broke 65MPH yet is going to get the best gas mileage.

You need to look at your setup and system before placing blame on the drive and Sony. Yeah, some of the media may not work in YOURS but who to say it won't in mine? Give your opinions and don't be so slanted by saying "Sony sucks!!" or "You should return that piece of crap" or things like that.

I'm not saying that I know more then anyone else. I will be the first to admit to my short comings and to when I am wrong. I remember the very first Ricoh 2X SCSI CDRW. It cost about $400 at Egghead. I thought I was special since I got a new toy and the guy down the street didn't have one yet. All he knew was I had it but he didn't know that I cussed that thing every night until I figured out that the Adaptec SCSI card I was using with it was not bus mastering. I swapped it out with an Adaptec 2940UW and everything was fine. I was blaming the CDRs, the drive and Easy CD Creator 3. But in the end, if I would have used the ISA SCSI card that came with it, I would have had no problems.

Since I bought my Sony DRU-500A, I had a "little" problem with Partition Magic 8, so I had to reinstall everything after reformatting the drive. I'd like to add that I should have know better to have made a Ghost image since I do this thing everyday for a living. So, I have a fresh WinXP Pro. install on an Asus A7M266 mobo, with 512MB PC2100 RAM, 30GB IBM Deskstar 7200RPM hard drive, LiteOn DVD, LiteOn 48X CDRW, a 40GB Western Digital hard drive connected to a Promise Ultra100 controller card and of course the Sony DRU-500A. The DRU-500A is the primary slave; yes I know it is best to have it as a master. I have only used Nero 5.5.9.14 and 5.5.9.17 with this drive and I have not ever had an issue yet.

[hoxlund]

whoah whoah hold up so now your trying to tell me you can burn dvds? they hold over 4GB? whats next? I suppose your going to tell me their making it possible to store 125GB on a single disc