Got a Sony 500a yesterday

[Dartman]

Well I bought myself the X-mas present I have been wanting, a Sony 500a
from Frys. Its a real A model built Jan. 03 and has firmware rev E on it for now.
Wasn't a great price but they had a bunch of brand new ones on the shelf and I didn't see any with return stickers yet, $350.
I have been watching the threads on this so I hope I got a keeper that continues to work
I'm making a backup of one of my favorite movies now on Memorex dvd-rw' s I picked up, it's writing at 1x and we'll see if it works in a while.
Any info on what is the best software and media is all apriceated.
I'm using DVD-xcopy for now, seems to be working.
Hardest part was getting everything to fit cable wise and then get my SCSI stuff working again. Need to get a couple of longer ata 66 cables to do it right, shoulda got some while I was at frys
Lucky I've got a IDE Raid controller or I'b be out of IDE slots long ago.
Anyways if you have a Frys near you they have them, price is retail, but if you gotta have one and don't wanna wait, or deal with shipping it back if it craps out, check em out.

[HardwareHarry]

Got me a Sony DRU 500A end of December2002(now updated it with "G" firmware) and has an MSI(Microstar) 815EP Pro Raid, and two Maxtors 10 and (a fluid) Diamond Max 40Gb, but now I have also come to expanding with aLITE-ON40x24x48 CD-R and SONY DRU500-A and one Quantum and a Aopen 48xCDROM...

I use Imation 4,7GB DVD+R at 4x on Sony 500A, and That's Write CD-R700/80 32x at 40x speed at LITE-ON, and Platinum800/90,Mmore800/90 and TrackData870/99 overburn also on LITE-ON with NERO 55.5.10.7.
I heard that the new Verbatim 4,7GB DVD+R "MAZ" 4x is also for newest generation of DVD+R writers!

[Dartman]

I'm going to try to stick to dvd-r/rw's for better compatibility with things. the memorex-rw I got write at 1x but the video came out looking perfect and plays on both of my DVD players.
I guess this thing will do 4x now on both types of write once media if you can find any that fast, Frys had 2x max on their shelfs. A friend has a dvd writer also and he's offering me a cake box of 1x stuff for about a buck a disk which I gues is what he paid to get it delivered.
Tested the CD writing, works OK, wont overburn at all as far as I can tell.
I also have a Liteon 52 and a 166 dvd so thats not a problem here either.
I'm using a MSI KT3 ultra ARU with all the extras. I just got a 80 gig drive, I also have a 40, 2 20's, and a 4.3 ultra wide SCSI, also a small SCSI 4 mm tape backup, it's pretty full.
The MSI boards are pretty damned stable, I like mine, just put xp1800+ AMD in here too.
Hopefully some of the locals will get the fast media soon so I don't have to mail order it and wait. I also like having a local place to go if there's a problem.
Damned one finger typing, I did upgrade to the g firmware right after I badly typed this

[Solr_Flare]

One recommendation...I'd go ahead and update that firmware to the latest 1.0g that just got released. Its basically the exact same as 1.0f except that it probably includes even more media support. You will need at least firmware 1.0f or 1.0g in order to be able to burn media at 4x speeds. I'm currently using 1.0g and use dvdxcopy frequently I can report no isses whatso ever so upgrade that sucker

And yeah I've had no problems at all with Memorex media which is what I usually use. Works like a loving charm. I use the +R stuff though simply because my current stand alone dvd player is a bit touchy with -r but has no problems with +r. Otherwise I'd go the -r route too simply because its a tad less expensive. Hopefully we'll be seeing some parity in media costs by the end of the year so it becomes a simple matter of compatability and has nothing to do with price.

Enjoy the burner, I know I love mine.

[boden11]

u tried dvd2one yet? heard its sposed to be better than dvdxcopy. personally i'd trade off the french/spanish audio tracks and some of the bonus footage to keep it all on one disc. plus i havent noticed any video degradation (most videos are around 5,xxx,xxx,xxx in size once u strip out the extra audio and bonus stuff so the video isnt being compressed/transcoded much).

[arklab]

Glad your're having good luck with your new drive, Dartman.

I tried TWO of the beasties when they first came out in the US, but had all kinds of (very unique) trouble with with one of my machines, so had to return both.
(Don't worry, my problem was with an AMD dual CPU machine - Chaintech 7KDD, and at that ONLY when running Windows XP would NOT properly work with IDE ports. It worked fine with everything else!)

Anyway, I was tempted by that same Fry's offer but it prompted me to check our PriceGrabber.
The Fry's price is fine for the DRU500A (most still don't even have 'em in stock), but I came upon a better idea for solving MY problem.

CDW has gotten in some DRX500UL's (the USB2 and firewire external version) for just $50 more than the internal!

Hopefully this will simply bypass the entire XP - recognition problem.

SUGESTION - Don't flash your firmware to the "G" version just yet!
It is still un-tested and might have "side-effects".
Let those who have had the drive for a while try it out first! They will recoginize problems unique to this firmware for what it is, while anyone new to the drive might think it "normal".
And there HAVE been several times that a new firmware upgrade has been engineered to be NON-REVERSIBLE!

However the "F" firmware has been tested, and would be a good idea, IMHO.

[VEFF]

One recommendation...I'd go ahead and update that firmware to the latest 1.0g that just got released. Its basically the exact same as 1.0f except that it probably includes even more media support. You will need at least firmware 1.0f or 1.0g in order to be able to burn media at 4x speeds. I'm currently using 1.0g and use dvdxcopy frequently I can report no isses whatso ever so upgrade that sucker

And yeah I've had no problems at all with Memorex media which is what I usually use. Works like a loving charm. I use the +R stuff though simply because my current stand alone dvd player is a bit touchy with -r but has no problems with +r. Otherwise I'd go the -r route too simply because its a tad less expensive. Hopefully we'll be seeing some parity in media costs by the end of the year so it becomes a simple matter of compatability and has nothing to do with price.

Enjoy the burner, I know I love mine.

I am not at home, so I will keep this short.
Just wanted to state that one of your statements above is not accurate.
1.0f and 1.0g only add 4X support for DVD+R (DVD plus R).
4X DVD-R (DVD minus R) support was built into the drive from the beginning.

[Solr_Flare]

VEFF: you are correct there, sorry I did not specify. Actually it just didn't cross my mind initially since I have to use DVD+R almost exclusively...but yeah you are right my mistake.

Also in regards to 1.0g...still no issues on my part so far running it but should something come up, I'll be sure to post heh.

[Dartman]

Well it doesn't seem to get hot. My copy of the 5th element Superbit came out looking perfect except for taking 2 disks, still learning what works.
I'll have to find the program you recomended and see if I like it better and all that. The nice thing about x-copy is it automaticly splits the disk for you if it's too big and you can edit out some of the stuff to save space. It won't do any of the disabling of the stuff they protect these things with but that's probably why for the moment you can still buy it.
The tray sounds kinda scrapey when it opens but seems to work.
I need to find some faster media to play with so it doesn't take hours to do these things but at least it works.
I got a bunch of round ata133 cables and redid the whole mess so ALL of my storage is in the machine on good cables and where I wanted it in the first place. I'm suprised my little 300 watt Antec can take it but so far so good
The Frys here had at least 10 in stock and a bunch of the 500ul's too for 429, at least they were the external version so I guess it's the one you mentioned.
The G firmware hasn't seemed to cause any problems here but I've only done the one disk and it still see's the Memorex -rw media as only 1x but it works anyways.
It burned a Nero audio test cd to some OLD tdk certified+ 12x at 24x zclv and the eror rate was pretty low so at least now I can use this stuff if I want too.

[Solr_Flare]

Yeah I havn't had any heat problems here but I also have a very well ventelated case(modded for cooling Antec 1040 chieftech design case) and I'm using the RAID on my mobo to just run every single drive on its own channel..giving me a bit more flexability in spacing everything out both drive and cable wise. But then again I havn't burned more than 2 discs back to back at any one time...usually its about 30 minutes in between burning for me minimum as I take breaks, work on editing what I'm going to burn, etc.

Yeah some faster media would certainly be helpful...even with the horsepower our comps have righ tnow, its like the old school days of CD burning....the comp is pretty limited in what you can do while burning so faster = better Since I use +R at 2.4x at the moment for my burns, takes me about 24-25 minutes to burn a complete disc making a full DVD x-copy run with 2 discs last around 115 minutes including pre-preperation, ripping and burn times.