In House Review - Verbatim Producer 4 DVD+RW

[Ian]

Today, CDRLabs brings you a review of Verbatim's 4x DVD+RW, the Producer 4. Based on the ND-1100A from NEC, the Producer 4 features 4x DVD+R and 2.4x DVD+RW writing speeds as well as 12x DVD read speeds. Verbatim's new DVD writer also has support for technologies like loss less linking, defect management, background formatting and buffer underrun protection.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the Producer 4 and see how it compares to Plextor's 4x DVD+RW, the PX-504A. How does Verbatim's new DVD writer stack up? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=188]
Verbatim Producer 4 DVD+RW[/url]

If you have any comments or questions about this review or the Verbatim Producer 4, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.

[MikeTR]

Nice review again Ian, thanks.

How come you didn't get to review a 'real' NEC ND-1100a, but you did get both the Verbatim and Plextor? Is it because NEC isn't that big in the US? Doesn't really matter because all ND-1100 drives will most likely perform about the same.
I only hope there will be some firmware updates that keep improving media performance in the future. NEC isn't really know for their updates .

Hope you get your hands on a ND-1300 soon, haven't seen a review on that one yet.

[VEFF]

Nioce review, as usual, Ian.

Sounds like my CenDyne (NEC ND-1100A) was a nice buy for $110 + tax AR, instant discount and coupon then

I had read posts saying that it had some issues and people on Dell forums were not happy.
My colleague had one and liked it, so I jumped in.
I have also enjoyed it; no problems so far!

[Ian]

How come you didn't get to review a 'real' NEC ND-1100a, but you did get both the Verbatim and Plextor?

NEC doesn't really have much of a retail presence here in the US. I've tried getting a hold of someone at NEC in the past, and it wasn't worth my time.

Doesn't really matter because all ND-1100 drives will most likely perform about the same.

It's possible that some versions of the drive might perform differently. There are 2-3 factories pumping out these drives and some of them use different optics (firmware version 1.6x/1.7x/1.Ax).

Hope you get your hands on a ND-1300 soon, haven't seen a review on that one yet.

As far as firmware updates go, NEC does send them to their OEM customers. What they do with them is another story. Yeah, we have TDK 440N and Verbatim Dual DVD reviews on the way. Both are based on the ND-1300.

[burticus]

Good review. kutgw!

[Spazmogen]

Excellent review Ian (as always )

I feel more comfortable now with my decision buying the IOMEGA (NEC) drive from Tigerdirect.ca after having read this review.

Ian wrote:

It's possible that some versions of the drive might perform differently. There are 2-3 factories pumping out these drives and some of them use different optics (firmware version 1.6x/1.7x/1.Ax).

Ummm. So: same chipset, different guts in the box?

[Ian]

Not sure about the chipset.. that's probably the same. I've just heard that some use different optics.

[BurninMan921]

Nice review!

One question: How does MyDVD 4.0 perform? I've got the Plextor burner, and love it, but need a descent authoring tool that's quick. NeroVision is slow and and has pretty crappy quality when going from DivX-DVD; DazzleDVD can't even do that

Mostly I just want to take VOB's ripped form different DVD's and put 'em together on one disc. Dazzle just says (get this): Non-DVD compliant.

[MikeTR]

NEC doesn't really have much of a retail presence here in the US. I've tried getting a hold of someone at NEC in the past, and it wasn't worth my time.

That's what I figured. My problem is quite the reverse. I can only get the NEC drive itself. Verbatim, Cendyne and TDK are nowhere to be found. Verbatim and Cendyne simply do not seem to be present on the market, but TDK used to be with their CD-RW drives.

It's possible that some versions of the drive might perform differently. There are 2-3 factories pumping out these drives and some of them use different optics (firmware version 1.6x/1.7x/1.Ax).

Forgot about those different optics. I remember I heard about it before. It seems that only the drives with 1.Ax are upgradable. Don't know how reliable this info is though. Probably not very.

Yeah, we have TDK 440N and Verbatim Dual DVD reviews on the way. Both are based on the ND-1300.

Yummm....

[Ian]

One question: How does MyDVD 4.0 perform? I've got the Plextor burner, and love it, but need a descent authoring tool that's quick. NeroVision is slow and and has pretty crappy quality when going from DivX-DVD; DazzleDVD can't even do that

Mostly I just want to take VOB's ripped form different DVD's and put 'em together on one disc. Dazzle just says (get this): Non-DVD compliant.

I've never tried that with MyDVD. Keep in mind that it's a very basic program. Think very newbie. Essentially you drop movies onto the GUI and it adds them to your compilation. It doesn't even let you customize your menu's very much.

[BurninMan921]

Thanks for the info Ian! Guess I'll stick with IfoEdit for that stuff...