Sony DRU-530A Info

by **Ian** on Wed Nov 26, 2003 1:51 pm

I know many of you have wondered about Sony's new 8x DVD writer, the DRU-530A. In particular, people have asked whether this is a rebadge of Lite-On or something. I can say this.. its definitely not a Lite-On. However, its very differenent from the 500A and 510A.

The front bezel of the drive has been redesigned slightly. This PR picture shows it pretty well. The LED and emergency eject hole have been moved.

The rear of the drive has the most changes. Most of the back panel is plastic, and it looks very similar to some of the OptoRite based drives. Which really isn't surprising considering OptoRite is supposedly manufacturing the drives for Sony. Is it a rebadged DD0401? I don't have a DD0401 so I really can't compare the two. Anyway, I'll post some pics after the holiday.

by **hoxlund** on Wed Nov 26, 2003 2:27 pm

very cool, all i really wanna know is, does it do 8x dvd-r? im guessing no

where did you get it from?

by **Ian** on Wed Nov 26, 2003 5:53 pm

hoxlund wrote:very cool, all i really wanna know is, does it do 8x dvd-r? im guessing no

No, not yet. I've already asked if it is capable and they're official response is that they'll know as soon as the specs are finalized, etc.

hoxlund wrote:where did you get it from?

Sony of course.

I'll put up a few screenshots on Sunday. I'm out of town until then.

by **BMR** on Wed Nov 26, 2003 7:33 pm

Ian wrote:No, not yet. I've already asked if it is capable and they're official response is that they'll know as soon as the specs are finalized, etc.

Once again, this begs the question, where did the Norcent 8X -R and 4X -RW come from if the specs are yet to be ratified ????????????

BMR

by **hoxlund** on Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:53 am

ian, very funny, i figured you'd say that, can't wait to see specs on it

btw saw the ad for staples that starts this sunday 11-30, along with the black friday one, the sony dru-510 is in it 2 weeks in a row

by **Ian** on Mon Dec 01, 2003 10:28 pm

A few pics for you:

by **aviationwiz** on Mon Dec 01, 2003 10:42 pm

Hmm, I'll pass on that one. The front bezel looks completely re-designed to Sony's likings so that it looks like thier own drive, but the back panel, and other charecteristics of the drive do look like it Optorite.

by **dodecahedron** on Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:32 pm

Ian, does this mean you have one?
are you going to review it? (soon?)

by **Ian** on Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:45 pm

Yeah, I have a bunch of other stuff to finish up, but a review is in the works.

by **Telstar** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 5:27 am

The following is a preliminary review of the Sony DRU-530A in Japanese:

http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/dru530a/dru530a.htm

If you click on the last line at the page bottom, you'll be able to see the next page with K-Probe and UM Doctor Pro II test results. It seems that the tested model had very poor writing performance. Since the DRU-530A also uses the Sanyo chipset, it's likely that Sony used the Optorite OEM with some tweaking of the firmware (no HD-Burn support and no 8X writing for the selected 4X +R media).

The author also mentioned that the Optorite DD0401's firmware could be flashed to the DRU-530A and is in the process of testing if it would work properly with the Sony. Could someone who understands Japanese well give us a better translation?

by **RJW** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 7:48 am

Have you checked the data properly.
I don't know what other people conclude but these are my conclusions.

Conclusion 1
Kprobe vs Umdocter.

1 No correlation between the K-probe with Lite On dvd rom drive measurements and Um docter measurements.

explanation:
A different drives and software
B Umdocter is 8ECC and K-probe 1 ECC.

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:10 am

Other than the 8x read speed, I have no idea what settings they used for KProbe. The results for most of the DVD+R media aren't bad. However, the writing quality for some of the DVD-R media borders on craptastic.

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:18 am

Ian wrote:Other than the 8x read speed, I have no idea what settings they used for KProbe.

Duh... PI/PO Sum 1 ECC

by **aviationwiz** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 6:17 pm

Ian wrote:the writing quality for some of the DVD-R media borders on craptastic.

Agreed, then again, one must wonder how accurate these tests are.

by **Ian** on Thu Dec 04, 2003 6:26 pm

I wonder if you can add support for HD-Burn with the OptoRite firmware.

by **Telstar** on Sat Dec 06, 2003 3:45 pm

I wonder if you can add support for HD-Burn with the OptoRite firmware.

The author has just updated his review on the DRU-530A, and he has no problem using the Optorite firmware version 120E on the DRU-530A, although not much has changed. He also noted that there is still no support for reading and writing HD-Burn discs with the Optorite formware. Too bad he didn't test if it could write at 8X using the certified 4x +R discs.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/dru530a/osony.htm

So there is no doubt that the Sony DRU-530A is an OEM model of the Optorite DD0401 with the HD-Burn function disabled. The question then becomes why would anyone wants to pay $100 more to buy a Sony labeled Optorite OEM with no HD-Burn support? I guess Sony marketing people had better find some reasons soon before people figure out what's going on.

As for the inconsistent results between K-Probe and UM Doctor Pro II, the author has mentioned in another topic:

http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/um2/um2.htm

and the reason he chose to use sum 1 ECC instead of sum 8 for K-Probe was because the results were more compatible with those from UM Doctor, which were supposed to be measured at sum 8 also. Of course, considering the measurement errors introduced by using the Lite-On 165H and Optorite DD0203 as separate readers, it's anyone's guess what they really mean.

I personally don't put too much faith on either program, but when some discs (TDK and Maxell) burned by the DRU-530A cannot even be read properly, there must be some problems unless the author happened to get a defective unit.

by **Ian** on Sat Dec 06, 2003 4:10 pm

Telstar wrote:The question then becomes why would anyone wants to pay $100 more to buy a Sony labeled Optorite OEM with no HD-Burn support? I guess Sony marketing people had better find some reasons soon before people figure out what's going on.

Brand recognition. Most consumers don't know who OptoRite is.. but Sony is about as recognizable as Mc Donald's. Not to mention, Sony's products are more consumer friendly and IMO their tech support is better.

by **Ian** on Sun Dec 07, 2003 3:03 pm

I've had some time to run a few tests with the 530A and it will not burn to Ricoh 4x or Verb 4x at 8x.

by **Ian** on Sun Dec 07, 2003 3:05 pm

And here's an interesting graph...

btw.. it took the drive about 9:10 to write 4GB of data.

by **aviationwiz** on Sun Dec 07, 2003 3:10 pm

Uggg, I'll stick with my PX-708A.

by **Kennyshin** on Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:54 pm

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13865

DRU-530A for $219 seems better than PX-708A for $230. But some US shops seem to sell PX-708A for under $200 already.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getp ... 8faabcb495

As low as 190.99 US dollars. A little cheaper than that in Japan (if you try hard to find the right shop which usually takes more time than to browse the web.)

by **RJW** on Mon Dec 08, 2003 7:43 am

I personally don't put too much faith on either program, but when some discs (TDK and Maxell) burned by the DRU-530A cannot even be read properly, there must be some problems unless the author happened to get a defective unit.

Unless it's a bad firmware which causes the problematic writing quality.

Sony DRU-530A Info

Sony DRU-530A Info

Japanese review on the DRU-530A

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