Sony has once again turned to Nero for their software bundle. The CD that comes with the DRU-830A contains the Nero 7 Essentials suite which includes Nero Express, Nero Vision, Nero Recode, Nero BackItUp, Nero ShowTime and InCD.
Nero Express 7 - With Nero Express, Nero has taken the features and performance people have come to expect from Nero Burning Rom and combined them with a user friendly interface. Redesigned to maximize ease-of-use, Nero Express gives users the ability to quickly and easily burn audio, data and video to CD or DVD.
The version of Nero Express that Sony included with their new DVD±RW drive is 7.2.3.3. You can download the latest version of the software from Nero's website.
Nero Vision 4 - Nero Vision 4 is the latest version of Nero's video authoring application. Thanks to a user friendly interface, Nero Vision makes it easy for users to capture, edit and then burn their favorite videos to VCD, SVCD or DVD or export it to Nero Digital format.
Nero Vision also lets users add things like transitions, custom backgrounds, animated menus and text effects. You can even use it to turn your photos into custom slide shows.
Nero Recode 2 - This program from Nero can copy unprotected DVD videos onto recordable DVD media. If the source disc is larger than 4.7GB, Nero Recode 2 has the ability to remove unwanted material and compress the contents so that it will fit onto a single blank DVD disc.
Nero Recode 2 will also let you convert your DVD movies to Nero Digital. Using Nero's own MPEG-4 audio and video encoder, an entire DVD movie can be compressed so that it will fit onto a CD. Better yet, Nero Recode 2 does this without any loss of quality.
Nero BackItUp 2 - If you're looking for a way to quickly and easily backup your data, Nero BackItUp is the answer. This program from Nero lets you backup your data to CD/DVD, hard drive, image recorderor another computer on your LAN.
Nero ShowTime 2 - Nero ShowTime is Nero's software DVD player. Along with support for DVD's, ShowTime can be used to play back VCD's, SVCD's and miniDVD's as well as any MPEG, AVI or Nero Digital files you might have on your hard drive.
InCD 5 - InCD is Nero's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Sonic's DLA, it allows a person to use their CD-RW or DVD±RW drive as a big floppy disk. The person can then drag and drop files onto a CD-RW or DVD±RW disc. Many people consider InCD to be one of the best packet writing tools because of its simplicity and performance.
Sony's new DVD writer definitely isn't short on features. Like the Samsung drive its based on, the DRU-830A supports all major DVD formats and sports some pretty impressive specs. The drive is capable of 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. Sony's new drive also includes features like Power-Burn buffer underrun protection, support for bitsetting and a great software bundle from Nero. With all this it's easy to see why the Sony DRU-830A gets a 9 out of 10 for its features.
