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  • rlrus - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link

    Nu has posted the official firmware upgrade B373, I hope this one is as good or better than the unofficial B372. I bought this drive and hope I have as good results as Anand Tech. With it's ability to write 8 times on 4 times Media and it's speed and error rate being almost as good as the more expensive drives it seemed a bargain.
  • mcveigh - Sunday, May 2, 2004 - link

    21:

    the Nu models do as well or better than everyone else and at the lowest price point.

    why shouldn't they win?
  • KristopherKubicki - Saturday, May 1, 2004 - link

    Jeff7181: I think there is a way to get it to scale proper. I will do that for the next review.

    Kristopher
  • QuaiBoy - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

    Seems to me that all of the DVD writer reviews lately on Anandtech seem to favor the Nutech product. I don't see a reason from these results to pick that drive over any of the others. There's nothing that makes it anything special, and it certainly doesn't deserve an award over the other drives.
    Another vote for total write times and for not claiming that all drives with the same chipset will perform similarly. Too many variables. At least test with more media types, like TY and Optodisc. Cheapies like Princo appeal to many as well.

    -Evan-
  • Jeff7181 - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

    The Write Quality graphs are very misleading/hard to read since they are all on different scales... makes on look like crap until you realize you're looking at a 0 - 10 scale rather than 0 - 70. Anything you can do about that or are you just stuck displaying what the crappy software showed you?
  • KristopherKubicki - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link

    This was all commented on in the article. The 708A and the 2500A also use radically different pickups and servos. But then again, i never claimed those two were similar in the review either.

    Belzer: most of those drives i pointed out were clearly rebadges.

    Kristopher
  • CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link

    Belzer,yes. Maybe I should have rephrased my statement, as MAXIMUM burning speed. Yep, it also depends on the burn strategy employed.
  • CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link

    Belzer,yes. Maybe I should have rephrased my statement, as MAXIMUM burning speed. Yep, it also depends on the burn strategy employed.
  • CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link

  • Belzer - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link

    "If you mean burn speed, of course it will be similar in different drives that use the same chipset, as their burn speeds are defined by the chipset!"

    Uhm, no! Burn speed also depends very much on the write strategies implemented in the firmware. For example NEC ND-2500A and Pioneer DVR-A07 use the same chipset. The NEC uses a 4x-6x-8x Z-CLV technique for 8x burns, the Pioneer uses a 6x-8x Z-CLV technique and is faster.

    Drives with the same chipset can have very different properties, only complete rebadged drives will have the same properties.



  • CrazeeHorse - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Kristopher, define what you mean by performance. If you mean burn speed, of course it will be similar in different drives that use the same chipset, as their burn speeds are defined by the chipset! However, if you take a wider view,IMO, performance also refers to the burn strategies,media compatibility, media preferences.. all of which can vary from drive to drive, even if they are based on the same chipset. Case in point.. Pioneer 107 and NEC 2500A use the same co-developed chipset. However, NEC allows burning of certain 4X +R media (eg. RicohJPNR01) at 6X, while Pioneer limits them to 4X in their official firmware. NEC's drives have been reported to have problems with some batches of RitekG04 -R media, while Pioneer's drive seems to burn them without any issues.
    So I reiterate.. performance should cover a whole lot of other parameters,besides the ones defined by the chipset.

    Oh,Ian, this is bhairavp from CDRLabs.
  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Its OK. The similarities i claimed though were in performance, not features. The operative word is similar also. So yes, in some instances it would be like saying motherboard and and motherboard b perform similarly because they have the same chipset.

    When it comes down to it, if the Memorex, ASUS and Pioneer drives are all very similar (well actually identical), wouldnt you just want the cheapest?

    Kristopher

  • Ian@CDRlabs - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Sorry Kristopher, I didn't get your email. Send it again.

    Just to be nitpicky, there are differences between the 2500A and DDW8800, at least cosmetic. The AOpen is missing a head phone jack. The MSI and Sony drives also have their differences. In particular, the Sony is lacking HD-Burn support.

    While those are good examples of companies using the same OEM, I wouldn't say that the Gigabyte (OEM BTC?) performs like the Lite-On 812S just because they have the same chipset. That's like saying this and this motherboard perform the same because they have the same Intel chipset. You Anandtech guys should be able to relate to that.
  • arswihart - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Can somebody tell me what bit setting is and why I should care about it? Thanks
  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Ian i sent you an email the other day and you never responded ;)

    There is 0 difference between the NEC2500A and the AOpen DDW8800. Same with the MSI and Sony, and the ASUS and Pioneer. They just use the same OEM so all the components are identical. Manufacturers get really upset when you say stuff like that, but its the truth.

    Kristopher
  • Ian@CDRlabs - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    You might want to try KProbe2. It now has separate PI/PO settings.

    I was a little surprised by the "would expect similar performance" comments. While some of drives use the same chipset, there are a lot of other differences (Ex: firmware, pickups, etc) that effect performance.

    Also, when are you going to start including writing times to go along with the average writing speeds? IMO, this isn't the way to show which drive is "fastest".
  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    #6: I heard otherwise about using the DDW-061 to DDW-081 utility on the DDW-082 and bumping your 8X burns to 10X. I havent tried it though thats something i will look at after finals maybe.

    Kristopher
  • Booty - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    'didja *read* the article??'

    Nope, sure didn't... I skip through parts of most AT articles because they either get too wordy or I just don't have time to read them thoroughly. In those cases, I skip to the conclusion for a summary. My bad.
  • CrazeeHorse - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Number 2 : You can download the B372 firmware from www.rpc1.org

    Number 4 : Nopes.. you're outta luck.

    Mr Kubicki.. Why didn't you test KProbe @ 4X/8ECC as is being used @ CDFreaks and CDRLabs? The original scanning PI/PO specs call for 1X/1ECC scanning, so Max/1ECC is not going to give you correct results.

    ALso, there is NO hack for making the Nu081 burn at 10X, and their bitsetting utility is perfect. The disc is recognised as DVD-ROM by all the DVDROM drives I've tried, so it seems to work just fine;)
  • l3ored - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    the nutech and toshiba error charts dont come up
  • mkruer - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Stupid question but i must ask, is there a firmware update to the Plextor 708A that allows us to burn dual layer DVD's? I remember there was quite alot of talk about the new drives supporting the feature, but that it was not enabled.
  • deadseasquirrel - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    "Why wasn't the Plextor 8x drive included in this comparison?"

    didja *read* the article??

    Page 5: "Alas, our award winning Plextor 708A, which is also based on the LC897490, is not capable of 8X DVD-R, so we could not include it in this roundup."
  • moktaw - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Bought the NuTech 081 several months ago. Firmware upgraded to a 082(at least that's what Nero and DVDInfoPro say with B370 Firmware). This is my first DVD burner. Outstanding product, especially at $80. Burned about 25 discs so far without any coasters. I would love to find the B372 firmware upgrade talked about in the article, Checked NuTech's website this morning and couldn't find it. A typo or do I need to look elsewhere? Thanks for the great discussion. Looking forward to the 16x dual layer burners this summer.
  • Booty - Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - link

    Why wasn't the Plextor 8x drive included in this comparison?

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