Verdict: You wait all year for a double-decker DVD writer and then two arrive at once
The double-decker bus may soon be disappearing from London streets, but the idea that you can pack more in by adding a second layer stacked on top of the first will always have its place. Now double decking has at last come to DVD burning. In this review we reveal two burners with support for the new dual-layer DVD+R standard, aka DVD+R9, which packs 8.5GB onto a single-sided DVD.
Sony was one of the first companies to jump on the dual-format bandwagon, and it's been quick to adopt the new dual-layer DVD+R9 standard too. However, in all other respects the Sony is a standard drive, with 8x DVD+R and -R writing, plus 4x on both RW formats. Unlike the Plextor PX-712SA (see Issue 12, p58), there's no blistering 12x DVD+R burn speed to call upon. The Sony reads DVDs at 12x and CDs at 40x. The NEC ND-2510A has very similar specifications, the only significant difference being CD-writing speeds. The Sony offers 40x CD writing and 24x CD re-writing, while the NEC only supports 32x and 16x respectively.
The other variation between the two drives was that the Sony we looked at was a boxed retail version, while the NEC was a bare OEM drive, so the bundled extras are different. The Sony appears to come with virtually all of Nero's software portfolio. Aside from Nero Express 6, which provides a friendly interface for CD burning, there's Nerovision DVD for authoring your own DVD-Video discs, and Nero Showtime for watching them. Nero BackItUp, as the name suggests, is an automated backup utility. InCD4 enables drag and drop packet writing in Windows, and Nero ImageDrive lets you mount images as if they were real optical drives, gaining access to the data within. Nero Wave Editor, SoundTrax and Cover Designer offer tools to record and trim audio, multi-track mix it, and then design the cover of the CD you burn the music to. Sony completes the bundle by providing a replacement front black bezel, as the drive is fitted with a beige and white bezel as standard.
In comparison, the NEC comes with nothing more than an antistatic bag. However, if you're upgrading and already have copies of your favourite burning and DVD-authoring applications, the £36 premium for the Sony's complete package could well be a waste of money.
We ran both drives through our standard suite of optical drive performance tests on one of our test PCs. The first group of tests is designed to assess DVD writing performance, and consists of burning 4.2GB of data to each of the DVD formats supported at the maximum allowed speed. Next, we test CD-writing performance by burning 700MB of data to a CD-R, again at the maximum supported speed. The final two benchmarks rate drives for ripping, firstly some CD audio tracks using our own Media Benchmarks, and then a DVD movie using SmartRipper (www.afterdawn.com). Disappointingly, we were unable to obtain any dual-layer media for the test (see 'Are two layers better than one?'), so were not in a position to assess dual-layer writing performance.
Comparing the two drives' performance results proved a challenging task. The Sony was marginally faster than the NEC at writing DVD+R and +RW discs, but slower at DVD-R and -RW discs. We also had to update the Sony's firmware to VY05 to enable 8x DVD+R writing. The Sony was faster at CD writing too, which makes sense given that it's rated at 40x whereas the NEC is only rated at 32x.
The ripping results were the most curious, however. While the Sony took 437 seconds to extract the 4GB of movie files, the NEC took twice as long. That's nearly a quarter of the time a 12x DVD-ROM would take. Both drives use CAV too, so while there will be considerable variation in speed between inner and outer tracks, the effect should be the same on the two drives. The only real explanation for the variance is the NEC's lower DVD random access time of140ms compared to the Sony's rated time of 130ms.
However, the tables were turned with CD ripping. The NEC achieved a respectable 545 seconds, while the Sony could only manage a miserable 863 seconds. For CDs, the random access times are in the NEC's favour, which is a quoted average of 120ms compared to the Sony's 135ms.
What puts all these results in perspective is how the Plextor PX-712SA performed in the same tests. It was similarly fast in the DVD+RW and DVD-RW benchmarks, but wiped the floor with both drives in the other tests. And that was without 12x media to take advantage of its DVD+R writing speed.
CONCLUSION
Thanks to the lack of DVD+R9, it's impossible to recommend either drive unequivocally. Neither one is overly expensive, and if you already have software you could opt for the bare OEM NEC drive and save a lot of money. Overall DVD writing performance is about the same on both drives, but if you burn a lot of CDs, the Sony's faster performance will be a boon, although its CD ripping is dire. Conversely, the NEC is a reasonable audio ripper but terrible for ripping DVDs. Fortunately though, in neither case do you have to pay much for the benefit of dual-layer burning. So if you're after latest-technology bragging rights, either drive is worth considering. But before you make a decision make sure you read 'Are two layers better than one?'
