Ricoh MP5240A Vs AOpen DRW4410 - Page 2

The Taiwanese manufacturer has expanded its product line to motherboards, graphic cards, sound cards and other PC peripherals. In the optical storage part, the company is currently focused in the DVD recorders and its plans include the production of very fast DVD writers in the following year. The latest proposal for fast DVD writing on DVD+R/+RW is the AOpen DRW4410. Based on Ricoh MP5240A, the drive enters the market at an aggressive price combined with high performance.

- AOpen DRW4410 features

AOpen DRW4410 features the Just Link technology developed by Ricoh, to prevent buffer under-run errors on CD/DVD by predicting them before they happen.

The supported OPC system (Optimum Power Control) continually monitors signal levels during recording and adjusts laser power to compensate for a dirty disc. This feature ensures a flat signal, significantly enhancing reliability.

- Specifications

Aopen DRW 4410 can read CD data at 40x speed, write data at 24x speed , re-write data at 10x speed (High Speed CD-RW), and write data at 4x speed on DVD+RW/+R.

Nero Info Tool reports that the drive supports the RAO DAO 96 writing mode, retrieves C2 error information and has a 2MB cache. In addition, the drive support random UDF write in DVD+RW and CD-R/RW media. As in case of Ricoh MP5240, the AOpen drive does not support the Mount Rainier format.

- European retail package

In the European retail package you can find the AOpen DRW4410 drive, an AOpen DVD+RW (Ricoh JPN-W01-01), one 4x DVD+R, 1 CD-RW 80min 4x-12x, and one 700MB CD-R 52x (Ritek 97m15s17f).

The bundled software is available on a DVD-ROM. It includes VideoStudio7 and NeoDVD v4.5 standard for DVD/VCD authoring, PowerDVD XP for DVD video playback, Nero Burning Rom for data/audio pre-mastering and Ahead InCD for packet writing. In the same DVD-ROM there is a detailed instruction manual.

On the front panel of the drive the user can see the CD-RW and DVD+RW logos the AOpen logo and the just link logo. The eject button is on the right side of the tray next to the emergency eject hole while the orange color busy led indicator is set almost at the middle of the front tray.

On the rear panel there are the usual analog and digital outputs, the IDE connectors, the device jumper configuration pins and the power input.

Comparing the mainboard and main chipset of AOpen DRW4410 with those illustrated in the previous page (Ricoh MP5240) is unavoidable. Both drives share the same internal parts.

- Installation

The AOpen drive was connected to the IDE 1 port of our test PC as a "Master", and worked under Ultra DMA Mode 2 transfer mode.

The drive was identified as "AOpen DRW4410" under Win XP. The July 2003 model had the firmware v1.11 installed.