Nero 5.5 preview - Page 9

Multiple Recorders

Nero 5.5 multitasking recording engine can support simultaneously records up to 32 CD-R/RW drives! This new feature is very interesting for people who have more than one CDR-W drives installed in their systems. Let's see how this is working:

There aren't much complicated settings. Just tick the "Use multiple Recorders" box and in the coming drives selection page highlight the desired recorders (hold down ctrl+left mouse button). How many recorders you can use? Depends on the serial you have bought from Ahead :) and of course from your PC setup. From our tests IDE recorders can work very good with multiple simultaneously recording. In case you want to CD-Copy at multiple recorders you will need a fast CD-Rom (or recorder). In our tests the Pioneer DVD-U05S DVD-Rom didn't had any problems (with Data). For Audio copies you will need something faster (like Plextor PX-40TS).

The OEM version of Nero 5.5 would support only one recorder, the "normal" retail version 2, the "max" retail 7 and the "unlimited" retail..unlimited. There is no information yet about the price upgrade policy for the multiple recording feature.

When the CD is copyrighted a new screen added..It asks you if you wish to continue with the burn:

- System setup:

For testing the Multiple recorders function we used a PC based upon Abit KT7 Raid with installed:

Sanyo CRD-BP4 SCSI CDR-W
Ricoh MP7125A IDE CDR-W
PleXWriter PX-W1610A IDE CDR-W
Sanyo CRD-BP1400P IDE CDR-W
Yamaha 2100E IDE CDR-W
Pioneer DVD-U05S DVD-Rom

That makes around 5 installed CDR-W drives. Not bad :)

- Tests:

Burning with 3 CDR-W drives:

Drives Selection:
Progress bar:
Result:

As we can see Nero 5.5 has no problem using two IDE and one SCSI CDR-W drives in the same time. The average CPU usage was around 12.50%.

Burning with 4 CDR-W drives:

Drives Selection:
Progress bar:
Result:

Things become more difficult for Nero. This time we are using 3 IDE and one SCSI CDR-W drive. The burning speed is 16x and we also used the verify option. Note that this took almost 15mins since Nero examines the data in each recorder separately (and not at the same time) :(

Burning with 5 CDR-W drives:

Drives Selection:
Progress bar:
Result:

This time we chose all available CDR-W drive! Note that since the Ricoh MP7125A supports only 12x writing speed, Nero lowered the recording speed for all drives to 12x. There is no CDR Software that can use different recording speeds for multiple recorders. You might notice another interesting thing.. In all our tests with the above 5 recorders setup machine the PleXWriter PX-W1610A always produced a SCSI Error and produced a coaster. Nero has no problem to continue burning with the remaining recorders! So actually we could use 5 recorders for simultaneously recording. Last the average CPU usage was around 30%.

Notes

1) Nero recording engine is very good and if you have more than one recorders you will find it very useful.
2) You cannot have different writing speeds for the selected recorders. Actually Nero regognizes the max recording speed for all recorders and settle the same for all drives, even this mean that you will not get the lower recording time. As far we know all other recording packages (Feurio, PadusDJ, PrimoCDPro), which support multiple simultaneously recording cannot have different recording speeds.
3) There is no verify option in the "CD-Copy" section. :(
4) The CPU Usage seems increased over the previous Nero 5.0x series.
5) The PleXWriter PX-W1610A refused to work with our default setup (slave at secondary IDE bus) when both drives in the same IDE BUS were used.
6) In our initial tests at the simulation mode when you press "cansel" to stop the simulation project, Nero taken much time to stop the project especially when we had the 5 recorders setup (around 13mins!!).
7) The green led shows the buffer state of this recorder towards the slowest recorder. So 0,1 is the slowest recorder, and if one value increases, then this is a faster recorder. This only applies in multiple recording.