Optorite DD0401 Dual DVD Recorder - Page 15

Conclusion

The Optorite DD0401 dual DVD Recorder presented some good features along with some not so good. The drive has performed within specifications, although at times it has been marginal. This is a drive that will do pretty much what it is meant to do but not a whole lot beyond that.

It performed admirably as a CD and DVD reader with very good overall seek times. The speeds supported are high and amongst the best available for both CD and DVD available from any recorder on the market at present. Video ripping was satisfactory average.

While the drive seems very capable of correcting most errors, (it proved very reliable reading all 5 check levels in the CD-Check Audio tests), it had problems correcting severe errors ( excessive size) TCD-721R. The drive also experienced problems with DVD errors, where it was unable to correct defects in the second layer and as with CD errors, this was primarily due to severe defects. It further created high 3T jitter leaving some doubt as to how reliably it can record. However the C1/C2 quality tests returned acceptable values.

The HD-Burn feature is useful for anyone who needs more capacity than that available on CD media but doesn't need the capacity available on DVD, or at least that's the explanation given by Sanyo for this new format. The problem is that writing can only be done with HD-Burn equipped DVD recorders and applies only to CD media, while any such written media can only be read by a HD-Burn compatible drive. In other words, anything you burn with HD-Burn will not be readable by almost all the drives in use at the moment.

The PI/PO quality tests while acceptable, were simply that. Many of the results are on the border, although they should have been much better. In particular, the PO measurements should not have yielded such high errors.

The buffer also could have been more than a low 2 Mbytes, especially considering that this is a DVD recorder.

On backups of protected discs that were tested, the drive appeared sluggish, while we should further mention that it could not backup SaveDisc protected discs. Audio CDs also presented problems, being unable to rip the first track of CDS200 protected CDs.

About the best feature of this drive is its price. For anyone wanting a cheap CD/DVD recorder witout expecting the performance and reliability of one of the more pricy recorders, this drive is ideal.