CyQ've 2400Plus IDE DVD+RW - Page 1

Introduction

M.E.T technologies presents another DVD+RW/+R recorder, the CyQ've 2400Plus. The external drive is actually a combo one, since it also supports CD-R/RW writing. We have already tested some of the latest DVD+RW/+R drives from Ricoh and Philips, and the comparisons are expected to be at least interesting.

The drive

CyQ've 2400Plus supports 12x (CD) and 2.4x DVD+R/+RW writing, 10x re-writing, 32x (CD) and 8x (DVD-ROM/+R/+RW) reading. The drive also supports "JustLink" technology in order to avoid buffer underruns, for the CD-R/RW format. Its writing speeds are: 2x, 4x, 8x, 12x (CLV) writing and 4x, 10x (CLV) re-writing. The supported connections for the CyQ've 2400Plus are Cardbus/IEEE1394/USB2.0 interface, compatible to PC and notebooks.

The writing speed for DVD+R/+RW format is 2.4X CLV (X factor is now 1385Kb/s) which is equivalent to 20x for CD-RW drives. Although the media support both CAV and CLV writing modes, the drive incorporates the CLV recording. The differences are the same as in the CD writing, meaning that the overall writing speed with CLV will be quicker. However random access with CAV is quicker. Due to 'Lossless Linking' we don't have buffer underrun problems in DVD+R/+RW formats. The drive doesn't support Mt. Rainier in both CD/DVD formats. The next generation of DVD+RW recorders are supposed to support the DVD-MRW format (Mount Rainier at DVD format). Currently, the following writing formats are supported:

1) DVD+R/+RW: DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, Random Access Write
2) CD-R/RW: CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD Extra, CD-I, Mixed-ModeCD, VideoCD, PhotoCD, CD TEXT and Bootable CD.

The package

The retail package includes: CyQ've 2400Plus, an installation guide, 1 piece of Ricoh 74min 1-24X CD-R media, 1 piece of Ricoh DVD+RW & DVD+R media, a USB2.0 connection cable and a power cable. The package also included a USB2.0 host adapter card by Tekram, and an installation manual for it. The attached software programs are Nero v5.582, InCD v3.2x, PowerDVD v4.0x for DVD Video playback and Unlead VideoStudio v5.0 for Video editing. There are also available an installation CD-ROm for the attached USB2.0 adapter card.The expected price of the drive is around Euro 600 (?)

The external drive is placed in a stylish plastic case. In the front of the drive you can see the "CyQ've", "JustLink", "High-Speed RW" and "DVD+RW/+R" logos, among with one orange led, the eject button and the headphone input jack/volume selector: The power button of the drive is located in the right side, and the power indication led is placed right above it, as you can see in the picture below.

On the back of the drive there are the power conector, the interface conector, audio output and a cooling fan.

Installation

CyQ've 2400Plus was identified as "CQ2400PLUS" under WinXP.. The drive was easily installed to our test PC through USB2.0 interface.

The drive came with firmware version v1.27 installed. Nero reports that the available cache buffer is 2MB.

The "high compatibility" mode is also present in the writing software. It is included in order to allow users to create DVD according to the DVD ROM standard. As you may know the minimum data on a pressed DVD is about 1Gb or 30 mm of data. In some DVD drives and players having less data may cause incompatibility issues. The feature allows the users to write the minimum amount of data and the actual user data should not be less than 1Gb or 30mm.