剛剛在國外網站看到關於Sony DRU-500A的最新評論
A few months ago Sony released details of their first Multi-Spec'd DVD Recorder, the DRU500A. It was the first DVD Recorder to support both DVD Recording formats (DVD-R/RW & DVD+R/RW), but it does not stop there. Sony also included CD-R and CD-RW within the drive as well as CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. This in a nutshell was the first drive that contained 8 drives in one drive (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and CD-ROM).

Why did Sony go this route ? That's easy to answer, as Sony is a member of both formats in the DVD Format wars. I knew about 18 months ago that Sony was producing such a drive, but was unsure of the specs at that time, and it was not until the Press Release came out that we had our info confirmed. Sony DRU500 Drives solve a long-time dilemma for DVD users. The world's first DVD ReWritable Drives enabling you to work with two competing and incompatible formats - DVD+RW and DVD-RW. Get the best of both worlds with Sony DRU500 Drives.

So why did Sony produce such a drive ? Well, first off I have no official info on this, but from what I can gather is that end users demanded such a drive that had both Formats, I was one of them. I was hoping that Yamaha would also release such a drive, but alas they did not come up with the goods.
The other reason that I came up with this was because Sony is as I said in with both formats (DVD-RW and DVD+RW). Sony first released a DVD+RW (DRU110) drive followed soon after with the DVD+R/RW (DRU120) drive, and so as not to leave the DVD-R/RW format out in the cold they started work on the DRU500 that combined all formats except for DVD-RAM. Sony saw a market for this drive, and boy were they right on target. From the info I have gathered, Sony have, since the drive was released shipped over 30,000 of them (September - November). It's also said that Sony can't keep up with demand, every drive produced is sold before it is even boxed up and left the factory !

To go along with this, most outlets are back ordering the drive as they are out of stock !

When the DRU500A was first released it's spec were as follows:

• 2.4X max. DVD+R Write; 2.4X max. DVD+RW Write; 4X max. DVD-R Write; 2X max. DVD-RW Write; 8X max. DVD-ROM Read
• 4X, 12X, 16X, 24Xmax. CD-R Write; 4X, 10X max. CD-RW Write, 32X max. CD-ROM Read Random Access Time:
DVD: 200ms CD: 160ms
• Buffer Memory: 8MB
• Buffer Underrun Protection Technology
• Supported disc format: DVD-ROM, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM (XA), Video CD, Photo CD (multi-session), CD Text, CD Extra and others.



As of the 6th December 2002 these specs changed to:

• 4X max. DVD+R Write; 2.4X max. DVD+RW Write; 4X max. DVD-R Write; 2X max. DVD-RW Write; 8X max. DVD-ROM Read
• 4X, 12X, 16X, 24Xmax. CD-R Write; 4X, 10X max. CD-RW Write, 32X max. CD-ROM Read Random Access Time:
DVD: 200ms CD: 160ms
• Buffer Memory: 8MB
• Buffer Underrun Protection Technology
• Supported disc format: DVD-ROM, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM (XA), Video CD, Photo CD (multi-session), CD Text, CD Extra and others.

This was changed due to a 'FREE FIRMWARE UPGRADE' from Sony, yes, that's right, FREE !
So, now we have a DRU500A with a higher DVD+R write speed of 4x instead of 2.4x.

Not so long ago Ricoh offered a similar upgrade, but then soon retracted it due to some technical problems with the drive, here Sony did not mention any upgrades that we know of to the drive, not even in the Press Release, and so were free to do what ever they wanted. Again, Sony hits a new level of end user support with the free upgrade to the DRU500A which upped the spec's of the drive.

When the DRU500A was first released it did have it's problems with some DVD-R media and Sony went out of it's way to fix them with two new firmware updates since the drives launch. This did fix most of the problems, but I still had problems with DVD-R disc's made by Vivastar. Firmware 1.0f has not fixed the problem with the Vivastar media, but has allowed me to use other media like Ritek, Intenso, Verbatim and a few others that failed when the drive had 1.0c or 1.0d firmware.

請注意最後一段,再更新了最新版的韌體之後
雖然有修正了一些碟片相容性
但有些DVD-R品牌還是會有相容性問題
有意願購買的朋友可以注意看看