To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu.

    -----------------------------------------------

     This story was printed from CdrInfo.com,

     located at http://www.cdrinfo.com.

    -----------------------------------------------

"..Hitachi today announced that it has begun shipping its GD-5000 DVD-ROM drive to computer OEMs and multimedia PC upgrade kit suppliers.

The new drive can read any currently available 120-cm optical disc, including all types of CDs, write-once DVD-R, and rewritable DVD media recorded using a standard DVD-RAM drive.

The GD-5000 is the fifth-generation DVD-ROM drive from Hitachi, one of the world's leading manufacturers of both read-only and rewritable DVD drives for use in desktop computer and storage library products. It is one of the fastest DVD-ROM drives available today, with data transfer rates up to 11.08 Megabytes (MB) per second for DVD-ROM and 6.0 MB/s (40X Max) for CD-ROM, and enhanced data access times for all types of media.

The GD-5000 can read pressed discs and recorded data on the following types of media :
- DVD-RAM (rewritable) and DVD-R (recordable) single-sided media ( the user simply removes the recorded media from its protective cartridge and loads it into the drive tray.)
- Single- and multi-layer DVD-ROM and DVD-Video.
- All pre-recorded and writable CDs, including CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, PhotoCD, Audio and Video CD. Any protective cartridge used with the writable CD media must be removed.

The drive uses the personal computer industry standard IDE/ATAPI bus interface, supporting burst transfer rates of 33.3 MB/s (Ultra DMA Mode 2) and 16.6 MB/s (PIO Mode 4). In addition to its fast (8X) data transfer rate, the GD-5000 has typical data access rates of 120 ms when reading DVD media, and 90 ms when reading CD media. When reading DVD-RAM media, the data transfer rate is 1.38 MB/s.."