48x
CD-RW Combo Roundup Vol.1 -
Page 1
With the market full of new and fast
DVD recorders, some people may think that buying a combo drive (one able to
record CD's and read DVD's) is out of fashion. There are several reasons
in favor of this argument, but there are also also several others
against it. Combo drives offer high CD-R/RW recording and reading speeds,
a fast DVD
reading speed and are significantly cheaper than DVD recorders. If DVD writing
is
not your first need, then a combo drive is what you need. We have in our labs
two new combo drives, the Optorite DC4801 and the LiteOn LTC48161.
Most
of us are already familiar with the Optorite series of optical products. The
Taiwanese company offers a wide range of CD-RW and DVD recorders, as we have
already
tested in our previous articles. This time we take a look at the Optorite DC4801,
a 48/24/48/16 combo drive.
- Drive features / Specifications
| Burn Guarantee prevents Buffer Under Run |
| EXACT-Rec (Enhanced eXtracting & Adapting
Control Technology for Recording) monitors accuracy of writing |
| AWSS (Advanced Weighting Suspension System)
Technology reduces vibration & noise. |
| |
| Support discs capacity: |
DVD: 4.7GB/8.5GB/9.4GB/17GB |
| |
CD: 790MB(90min)/700MB(80min)/650MB(74min) |
| Disc formats: |
DVD: DVD-ROM, DVD±R (read), DVD±RW (read). |
| |
CD: CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM/XA, Mixed mode CD, CD-I, Video-CD,
Photo CD, CD Extra, CD-TEXT, Bootable CD, CD-UDF compatible |
| Writing Method: |
Disc At Once, Track At Once, Session At Once, Packet Writing. |
| Write: |
CD-R: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 24x, 32x, 48x |
| |
CD-RW: 4x, 8x,12x,16x, 24x |
| Read: |
CD-ROM/R: 48x Max, |
| |
DVD Single Layer: 16x Max |
| |
DVD Dual Layer: 8x Max |
| Random Access time: |
CD-ROM: 100 ms (Typical) |
| |
DVD-ROM: 110 ms (Typical) |
| Audio Extraction: |
Maximum 48x |
| Internal Buffer: |
2 MB |
Optorite DC4801 supports 48x CAV CD-R writing and reading. The maximum rewriting
speed is 24x P-CAV, which means that we should probably expect very low rewriting
times with respect to US-RW media. For the DVD format, Optorite supports 16x
DVD-ROM reading, and 8x CAV for the DVD±R
and DVD±RW media.
The provided buffer underun protection is called "BURN GUARANTEE".
The EXACT-Rec feature
monitors
the writing process and ensures a high degree writing quality
The supported AWSS (Advanced Weighting Suspension System) technology reduces
vibration and noise, at high reading/ writing speeds.
Optorite DC4801 implements strict RPCII region
control, allowing 5 changes of the region code in total.
The supported reading/writing speeds are illustrated below:
The
drive supports reading of CD-R/RW, Video CD, and both DVD±R/RW formats.
Mount
Rainier support is not included in the drive's specifications.
Optorite DC4801 also supports RAW DAO 96 and RAO SAO 96 writing
modes, as well as packet writing.
- The package
The
retail package includes the Optorite DC4801 IDE combo drive, Nero Burning Rom
CD recording software, Intervideo WinDVD playback software and a quick installation
guide.
The package does not include any CD-R/RW media and, additionally, you can
find the usual audio cable and mounting screws.
The retail kit is available at a price of about $55-60.
On the front panel of the drive there is the disc loading tray, the head
phone jack and volume control, the eject button, a play / fw button used for
Audio CD control, and the busy/write LED
indicator.
On the rear panel there are the analog and digital outputs, an ATAPI connector
and the DC input.
After removing the screws on the button we can easily see
the drive's internal design
- Installation
The Optorite DC-4801 drive was connected to the secondary IDE of our test
PC as "Master" and worked under the Ultra DMA Mode 2 transfer mode.
The drive was identified
as "OPTORITE
COMBO DC4801" under
WinXP. The installed firmware version was 130E.
