Ricoh MP5308D DVD±R/RW Recorder - Page 1
as a member of the DVD+RW Alliance produced one of the first DVD+R/RW recorders,
the MP5120A. Its successor, the MP5125A was a hot selling drive for quite
long time,
until
most
manufacturers developed their own DVD recording solutions. In the meantime,
Ricoh made several alliances (Funai Electric etc) in order to further develop
DVD recording
technology. However, for quite sometime Ricoh did not produce any other drive,
at least not with any interesting features.
After this year's CeBIT, we had the chance to see a new 8X DVD±R/RW
recorder from Ricoh with the codename "MP5308D". The drive's specs
were promising and we soon had the drive in our labs and under the microscope
for testing.
Today we present a review of the drive, with the usual basic information and
results from our burning tests for both CD/DVD formats.
- Drive specifications
The
MP5308D is an 8X DVD±R, 4X DVD±RW, 32X CD-R and 16X CD-RW writer.
In addition, it supports 12X DVD-ROM and 40X CD-ROM reading specifications.
The
specs are more or less the same with other well known models on the market,
so it would be interesting to see how it compares with the competition.
But first lets take a look at the full specs:
| Interface |
ATAPI |
| Supported media for writing |
DVD+RW, DVD+R,CD-R, CD-RW, High Speed CD-RW |
| Write speed |
(DVD+RW) 2.4x, 4x speed
(DVD-RW) 1x, 2x, 4x speed
(DVD+R) 2.4 x, 4 x, 8x speed
(DVD-R) 2x, 4x, 8x speed
(CD-R) 4x, 8x, 16x, 24x, 32x speed
(CD-RW) 4x, 10x, 16x speed |
| Read speed |
(DVD-ROM/DVD+RW/DVD+R) Max. 12x speed
(CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW) Max. 40x speed
|
| Recording capacity |
(DVD+RW/DVD+R) 4.7GB
(CD-R/CD-RW) 650MB,700MB |
| Data transfer speed (on the interface) |
Max. 33MB/s (Ultra DMA Mode 2) |
| Average access time |
(DVD) 140 ms (8x)
(CD) 120 ms (32x) |
| Buffer memory |
2MB |
| Write mode |
(DVD+RW) Random Access Write, Sequential Write
(DVD+R) Sequential Write
(CD-R/CD-RW) Disc At Once, Session At once, Track At Once, Multi-Session,
Packet Write |
| Write format |
(DVD+RW/DVD+R: DVD-ROM, DVD-Video
(CD) CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD Extra, CD-I*3, Mixed-ModeCD, VideoCD,
Photo-CD, CDTEXT, Bootable CD |
| Installation |
Horizontal/vertical |
| Power supply |
DC +5V/+12V |
| Weight |
1.02 kg |
| Dimensions ( W x D x H) |
148 X 190 (including front panel) X 42mm |
NeroInfoTool gives us a quick look at the drive's capabilities. The drive
uses a 2MB buffer memory, supports buffer underrun technology for both the
CD and DVD
formats, RAW DAO 96 writing (CD), and
its firmware is v1.B2 that was used for all the recording tests. Mount Rainier
support is excluded as happens in most cases of late, since it appears this
technology will probably
not
be developed further.
DVDInfoPro gave us some additional details about the drive's abilities:
- The package
The drive arrived at our labs without cables, software or media.
The retail package includes Nero 6.0 OEM, InCD4 and Nero Vision Express 2.
The price of the drive is around €140 according to Ricoh's website.
The price in retail shops is expected to be lower.
The drive itself looks like an ordinary "Ricoh" drive with the
brand name, codename and CD-RW, DVD-R/RW and DVD+RW logos.
There's a single activity led for reading/writing indication, along with
the emergency eject hole.
On the label of the drive can be seen the manufacturing date (February
2004) and the manufacturing line (Made in Malaysia)
After removing the bottom plate, we can see the internal structure of
the drive. The main chipset comes from NEC and the whole design looks very
similar
to
the NEC 2500A drive. You might notice the label "2100" on
the board, that indicates the basic board used to develop the 2500A series.
The drive was installed as a secondary master and under WindowsXP recognized
as "RICOH
DVD+RW MP5308D". Below is a picture from Nero Burning Rom, showing the
drive's specs.
- Testing software
In order to perform our tests we used:
- Nero CD-DVD Speed v2.20
- Nero Info Tool v2.11
- KProbe
v2.1.0 (Reader: LiteOn SOHW-812S firmware vUSOJ, Reading speed 4X CLV)
- PlexTools v2.14 (Reader:
Plextor Premium firmware v1.05, Reading speed 8X CLV)
- DVDInfoPro v2.47
- Nero Burning Rom v6.3.1.10
