Jester's real informal Sony DRU500 4x DVD-R media report

[Jester700]

M'kay.
I have an early DRU500 that's mounted in an external firewire box with Oxford 911 chipset and a TI chipset on my firewire card. Athlon 1800+ on Soltek VIA 266A chipset. 768MB RAM, 2 7200 RPM HDs.

I got Rima & Meritline's sample packs, so I had 2 each of several 4x blanks. Since I could only change one variable, I chose firmware, and thus tried everything with both 1.0f and 2.0f. I used Nero 5.5.10.42. I also had some Ritek uglyass orange branded ones, so I tested them, too.

The results:

Media Vendor Item# 1.0f 2.0f

Ritek Unbranded Rima 1633 2x 2x
Ritek Branded 2x 2x
Optodisc Silver Rima 1665 4x, w/err 4x, but w/ error
Princo Rima 1685 2x 2x
DupEZ Rima 1687 2x 2x
Optodisc Gold Meritline 102-091 4x 4x
DVDPro Meritline 102-074 2x 2x
Accu Meritline 102-096 2x 2x
BeAll Meritline 102-092 4x 4x

The error reported by Nero was "unsupported media" or something like that. It was reported after the burn was done both times, and the files were the correct size and played fine, but I'm not interested in reading that message on every burn! ALL media played fine in my Sony NC655P changer and in PowerDVD 5.

So, it looks like I'm stuck with either Samsung/BeAll or Optodisc Gold. I was surprised at the Optodiscs - they look very well made, unlike the 1x ones I've had, which looked kinda iffy.

So, there ya go. I know this test is very limited & unscientific, but it's maybe another data point for you 500a owners looking for the best media price/performance ratio.

[psx_pirate]

try mirror media platinum 4x they work great on my dru500a burn at 4x (unlike riteks) and play on all standalones that i have tried (including my sisters very picky mustek) and they are cheap if you live in trhe uk