ok, i finally bought this burner and here are first results.
hardware: athlon 1800xp on gigabyte 7va, 512 mb ram.
ide-0: hdd master (end of 80 pin cable) and hdd slave (middle of 80 pin cable).
ide-1: sony dvd-rw master (end of 40 pin cable) and dvd-rom slave (middle of 40 pin cable).
tests:
- 2 movies of home shooting, encoded with tmgenc and authorized and burned with ulead dvd movie factory 2, media dvd-r (princo 2x) and dvd+rw (the one that came with the drive), no problems at 2x.
readable in pioneer dv-535, philips (?) and playstation2.
- 5 movies backups, ripped with smartripper (i wasn't able to use dvd decrypter, asked help here but 58 views -> no answers), passed through dvd2one and burned with nero, same media as above, no problem.
i've tried to use an extra hdd on a pci raid controller, ripped a movie onto it, then burned; at about 50% recorder light turned off, i went panic, waited about 5 minutes, then hurted the hdd; it was hanged, burning process restarted from that point and ended with no problem. (i threw that hdd in the litter bin ....).
i know usually this is the right place to post for problems, this time i wrote about some good news, of course i hope everything keeps going this way, but i have to tell all newbies like me that backups are not so difficult and that the sony (as i think all other burners) is new generation burn-proof burner, good choice.