Sony DRU500 new to the UK

[petrolhead]

I ordered the Sony dual format dru500 DVD writer from Refresh computers website 2 weeks ago at a good price of £242 inc vat and overnight delivery.
The was a delay in shippment of one week.... so I waited.
Then the second bomb shell two days before delivery.
The website reported that only the first 30 out of 150 orders would be delivered with no further dates issued.
I rang them and they said that they had no news and I should complain to Sony directly!!!
Today they have issued a another dru500 at a higher price @ £19 more which they do have in stock and will deliver tomorrow.

Has anyone received their drive in the UK yet?
Am I being ripped off?

[scaftag]

Mate, i found the price on refresh, and told many people about it. I must have been without doubt one of the first people to order my drive from them at the £233 price. I too had the same problem as you.
They wouldnt answer my emails, so i called and was fobbed off. On saturday, i cancelled my order, and asked for confirmation in an email, which i never got. 5 nagging emails later ive just recieved confirmation of my cancellation. Theese guys are frikken worzels. They dont have a clue whats going on in their own buisness, and customer service is zero. Im glad its happened really. Imagine the problems i would have encountered if the drive was faulty. Cheaper is not always better, something this has taught me.

Do yourself a favour and cancell the order with theese clowns. They suck harder than bin ladens camel.

Anyway, my mate who has a corporate account with dabs ordered me one for delivery tomorrow, this morning when there were 2 in stock, so i`ll have mine this time tomorrow anyway. £241 delivered as he gets discount. They will have 300+ stock on 3/12/02.

Insight will have 42 in stock on the 30/11/02

Novatech expect stock soon????

Ebuyer HAD them in stock, gone now. Expect more in 10 days time.

www.Simply.co.uk have them in stock (do a search) at £246.75.

Hope this helps a little?

[scaftag]

Well, dabs allocated me a machine but didnt ship it out. However, they sent it out yesterday, so i will have it today.

/me gets excited!

I`ll let ya know what its like!

[TeeeRex]

I've had a DRU500 on order with dabs for the last 4 weeks and have given up. Ordered the Pioneer A05 from dabs at 16:30 and it arrived the next morning - fantastic. I think they out of stock now though .. gotta be quick ....

[petrolhead]

Well it arrived, I had to pay more but it was delivered the next day. (£161)

It installed fine replacing my old Creative Labs Dxr2 DVD-rom and Yamaha 4416 CDR.
I have only burnt the following.
A 3gb data file to the Sony +RW using the provided software (can't remember the name.. Veritus?).
A short movie converted to MPEG2 using TEMPenc and burnt to a Philips DVD+RW using ULEAD Movie factory which played in my Dansai 852 fine.

I need to test a full DVD-R movie this weekend as I am worried that although my Dansai player is said to be fully compatible a friend gave me a DVD movie burnt on a mac using Toast and TDK DVD-R media and this will not play. It does play on 2 PC's and another friends old Playstation2.

I have just bought EMTEC 5 pack from Staples for £15.
I'll keep posting.

[scaftag]

Well, ive got mine, and i can honestly say its the biggest pile of shit ive ever seen. Going back on monday!

[petrolhead]

Why? What's the problem?

[Martin C]

Hi,

With regard to delivery of the product, I ordered my DRU500a about 4 weeks ago through microwarehouse.co.uk and they also had massive delays shipping out -- so much so, I only got mine today! (£209+vat)

After finally receiving the DRU500a. It's only been installed for a few hours but already I'm having trouble with the most simplest of tasks.

Burning a bunch of files to the Sony DVDRW supplied worked okay, but the writer has failed to burn to /two/ different types of DVD Media and one make of CDR media (It failed writing the leadout and the disc was unreadable).

It's said that this is a known problem and it's been suggested that the new Sony Firmware would fix these problems. So, I downloaded the firmware (which was only about 300k but took me about 14 attempts, but that's my ISP being retarded, whole other story :P anyway..) I ran up the firmware and as it was updating the firmware it totally killed XP (which, before this had -NEVER- crashed in 10 months). The mouse was locked up, as was the keyboard, the whole lot.

I rebooted and tried again and it did exactly the same thing. It since failed to burn to another DVD-R and now I'm acutely paranoid that through no fault of my own I've screwed up the firmware.

1. Has anyone else had this problem with the firmware?
2. Can I revert to the original firmware and try again?
3. Is the product actually faulty...?

Thanks,


- Martin.

[petrolhead]

Hi Martin, I haven't upgraded the firmware yet...and you've worried me!
What software were you using to burn?

[jeepers94]

I updated my firmware with no problems.I have a Dell 8200 and XP pro.
Just be sure you have the burner on the secondary master,by itself! I have had no trouble with media.I have tried about 6 brands.Ritek is about the best of the cheapies. Princo are questionable!This drive is better than either my old 03 or 04! They were both P.O.S.

[Martin C]

Hi,

Thanks for the replys...

> What software were you using to burn?

I tried Nero (a version that's about 10 days old) and then I noticed they had released a new version with fixes in for the DVD Media, which I downloaded -- that's version 5.5.9.17 (12Meg).

I also used the software which comes with the writer, EasyRecord (I think), part of the Veritas software.

> Just be sure you have the burner on the secondary master,by itself!

Hmmm... I had it on Secondary Slave -- but the writer appears to burn sony DVD-RW discs ok, so I didnt think it was a "cabling" issue. Where does it say it needs to be master?

I *think* the writer burns the first file okay but when it comes to move on to the next file, it dies.

The error I had burning a *CD* which I couldn't remember was "Fixation Error" (at 100%).

Hope that helps :)

- Martin.

[scaftag]

Count yourself lucky.
I cant burn jack, except data onto the provided sony dvd+RW.
Attempting to burn any - media results in software crashing, and the drive locking up. I can however burn - media in PIO mode only, but with littlw succss. Ive had a gutsfull of it all now, and im sending it back.

[Martin C]

> I cant burn jack, except data onto the provided sony dvd+RW.

... Me too, so what makes me luckier? :)

[scaftag]

Actually, you got it worse than me. At least it freezes before it starts writing, so no coasters.
Ive been told that i may need a 400 WATT psu. Im going to try this later on after the rugby, if im not too sozzled!

[Martin C]

I feel your pain, I'd had about 8 Stella's by the point the Firmware screwed up! :P

With regard to your PSU, I installed a 450W PSU before I put my DRU500 in, as a precautionary measure -- so I think you might be able to rule that out (and save yourself the money too). It's possible that it will fix your problem, but I know it hasnt really helped with mine.

Just think, the £30 you would have to spend on a new PSU you can spend/waste on silver shiny coasters ;-)

- Martin..

[scaftag]

Enough`s enough now really. XP gone, and just done a complete reinstall of 98se. Still no go. Im at the end of my tether now. I cant get help/support from anywhere. The drive will have to go back im affriad. Think ill get an old pioneer 104.

[Leigh]

you must have a hardware issue then if your getting the same results under different OS's

Mind you mine arrives Tuesday, hopefullt it will be okay

[Martin C]

Hardware Issue? Gee, ya' think!?

Anyway, just posting to say that I bought some "Datasafe Media" DVDR's, and they work just fine, so that just confirms that the writer is _really_ picky about what discs it'll work with!

Give them a whirl, see if it improves your situation....?

- M.

[scaftag]

Im using Datawrite classic from datasafe. Everything ive burnt is a frikken coaster.