Sony DRU500a (need advice)

[martin95]

I am interested in the new DVD rewriter Sony DRU500A that uses both the +- formats and nearly bought one until I read some guys evaluation. He concluded that the burner does not read discs fast enough therefore was unsuitable to be used for ripping DVDs.
I am new to the `Which DVD rewriter to buy`
I want to rip DVD and and also burn my own onto DVD. At the moment i am using CDR very successfully. The only one that i am looking at are the Pioneer 105 and Sony`s new DRU500
Any one help me out ?



Thanks

Martin

[vinchi007]

I'm also sort of new to all this so I'm getting my burner soon. I want to go with sony 500A model. It's dual format support, the new firmware is great and it's the fastest burner so far on the market. Why not go with it and price is not so bad with the $50 back mail-in-rebate.
I spent lots of time researching on what to get and I talked to lots of people that have drives and read lots of info online, therefore my conclusion is to get the SONY DRU500A or UL (external) models. I want to get personally the internal one (500A).

Read some info on this site here, there is lots of interesting info on it. Also search for some other info on google.com

Hope this helps

[kitty]

I'd hate to burn up the motor of my new Sony DRU500 for ripping - get a cheap DVD-ROM drive (<$50) and use that to rip and to check your burned DVD disks.

[dbaker6165]

well i dont know about yours but my extended waranty from circuit city says if my sony DRU500A becomes defective in four years, I can return it so that it can be replaced even if they stop making this model! So i dont care if the motor burns out!

[Da Man]

i use liteon dvd 166s to rip ...it's a fast drive at 16x..you can flash firmware to make it rpc1 (region free)
Never use sony dru500A to burn cdr or rip dvd...that not why we buy that one for...use other cheap drive to do that job...and well.

[kitty]

I agree - you'd do well with a Lite-ON DVD-ROM for fast reads. My LTD163 is great.

[Jester700]

well i dont know about yours but my extended waranty from circuit city says if my sony DRU500A becomes defective in four years, I can return it so that it can be replaced even if they stop making this model! So i dont care if the motor burns out!

Dude, they make SO much profit on those things it's not funny. Insurance companies try to price policies so that payout is around 50% of premiums on average. Those ESPs payout around 15%! When I worked at CC, they pushed us to sell those AGGRESSIVELY, and for a reason - they're the most profitable thing in the store! You're betting on the thing breaking between the time the warranty runs out and the time the ESP does. At least this is a pretty cheap one - we used to get $80 for a 5 year plan on home CD players!

[dbaker6165]

dude trust me... my burner will have an unfortunate accident within the next three year dont worry about it. and so what if i spend a lil extra money for something that has the potential to break... all I know is the my next burner will be free... or should i say replaced besides i wouldnt mind spending money for my next dvd burner because im sure itll be faster and a hell of alot cheaper, like 200 bux or less

[dbaker6165]

and why are yall treating your dvd burners like babies... Im sure sony has put it thru tests so it can handle aggressive usage. Besides Im sure Im gonna buy the newer generation dvd burner next year for it will be cheaper and faster. dvd burners were about 800 last year, under 400 this year... care to guess how much it will be next year? as long as they improve on technology im always upgrading. so think of getting a dvd burner as a temporary upgrade for the next best thing...

[morac]

I'd agree some times though extended warantee things can be rip offs. For example I once bought something for $200 and they wanted to sell me an extended warantee for something like $60 dollars. But if what you are buying is expensive enough and the extended warantee is cheap enough it might be worth it.

For example, I bought a CD-RW drive from CC the drive that died within 2 years. This time I made sure to get the 4 year replacement policy. If I recall it was between $20 and $40. Not that much considering the peace of mind it brings. If the drive breaks and can't be fixed and Sony no longer makes the drive, they'll replace it with a newer model. This includes if the drive motor burns up. It covers anything that isn't purposedly causes (I can't through it out a window and complain its broken).

Also even though most warrantees for parts are for a year, parts and labor is usually for only 90 days. So if it breaks after 90 days you are going to pay a lot to have it fixed (labor costs more than parts).


BTW the Sony DRU500A only has slow read speeds for DVD writable media. It reads pressed DVDs at full 8X speed. So you can use it to rip DVDs, just not DVD+-R(W)s.

The 1.0e firmware update for the DRU-500A will supposedly increase the read speed for DVD writable media which if true would mean that you would be able to read them at full 8X speed. We won't know if that's true for two more weeks.

[Jester700]

It caps its ripping speed to 2x on movies, though.

[morac]

It caps its ripping speed to 2x on movies, though.

That's only for DVD-R's as you can see on this page it will read pressed DVD's at full speed.

But like I said the 1.0e patch says it will "improve the DVD-ROM reading performance with DVD recordable/rewritable media."

[Jester700]

Dude, read further - on that SAME PAGE it shows that it rips movies at 2x!

[morac]

Doh! You're right.

Not sure how I missed that. I'm also guessing the 1.0e patch won't fix that since 2X is more than fast enough to play a DVD and Sony doesn't want to support ripping (especially since they produce DVD movies under Sony Pictures).

I already have a separate DVD-ROM drive though so it doesn't really affect me. You can get a 16X DVD-ROM for less $40 these days anyway so its not much of a problem unless you have 3 hard drives.

[Jester700]

Right - I did the same thing myself.