Nu Tech DDW-081: More DVD+R madness
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 22, 2003 10:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Perhaps most of us are not that familiar with Nu Technology (aka Nu Tech New), but virtually everyone has heard of their parent company, Quanta Storage Inc. QSI is one of the larger and older optical OEM producers for several US based system builders. Unfortunately for QSI, selling to retail stores and OEM clients began to infringe on their system components, and thus, Nu Technology was born. Nu Technology went into business officially in May 2003 as the retail branch of QSI, and already they have an extensive product line.
This week, we were fortunate enough to take a look at Nu Tech's DDW-081, a DVD+R/W only drive with CDRW capabilities based on the Philips Nexperia chipset. Even though this is one of the first drives to debut with 8X DVD+R, is it enough to dethrone our current champion, the Plextor 708A? Remember, our 708A is a dual format, but limited in CDR capabilities and bundled features.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
25 Comments
View All Comments
edbiegler - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
Just bought one tonight. $99 at Computer Sonics in Seattle (Southcenter) The sales guy said the new firmware WILL support -R and +R at 8X. I haven't been home to try yet, but why would he fib. I'm running an AMD Athalon 650 w/ Win XP. Will keep you posted on success (or failure)Ed
edbiegler - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - link
Thanks for the info Murse.Here is some updated information concerning Ricoh Disks.
Media Information
Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID RICOHJPNR01
Format Capacity Not Formatted
Free Blocks 405405696
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type DVD+R
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 6.0x 8310KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Linear Density Blank Disc
Track Density Unknown
Number of Layers 1
This was a Ricoh Labeled 4X that I pulled out of Best Buy yesterday. I have put the benchmark on the website.
Kristopher
Murse - Monday, October 27, 2003 - link
Nu Tech bitsetting utility available. No word yet on if it works. It was supplied by QSI in Taiwan.http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=13245
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
The only place I could find the MCC 002 media was at Amazon.com. Was $58.99 for a 20 pack. Almost twice the price as the Memorex!Could someone post links to 4X media that is a good and is resonably priced?
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
livewarehouse has this drive for $139 including 3 day shipping >>http://store.yahoo.com/livewarehouse/dvnt33460.htm...
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
For everyone above, I copied the wrong DiskInfo for the MMC disk. It should be:Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID MCC 002
Format Capacity 4.38GB(4.70GB)
Book Type DVD+R
Media Type DVD+R
Media Id Code Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 8.0x 11080KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 2.4x 3324KBps
Data area starting sector 30000h
Data area end sector 23053Fh
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1
Cheers,
Kristopher
Murse - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Nevermind...just copy and paste the link from #15 and it will take you to the right price. Their site is kind of screwy, after adding it to my cart, I had to hit "update" to get it to stay in there.Murse - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
I ordered one from unitedmicro and it's waiting for me at home now. To get the $139 ($132 + 7 ship) you have to go through pricewatch. Their site lists it as $145 + ship. Navigate to DVD-ROM from the pricewatch home page, then search for "DDW 081" and the listing for unitedmicro should come up. Then navigate to unitedmicro through pricewatch. WARNING: Their resellerrating is very bad, but they are $20 cheaper than everywhere else, so I took a chance. They shipped it pretty quickly (although not the same day as ordered), but I haven't inspected the package yet. Good luck.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
There is some contradictory information on the Nu Tech website as to the CD-RW speed of the DDW-081. The specs for the DDW-081(http://www.nuniverse.com/1_english/3_products/01_i... state the CD-RW speed is 10X. However, Nu Tech's news release on the DDW-081 ( http://www.nuniverse.com/1_english/2_new/01_01_new... states "The DDW-081 supports 8X DVD+Write/4X DVD+ReWrite 16X DVD-ROM/40X CD-Write/24X CD-ReWrite/48X CD-ROM." Furthermore, the Philips refernence literature mentioned above (http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/lite... states the CD-RW speed is also 24x. If the drive at present only supports CD-RW at 10x, I'm wondering if a future firmware update will upgrade it to 24x?