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.



Construction
Comments Locked

25 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link

    BTW IMHO this drive is damm good for the price. (bang 4 your bux)
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link

    Is it possible to post the latest firmware? There is no mention of a firmware update on the Nu Tech site. If you can't post it, maybe you can leverage your contact with them to get it up on their web site.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link

    How about some DVD-ROM and DVD-Video read speed tests? DAE anyone?
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link

    The MCC 002 discs are technically rated at only 4x. So yes, it can write to some 4x media at 8x.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link

    "Our main concerns stem from the lack of 8X DVD+R media. While our current champion, the Plextor 708A, had no problems burning several brands of 4X media at 8X, the DDW-081 will only burn 8X certified media at 8X. The lack of bitsetting capabilities for the drive seemed disappointing also. Granted, our Plextor 708A does not support bitsetting either, but it does support DVD-R burn capabilities."

    Did you try the DVD+R 4X Verbatim media that came with the drive....I did and it allowed me to burn @ 8X :)

    See here for some results:
    http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12956...

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now