Nu Tech DDW-081: More DVD+R madness
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 22, 2003 10:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Nexperia PNX7850: Powering the Nu Tech DDW-081
The Nu Tech DDW-081 is based on one of the newer Philips chipsets, the PNX7850. Philips is a great company for documentation, so you can read the whole whitepaper on the chipset here. The chipset itself is fairly basic — 32-bit MIPS RISC processor with DSP, DMA66 and audio processor. Obviously, manufacturers try to pull as much functionality as possible into the integrated processor; therefore, eliminating the cost of additional chips or additional processing power.
Philips Reference design. Click to enlarge.
What bothers us about this chipset is that it only technically supports 4X DVD+R and DVD+RW. What further bothers us even more is that it supports 16X DVD read, while our DVD drive is only capable of 12X. However, features like 3mm scratch handling and adjustable laser strength (think PowerRec from Plextor) are comforting. Just recently, Nu Tech confirmed with us that the Philips Nexperia PNX7850 is in fact capable of 8X DVD+R because it has been optimized by Nu Tech/QSI engineers.
Click to enlarge.
Above, you can see the drive mainboard. Click to enlarge and you can identify the Philips markings on the big square chip.
Edit: Thanks to one of our readers, I have found out the Nexperia 7850 chipset does support 8X, although I do not know if it is the same implementation as with the Nu Tech DDW-081. Click here to read me. Interestingly, both chipsets still claim 16X DVD read speed.
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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?