[Dvdrtools-users] Sony DRU-500A observations

[Jay Berkenbilt]

>   I think it would be helpful, quite a few people have privately
>   mailed me asking for the status of this drive, and the author of
>   cdrecord is willing to add patches to fix any problems

The rest of this message was my response to a user who posted a
question to our local LUG about whether he should buy an HP DVD200i at
best buy for $300.  The user didn't seem to understand the whole
DVD-R[W]/+R[W] issue.  Since I threw away money on the wrong drive
over the same mistake at one point, I felt compelled to provide some
additional information.  These are my observations about the Sony
DRU-500A in hopes that this information will be useful.  Please feel
free to correct anything that is wrong here.

-------------------

With the Sony DRU-500A, just be aware that dvdrtools does not work.
You need cdrecord-prodvd to write DVD-R or DVD-RW format.  It is free
(as in beer) for non-commercial use.  The author charges a modest $100
for a commercial license.  DVD+R and DVD+RW format work great with
dvd+rw-tools.

The big issue is what format you want.  There are five recordable DVD
formats: DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM.  DVD-RAM is really
in its own category.  DVD-RAM is basically an optical hard drive.  It
was designed for a different purpose from the others.

DVD-R and DVD-RW are analogous to CD-R and CD-RW.  They are official
recordable DVD formats sanctioned by the DVD consortium.  (I
personally don't think this necessarily makes them more legitimate
than the +R and +RW formats, but others may differ.)  DVD-R discs are
readable on virtually every DVD-ROM drive and DVD-VIDEO recorder.  The
free tool that you can use to write DVD-R and DVD-RW is dvdrtools.  It
is known to work with the Pioneer DVR-A04.  I believe it works on the
DVR-A05, but I'm not sure.  There is some experimental
not-yet-released code in dvd+rw-tools that supports DVD-RW in packet
mode.  I don't know the details.

DVD+R and DVD+RW are formats devised by a group of companies including
Sony, HP, and Philips, if I recall correctly.  The claim to be the
more compatible format on the basis of the physical media details
being closer to DVD-ROM than DVD-R and -RW, but evidence suggests
otherwise.  DVD-R is certainly the most widely readable read-only
format.  For both types of formats, the write-once format (-R, +R) is
more widely readable than the write-many format (-RW, +RW), but
otherwise, it's very device dependent.  The Sony DRU-500A is the only
drive on the market right now that can write all four formats, though
as I said, it can only write the +R/+RW formats on Linux with free and
open source software.  (Also -RW in packet mode, but still no -R.)  It
also supports 4x DVD recording.  (So does the Pioneer DVR-A05.)  Note
that the Pioneer drive is a -R/-RW drive and the HP is a +R/+RW drive.

I'll share my specific experiences.  I have access to a Sony DRU-500A,
an HP DVD100i (the predecessor to the 200i: supports +RW but not +R),
and three different DVD-ROM drives: a Pioneer DVD116, a Creative Labs
PC-DVD, and the DVD/CD-RW combo drive on my HP Omnibook laptop.  The
compatibility results are pretty surprising.  All the drives can read
DVD-R fine.  HOWEVER, the creative and pioneer DVD-ROM drives have a
hard time reading DVD-R discs that I write using cdrecord-prodvd on
the Sony DVR-500A.  I haven't figured out why.  My laptop's DVD drive
can read DVD-R and DVD-RW without any trouble including the very same
DVD-R discs that the other two DVD-ROM drives can't read properly.
The Pioneer and Creative DVD-ROM drives don't have any trouble reading
DVD+R or DVD+RW format, but it takes the drives as long as 30 seconds
to recognize a DVD+RW disc when you insert it.  The Sony DRU-500A
reads everything readily, as does the HP DVD100i.  With the various
compatibility issues I have, I end up writing a DVD-R and a DVD+R
version of stuff I want to use widely.  For archiving and backups,
DVD-R is my preferred format.

At present, no progress has been made, or does it seem any effort is
being made, to support DVD-R and -RW with the Sony-DRU500A under Linux
with dvdrtools, but I'd bet this will change some day.  There is also
a rather serious problem with dvdrtools and cdrecord-prodvd which is
that it ignores the speed parameter when you write discs.  This causes
problems if you use a disc rated at 2x or 1x on a 4x drive.  The
recording software, even if you specifically tell it otherwise, will
try to record at higher speed than the media supports.  This will
generally cause either write failures or, worse, successful writes and
discs that can't be read.  I suspect that is at the root of the
problems with discs that I've written on my Sony DRU500A that I can't
read on my Pioneer DVD-ROM drive.  This problem comes up from time to
time on the dvdrtools mailing list, but nothing is ever done about
it.  dvdrtools and cdrecord-prodvd apparently refuse to honor the
speed parameter for writing CDs as well.  These are both based on
cdrtools 1.11 alpha releaes.  cdrecord with cdrtools 1.10 does not
have this problem but also doesn't support DVD recording.

Even so, I'd agree with the assessment that a Sony-DRU 500A would be
the first choice, and that the Pioneer DVR-A05 would be the second
choice.  If you care utomst about DVD-R capability under Linux, go
with the Pioneer.  I suspect, however, that this must not be the case
if you were considering the HP drive.  The way I look at it, the Sony
drive does everything the HP drive does under Linux right now and has
the potential to do much more.  It already does much more under
Windows.  Since it costs about the same, there's no reason to look
further than the Sony DRU500A if you want DVD+R/+RW formats.

This turned out to be longer than I thought, but hopefully it will be
useful....

--
Jay Berkenbilt <address@hidden>
http://www.ql.org/q/