Customer Reviews

Sony DRU-500A 24x10x32 Internal IDE DVD+RW/-R/CD-RW Drive

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I suppose this drive and the premise to buy it would be based on a lot of things. Do you really need it? Well it reads CD/CDR/CDRW and it burns them all as well. It plays DVD/DVDR/DVDRW/DVDetc..etc..etc and it burns them as well. When used in conjunction with 321 Studios DVD X COPY, well i have been told by a friend it makes PERFECT copies of your DVD movies. Enjoy the options or extras in your new LORD OF THE RINGS DVD? They will still be there when you burn it onto a new DVD with this drive. Considering I have just a CD and CDRW drives right now, this was a big step for me, But im sure one way or another, instead of paying 10-25 bucks to replace my scratched DVD's, I can just burn another copy and know it will work just fine in my DVD player. Its even a SONY, you just cant go wrong with SONY electronics.

This is a fantastic unit, burns in both the 'plus' and 'dash' formats, the first of it's kind. AND it's a Sony. AND it's reasonably priced. In a way, it's a holy grail if you're a DVD format-phile. It comes with a fantastic software suite, and oh-by-the-way it's a CD-R/RW as well (24x/10x). Sony can't keep up with the immediate demand on this, it's such a good device.

If you intend to just use Record Now software it works great. If you intend to use the packet writing software DLA you better look elsewhere. If Veritas DLA is installed you cannot load a DVD movie. Support tells you to uninstall DLA when you want to load a DVD and reinstall when you need DLA support. This renders this unit useless if you need both functions. Support indicates they know about the problem but cannot tell you when a fix will be available. With support of all media formats this unit is superior. Until they resolve the software issues it is not.

Just got this yesterday. Installation was a snap, once you get over opening your PC up. The drive worked flawlessly from the get go (I am running Windows XP Home). I have started transferring digital video from my camcorder directly to the dvd format and have not run into any problems. Backing up data has been very easy so far. DVD-r's make it easy to share digital video, pictures and music with family and friends who do not have a PC.

I've owned the Sony DRU500A for a few months and I am very happy with it. I have yet to encounter any sort of problems or issues while I burn CDs and DVDs on an almost daily basis. If this device has a flaw, it's only that its writing speeds don't keep up with models that offer less compatibility with the various CDR and DVDR formats that are available. This means that when buying this device, you are ultimately sacrificing speed for greater compatibility. So, if compatibility is what you're looking for, and speed isn't a major issue, then look no further than the DRU500A.

This drive is great. I agree with everyone else, forget the extra software. So many people are whining about this that and the other. If you're really going to use this for more than just backups, like creating home DVD's, then you'll need good software to do it. You want good movies, so invest in the good software. I use Adobe Premiere with this and haven't had a problem AT ALL. Sure, Premiere has a steep learning curve, but once you master it, your home videos will look a lot less like home videos and more of a great semi-professional video.

This drive works flawlessly and saves a ton of time, especially since I used to output my videos back to video tape after editing. I do agree that 4x media is the way to go. It saves much more time, especially if you are making multiple copies.

This drive does do everything it sets out to do quite well, but I say BEWARE to anyone who wants to make any kind of advanced DVD. (This is not just for this drive, but any DVD-r or +r drive.) I wanted professional menus and about 2 hours of quality sports footage on a disc, and ultimately it took other high-priced applications and a steep learning curve to get there. If you just want to back up data and make 60 minute videos direct from your Firewire/i-link camera, then great-- you can do that and you'll be amazed at how good it turns out. But if you see yourself making custom DVDs with the same ease and professional outcome with which we can burn CDs today, well, the software just isn't ready yet. See how things shape up by Christmas.
(For the record, I used DVDit!, the included MyDVD's big brother, Adobe Premiere, and the Tsunami (TmpEnc) MPEG-2 encoder to make my DVD.)

Had the drive for about 2 years, then it won't write anymore. Reads fine, but it won't create a disk. Run the diagnostics - no clue what the issue is. On a side note, this drive was pretty loud.

I am using this DVD writer for more then a year now, I bought it for $350 and never had a problem, Not even a single DVD had write error unless media is faulty or cheap tart unbranded type stuff and even those had very little or not errors in reading/writing.

The best thing is that it was the 1st to offer all type of media writing and reading plus it is SONY and they know how to make electronics.

Luckly my original drive died before the warrenty. The second drive has started to give write errors. It will not complete writing a DVD. At least I got 2 years (1 for each drive) before having to go get another one.

I will never buy another Sony optical drive again. They are overpriced and provide crappy performance.