TDK External 4x Multiformat External DVD-Rewritable Drive

by TDK

Product Details

Product Manual [238kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 7.4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009YEY7
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 2, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Capture, Create, Premiere. Featuring DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW and CD-R/RW recording capability plus IEEE 1394/FireWire and USB 2.0 connectivity, the external Indi DVD 4x Multiformat burner delivers unprecedented flexibility and power. Create DVD videos and photo slideshows that play in your home DVD player, rip and burn music and back up your hard drive with total control. Kick back, pop in a DVD and watch it on your PC. With Indi DVD, it's all simple and fun.

Performance
Indi DVD delivers industry leading performance, recording discs with absolute accuracy. Record DVD media at blazing 4x speed, CD-R media at 16x and CD-RW discs at 10x. Rip audio from CD to your hard drive at 32x--no clicks, no pops. Complete with TDK's proven buffer underrun technology, Indi DVD is the most advanced DVD burner ever created.

Flexibility
Thanks to the presence of both IEEE 1394/FireWire and USB 2.0 ports, the external Indi DVD Multiformat burner can be used with virtually any Windows or Macintosh computer. Plug & play setup makes this burner an excellent choice for beginners and experts. Software
Includes Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 for PC and Toast Lite for Mac. Easy CD Creator 6 features DVD Builder (Create Hollywood style DVD videos.), PhotoSuite Lite (Edit images and make digital slideshows.), AudioCentral (Play, rip, copy and burn your music.), Creator Classic (Burn with complete control.), Disc Copier (The fastest way to copy discs.), DVDMax (Watch commercial DVD movies on your PC.), Player (Play back projects created with Roxio software.), Drag-to-Disc (Record to DVD/CD with drag-and-drop ease.), Label Creator (Design your own disc labels and covers.), and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you've been waiting to buy...you can stop, October 5, 2003

By 

35-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11" (Mid Atlantic, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: TDK External 4x Multiformat External DVD-Rewritable Drive (Personal Computers)

I've been watching the price of external DVD writers for over a year. This particular item has dropped from over $400 to a little more than $200 (with a current $30 TDK rebate and careful comparison shopping --not neccesarily via Amazon) during that time. It has many positive points to recommend it, and only a few minor issues.
Strenghts:
(1) The external option is a blessing if you are not comfortable with --or simply don't want to spend the time-- messing around inside your computer. Even though my currrent desktop is homebuilt and I'm fine with working inside the case, both of my IDE controller "master" settings are already dedicated (one to the hard drive, one to an existing CD-RW. The latter is capability I'll want to retain for a while longer).
(2) The presence of both USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces adds obvious flexibility to this unit. Since the data transfer rates are nearly the same, this is a matter of personal preference (unless you only have one type available on your computer, of course).
(3) The ability to write in both DVD+RW and DVD-RW formats spares consumers any painful -and possibly regretable-- "vhs vs. beta" type decisions as this market segment matures.
(4) This unit shipped with a surprisingly good printed users manual for both hardware and software operation.
(5) Worked great first time out of the box. Extensive data backups of up to 4.7 GB on a single DVD....how cool is that!
Nitpicks:
(1) The CD drawer operation is a little on the noisy side.
(2) Personal preference issue: The included burning software is Roxio's EZ CD Creator. I prefer Ahead Software's Nero package based on a couple years of experience with both. Your mileage and user experience may vary, of course.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lost a star for bad software, November 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: TDK External 4x Multiformat External DVD-Rewritable Drive (Personal Computers)

This DVD burner comes with Roxio's Easy CD and DVD Creator software. While the software is very easy to follow, the DVDs I produced were choppy and, most importantly, HAD NO SOUND. I checked with Roxio and indeed they have a fix for the sound problem, but it doesn't work (for me at least). While at the Roxio site I saw many, many complaints about this software.

The burner itself has functioned great and set up easily. I think once I find a usable software program to work with it I'll be very happy with the product.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TDK Supports Their Products, April 27, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: TDK External 4x Multiformat External DVD-Rewritable Drive (Personal Computers)

I bought the TDK DVD drive and it was not able to recognize DVD+RW media after writing to the media one time. (DVD+R media worked fine.) This problem had existed since I purchased the drive. I "chatted" with tech support and they agreed that it was a hardware problem with the drive. When I called tech support for an RMA number, they informed me that I was past the warranty period (by a couple of months). I requested they cover the repair anyway as a gesture of goodwill, since the drive had never worked properly. THEY AGREED TO REPAIR THE DRIVE! Now that is what I call great support. Had the drive failed after the warranty period expired, it would not be right for anyone to expect TDK to repair the product. As it is, I feel that TDK has shown incredible integrity and gone above and beyond the call of duty. Hat's off to TDK!

The drive is a solid performer and installs easily. I suggest using Nero with this drive rather than the bundled software.