detail information

As always we're going to start our review by checking out the contents of the retail package AOpen send to us. In the box of the DRW4410 DVD recorder we can find the following items:

• AOpen DRW4410 drive
• User's Guide (five languages)
• Optical internal drive easy installation guide
• Mounting screws, audio cables
• Bonus DVD containing;
  • Acrobat Reader (v5.1)
  • Manuals (PDF-documents)
  • NeoDVD
  • Nero;
    • Nero Burning ROM v5.5
    • InCD v4
    • EasyWrite Reader
    • Nero Burn Rights
    • Nero Media Player
  • PowerDVD XP 4.0
  • Ulead VideoStudio 7 SE DVD
• One blank 52x Ritek 700MB CD-R disc
• One blank 12x unknown 700MB CD-RW disc
• One blank 4x Ricoh 4.4GB DVD+R disc
• One blank 2.4x Ricoh 4.4GB DVD+RW disc

When looking at the package of the AOpen DRW4410 drive we must say that AOpen has put together an excellent selection of software and hardware. The only items we missed in the package were an IDE flat cable and perhaps some 4x compatible DVD+RW media (but we know that this type of media is, at the moment, very hard to come by). Other than that the package contents were superb since we haven't seen many drives being shipped with a complete selection of recordable media and a DVD full of extra software.

The Drive:

The AOpen DRW4410 drive has a white colour and a big AOpen logo on its tray with underneath that the DVD+RW/+R text. On the drive tray we can also find a 'JustLink' logo, a DVD+ReWriteble logo and a 'High-Speed ReWriteable' logo:

As you can see the AOpen drive has one LED and a round eject button. There's no headphone jack and volume control button located on the drive. When we look at the back of the drive we can see the usual connections:

One the back of the drive we find the usual IDE and power connectors, the Master/Slave/CableSelect jumpers and the audio output connectors. When we take a look at the label on the drive we can see that our DRW4410 drive was manufactured in July of this year:

Software:

When inserting the Bonus DVD in the AOpen drive we see the following menu with which we can install the various software packages that are located on the DVD:

We were pleased to see that the AOpen drive was shipped with a copy of Ahead's CD/DVD mastering software, Nero Burning Rom. A while ago Ahead released their Nero 6 software but the AOpen drive is shipped with a copy of the Nero Burning ROM 5.5 software. For our review we'll be using Nero Burning ROM version 5.5.10.42.

Ahead's packet writing software InCD 4 is also located on the AOpen Bonus DVD. With InCD you can format a CD-RW or DVD±RW disc and use it as a large floppy disc. InCD also supports the 'Mount Rainier' (CD-MRW) format and when you want to access a CD-MRW disc on a system that doesn't support this format, Ahead's EasyWrite Reader plug-in is also present on the DVD-ROM. Other tools located on the DVD-ROM are NeroMediaPlayer and Nero BurnRights (allows an administrator to setup user accounts under Windows XP/2000 so that users without administrative rights can burn CDs with Nero).

The AOpen drive can of course be used to play DVD movies with. On the Bonus DVD we can find a copy of Cyberlink's PowerDVD XP 4.0 software. PowerDVD is a complete solution for viewing DVD movies on your computer.

The next software package on the Bonus DVD Ulead's VideoStudio 7 software. With VideoStudio 7 you can edit your videos and share them with others on tape, DVD, Video CD and the Internet.

Video in, DVD out; it's that simple. neoDVD's intuitive user interface is designed to make all the features easy to access and simple to implement. With the neoDVD software that's located on the AOpen Bonus DVD you can capture, author and copy DVDs in a simple process.

Drive Specifications:

Let's begin with a listing of the drive's specifications as listed on the AOpen website:

The table above gives us a general idea of what we can expect from the AOpen drive. Let's continue with a screenshot of the DRW4410's specifications as detected with Nero InfoTool:

Nero InfoTool reports us that the AOpen drive has firmware 1.11 installed and has a built-in 2MB buffer. The drive can read all types of media, except for DVD-RAM. When it comes to writing various types of media the DRW4410 can only record to CD-R(W) and DVD+R(W) media. The Mount Rainier format is unfortunately not supported. From the InfoTool screenshot we can also see that the AOpen drive is an RPC II (Regional Playback Control) DVD reader. This means that the drive has been set to play region 2 DVDs (Europe) and has four region changes left. After the last change the drive will be locked to the last used region. This was done by motion picture studios to control the release of movie titles in each world region. This lock can then be reset four times by the manufacturer of the drive.

Drive Features:

Buffer Underrun Protection - JustLink:

Nero reports us that the AOpen DRW4410 drive supports the JustLink buffer underrun prevention technology developed by the Japanese Ricoh company. When the, in this case 2MB, buffer of the recorder falls beneath a certain level, it will stop recording as of a specific location on the CD. The recorder then continues attempting to receive data from the PC to refill the buffer. As soon as the buffer has been refilled, the recorder will start recording again.

JustSpeed:

Just Speed is a new technology developed independently by Ricoh. AOpen CD-R/RW drive features JustSpeed technology to reduce disc errors such as insufficient power in writing and servo follow error. The mechanism controls the maximum writing speed by:

1. using the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pre-groove) information (which contains maker name, model number, etc. pre-recorded on disc),
2. performing test writing to the OPC area at the inner circumference of the disc
3. getting the status of the servo follow check of the outer circumference of the disc (checking of track shift due to lack of precision in cutting of the disc itself)

A combination of the above (1), (2), and (3) enables better certainty in high-speed writing, while offering support to discs where maximum writing speed cannot be obtained from the ATIP information.

From the Nero Burning ROM screenshot we can see that both JustLink and JustSpeed can be disabled for the AOpen drive.

Recording Methods:

Let's take a look at the DRW4410's CD-R and CD-RW write performance when using Nero CD-DVD Speed. We'll also take a look at the AOpen's DVD+R(W) recording performance:

CD-Recordable Media:

From the produced graph we can clearly see that the AOpen DRW4410 drive uses the Z-CLV recording method when writing CD-R media. This resulted in an average write speed of 22.22x. This average write speed is a little lower than we saw on the Sanyo CRD-BPDV2 DVD recorder (22.66x).

CD-ReWriteable Media:

There isn't much to say about the AOpen's re-write performance. The drive starts writing at 10x and stays at this speed throughout the entire disc.

DVD+R(W) Media:

There also isn't much to say about the AOpen's DVD+R(W) performance. The drive starts writing at 4x and stays at this speed throughout the entire disc. Since the DRW4410 can record DVD+R and DVD+RW media at the same speed (4x), the recording graphs for DVD+R and DVD+RW media will look exactly the same.

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