In House Review - Toshiba SD-R5272 8x DVD±RW

[Ian]

Today, CDRLabs brings you a review of Toshiba's 8x DVD±RW drive, the SD-R5272. While affordably priced, this drive features specs like 8x DVD±R and 4x DVD±RW writing speeds as well as a maximum DVD read speed of 12x. The SD-R5272 also includes features like 32x CD-R and 16x CD-RW writing speeds and support for buffer underrun protection.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the SD-R5272 and see how it compares to some of the 8x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does Toshiba's new DVD±RW drive have what it takes? Is it the best bang for your buck? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=235]
Toshiba SD-R5272 8x DVD±RW[/url]

If you have any comments or questions about this review or the Toshiba SD-R5272, please post them in the forum using the link provided below.

[Ian]

I'm finally done with all of the (single layer) 8x DVD writers. Everyone and their uncle sent us one. From here on out, its all double layer and/or 12x or faster.

[bobmitchell]

I guess what amazes me is the fact that most of your reviews of 8X or 12X DVD burners...very few, if any are faster than the Plextor P-708A in time it takes to burn a full DVD. The Plexy comes in at 8 minutes...and I have only seen the Plexy 12X go faster! The methods by which each brand burns seems to really make a difference. My only thought here would be that the Plextor drives seem to really give you a solid benchmark by which to compare.

As mentioned on other sites...even the newest Pioneer 16X burner may not be as fast as the 12X Plextor. Guess Plextor wins because of P-CAV.

I, particularly, would find is useful to compare drives against the two Plextor units...for NOTHING that is being released, short of Dual Layer, is worth upgrading to if you own Plextor.

Am I crazy here?

Thanks for all you share with us

Bob

[Ian]

I, particularly, would find is useful to compare drives against the two Plextor units...for NOTHING that is being released, short of Dual Layer, is worth upgrading to if you own Plextor.

You do bring up a good point. It's good to have a mark to compare something to. On the flip side though, you also have to consider price. Do you compare the $80 drive against the one that costs twice as much or ones in the same price range? It's definitely something to think about.

[digitaldoc]

I think the write strategy is as important as the speed number they put on the box. Of course, the innocent consumer only sees the number and knows nothing about zoned vs. p-cav writing strategies.

[bobmitchell]

Ian...

Funny you should bring up price...guess the old adage: "You get what you pay for" really applies...

Bob

[dolphinius_rex]

Ian...

Funny you should bring up price...guess the old adage: "You get what you pay for" really applies...

Bob

I don't feel I got what I paid for in my Plextor 712a....

[bobmitchell]

Do you mind if I ask Why?

Bob

[pchilson]

Do you mind if I ask Why?

Bob

Yeah, he minds.
It's because his 712 chokes on Optodisc like a dog eatin chicken bones...

[ClayBuster]

Do you mind if I ask Why?

Bob

Yeah, he minds.
It's because his 712 chokes on Optodisc like a dog eatin chicken bones...

LMAO. so that's the whole reason behind the plex bashing from Dolph.

[Kennyshin]

Ian...

Funny you should bring up price...guess the old adage: "You get what you pay for" really applies...

Bob

I don't think I can get 5000 times more from the newest car Mr. Lee of Samsung bought than a used Daewoo Tico which costs about the same as a Plextor PX-712SA. But Tico's too small for electric wheelchairs that weigh more than me, not that's possible even for a small luxury car that costs US$600,000.

I have several drives that can write to DVD+R at up to 8x speed. One of them is Lite-On 851S for which I paid 90,000 Won. I knew I was paying too much for the 851S. On the other hand, I paid about 380,000 Won for Plextor PX-708A. 851S can write to DVD+R DL media but PX-708A cannot.

One thing that puzzles me often is that why there are so few people on English-language forums that say Plextor should lower their prices at least by 30% or 50%. In Japan, there will be even fewer buyers of Plextor drives if the prices were 2x more than NEC and LG. Plextor sounds better to native English speakers? Special warranty for North American and European consumers?

[Ian]

Special warranty for North American and European consumrs?

Here in the US, its only a year like most manufacturers. They do have better tech support though. In Europe, its two years, but thats forced on all companies due to some EU ruling.

[Kennyshin]

Corrected some typos but there must be some more.

[dolphinius_rex]

Do you mind if I ask Why?

Bob

Yeah, he minds.
It's because his 712 chokes on Optodisc like a dog eatin chicken bones...

LMAO. so that's the whole reason behind the plex bashing from Dolph.

No, I don't like the Plextor because it generally has inferior burn quality then my Pioneer DVR-107 does with most media I've tried, including Ritek as well as Optodisc. I have to try a few others as well.... but even my LiteOn 411s and 832s can burn circles around the PX-712a on Optodisc... and I don't care what people say, that just isn't right! Given my own results on multiple media types and manufacturers, I would choose a hacked NEC-2500a or a stock Pioneer DVR-107 over the PX-712a ANYTIME, unless I wanted to use Plextools for scanning... which I do. I would not even consider using the PX-712a for personal DVD burning, since I couldn't guarentee the results I want on any of the media I use.

Back on topic, I don't think it's fair to compare the writing quality of the 8x DVD+Rs that only burned at 4x on the Toshiba SD-R5272 with the discs that actually burned at 8x. It gives a bit of a false impression of quality. Looking directly at the scans posted, it gives the impression that the Optodisc 8x DVD+Rs had the best burn quality out of all the 8x DVD+Rs... but remembering the speed graph shown previously, we know that this isn't a proven thing. (not that I consider K-Probe a way of proving burn quality anyways... but this is a different argument...)

[pchilson]

No, I don't like the Plextor because it generally has inferior burn quality then my Pioneer DVR-107 does with most media I've tried, including Ritek as well as Optodisc. I have to try a few others as well.... but even my LiteOn 411s and 832s can burn circles around the PX-712a on Optodisc... and I don't care what people say, that just isn't right! Given my own results on multiple media types and manufacturers, I would choose a hacked NEC-2500a or a stock Pioneer DVR-107 over the PX-712a ANYTIME, unless I wanted to use Plextools for scanning... which I do. I would not even consider using the PX-712a for personal DVD burning, since I couldn't guarentee the results I want on any of the media I use.

You really should look into RMA'ing the drive if it is giving you bad results.
My first one only wanted to burn holes in the discs at 8x and above, the replacement drive burns beautifully. If you view other forums you can find many people complaining about the same things as you. There seems to be a run of bad drives out there for whatever reason. I know it's not right but if you get ahold of a good one you will like it...

[Halc]

Thanks for the review!

As for having the reference comparison, I think it is problematic.

People often think that the feature they themselves are after is the most important.

Personally, it matter to me very little wehterh the speed of the burn is 12 mins or 8 mins.

For me quality is above all else (+ some added non-burning features). I know others disagree and I respect that.

Still, I'm sure there are other people who also consider media compatibility, game copy speed, ripping speed and other various features.

On all these fronts there is not a single "best" drive that performs better in all features, imho.

As such, it is very difficult to pick out one reference drive to compare to.

BTW, does anybody know if the Toshiba dvd burners can be speed hacked for 16x dvd ripping like the dvd-rom drives can?

[offtopic]

Plextor sounds better to native English speakers? Special warranty for North American and European consumers?

I'm sure this has been covered a million times before, but my take on this is...

Some of us westerners tend to buy by brand, by previous experience and to some extent by price.

Plextor to many has had the above three: a known "good" brand (from many years ago) that has stuck, a good personal experience with their (older) cd-burners/support and a higher price.

To some the magical "Made in Japan" sticker also mattered, but I don't think Plextor's for sale in EU have been made in Japan for quite some time (afaik).

Now, these are just my guesses, I don't necessarily see the situation the same way.

To me, the added benefits of Plextools Pro (with scanning options, good/speedy scratched disc reading and excellent CDS 200 bypass) have been worth the extra price so far _for me_.

But in the case of PX-712, I have decided to skip that drive for now at least, just because it is so much more expensive than almost all of the competition (at least where I live).

Now, if Pioneer and Nec would come out with drives that offered C1/C2 scanning and PI/PIF/PO/POF scanning, I think I would just ditch all future Plextors, unless of course Plextor came out with something that was significantly cheaper and/or superior to all the competition.

That's just me. YMMV and what not.
[/offtopic]


cheers,
halc

[Phoenix '97]

Are you able to try this drive with Optodisc 4x -R media? More specifically, OPTODISCR004. My Toshiba SD-R5002 reads them no problem, however my Toshiba SD-M1802 can't really recognize them and will typically hang the machine to some degree if I stick such a disc in. The only way the drive will see these is if the disc is already present in the drive when OS is starting up.

[WNTR]

I'm finally done with all of the (single layer) 8x DVD writers. Everyone and their uncle sent us one. From here on out, its all double layer and/or 12x or faster.

I've seen the BenQ-DW1600 preview but when can we expect the big review of this burner?

[Ian]

I've seen the BenQ-DW1600 preview but when can we expect the big review of this burner?

You probably won't see one unless BenQ sends us a final, retail kit. Honestly though, I don't see that happening. However, I might buy myself a DW1620 so who knows.

[Kennyshin]

@Halc,

I knew exactly how many years Plextor provide in Europe, the United States, and Asia, and for how much added cost.

Well, I got something else to attend. I'll later continue.

[Scour]

Hello!

Is the 5272 a real Toshiba or a Samsung-OEM, maybe a Joint-venture bwtween Toshiba and Samsung?

[Ian]

Yeah, they have a joint venture called the Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp. (real original name, eh?).

So far it seems like Toshiba designs the chipsets and drives and Samsung rebadges them.

[dolphinius_rex]

Yeah, they have a joint venture called the Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp. (real original name, eh?).

So far it seems like Toshiba designs the chipsets and drives and Samsung rebadges them.

I think there's some firmware differences too. Your writing quality came out a little better then the Samsung 08A (rebrand of this Toshiba) over at cdrinfo.com I think Toshiba's firmware is either quicker to come out, or just superior in general.

Well, we'll know for sure if Samsung sends me a drive for reviewing too (fingers are crossed!)

[Kennyshin]

Samsung chose to have a partnership with Toshiba because they were anxious for one as they were failing to catch up with LG, the traditional No. 2 in everything beside ODD. They tried Philips, Ricoh, Matsushita, Sony, but after all settled with Toshiba.

Toshiba can't be a bad choice. Samsung's DVD-RAM drive was reviewed first in 1999 at KBench.com and Toshiba's been one of the DVD-RAM makers along with Hitachi and Matsushita. Samsung's support for AOD when it has supported Blu-ray for years also proves they can sleep with Toshiba with little problem.

Nobody can be sure which will result from the new relationship. According to Samsung, they seem to take at least half of the world's ODD market. They have had only 20% market share. Samsung combined with Toshiba is No. 2 manufacturer of ODD. Samsung's synergy strategy and hi-touch design don't do much to improve their popularity in DVD writers.

However, Hitachi was far from being the No. 1 in optical storage drives in the past few years either. Even South Koreans were saying Samsung can't even make a CRT or TV or LCD or whatever themselves, but now they are No. 1 in the DRAM and LCD business. That could change if all Japanese manufacturers that supply equipment and licenses to Samsung all at once in case of total war or something as extreme as that. Otherwise, they are going to get much bigger than is now.

One might not like it but sometimes it's cheaper to buy some technologies than to develop inhouse as Ritek and Lite-On has also proven well. As time goes on, people forget.

[jase]

Is it fair to assume then that Samsung's new standalone DVD-RW/-RAM recorders are based on Toshiba machines? Their early recorders were rebadged Matsushitas, but a colleague of mine who works for Samsung claims that these new machines are Samsung's own which seems incompatible with comments about Toshiba.