I'm in the market for a new DVD drive for a entertainment center computer. This computer will be used for TV, TIVO-ing, DVD playback, music playback as well as video editing. My DVD Burner recently took a crap on me and I'm in the market for a new one. A few questions regarding the reviews and such here as well as a question about a Sony drive that seemingly doesn't exist:
While this computer will be mostly dedicated it will also be required to do some pretty intense multitasking, like burning/ripping a DVD while playing a movie off the hard drive, hopefully without lag. Because of this I've taken special notice to the CPU utilization for the test results.
First off, does the 1x 4x 8x, etc CPU utilization mean what I think it means? That, for example, the LG GSA-H10N utilizes a whopping 21% of available CPU power when reading pressed CDs? How imporant is this stat? I'm very curious as my rig is very similar to the one they use for all the burner tests, so if it's using 21% that's an enormous amount.
So, I've spent the past couple hours digging through reviews and found that both the Plextor 760A and the Sony DRU-830A offer good DVD-Video ripping capabilities (a prime concern) as well as very little CPU utilization.
However, I can only find these drives in retail and I really don't feel like spending and extra $50 vs. OEM if I don't have to, especially since I might get two of them. But I did find a sony drive that seems to be the spittin' image of the DRU-830A sans the RAM (which I don't care about). The newegg link is here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131038
Problem is, I can find exactly 0 information on this drive. I'm thinking it's an OEM-specific version of the DRU-830A (minus the RAM), as I know some companies assign completely different model numbers to products they sell as OEM. Sony's site shows nothing and a somewhat exhaustive Google search only revealed places to buy it as well as a forum somewhere else where someone was asking this exact same question. The Sony drive seemed like a perfect fit for me, especially if I can have it for $30, but I'm particularly concerned about not being able to update the firmware if I were to purchase it since I can't find anywhere to download it.
I had this problem with a computer at work, actually, forget what brand of drive, but a DVD drive was burning REEAAALL slow and I attempted to update the firmware and even went so far as to call the company to no avail. They acted like the drive didn't even exist. I really don't want a ghost drive where it will be impossible to update the firmware.
Any help on these two matters?! Please advise and thanks in advance.
--Bruce