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In House Review - Mitsumi CR-485FTE 54/32/54 CD-RW

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In House Review - Mitsumi CR-485FTE 54/32/54 CD-RW

Postby Ian on Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:02 am

CDRLabs has taken one of the first looks at Mitsumi's new 54/32/54 CD-RW, the CR-485FTE. Featuring some of the fastest speeds available, the CR-485FTE is the world's first drive to read and write at 54x and rewrite at 32x. The drive also offers features like ExacLink buffer underrun protection and Mitsumi's own AEGIS WRITING technology.

In this review we take a look at some of the features found on the CR-485FTE and then put it up against some of the 52x writers from the competition. Are 54x reading and writing speeds really as good as they sound? You'll have to check out the review to find out.

ImageMitsumi CR-485FTE 54/32/54 CD-RW

If you have any comments or questions about this review or the Mitsumi CR-485FTE, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.
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Postby CDRecorder on Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:39 am

Nice review, Ian!

I wonder why Mitsumi didn't make it support Mt. Rainier?
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Postby Ian on Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:00 am

The drive will support it with the next firmware revision. Mitsumi claims that the drive is 100% Mt. Rainier compliant.

These early drives were meant for OEM's. Without OS support, a lot of OEM's don't want to support Mt. Rainier.
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Postby Partisan on Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:08 am

There is firmware version 7.0C supporting MT rainier on the Mitsumi site:

http://www.mitsumi.com/enduser/1_drivers.html#CD-R/RW
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Postby CDRecorder on Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:28 am

Wow, they released that update fast! Thanks!

BTW, in my comment above, I understood that Mitsumi was planning to release an update with this capability; I just didn't understand why it wasn't supported in the original firmware.
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Postby BurninMan921 on Mon Apr 28, 2003 1:12 pm

I've had this drive for about a week now, and I agree with the review except for one thing: my drive is quiet. It's now louder than my PX-504A and my LiteOn DVD (166S) is louder.

The lack of error reporting sucks, it's audio ripping is slow most of the time (except CD-Rs, which my reads at the full 54x speed), and it's write quality seems very good. As a burner, it's great. For reading/ripping, I'll stick to the 166S...
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Postby CDRecorder on Mon Apr 28, 2003 1:25 pm

Interesting... What firmware do you have, Burninman?
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Postby vinnie97 on Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:38 pm

The LTR-522452S is still unbeat in the writing speed deptartment when it comes to cd-r's. Mitsumi matches the 650MB writing time but falls slightly behind when it's upped to 701MB. Granted, the difference is negligible (the Samsung offers some good competition at 701MB also) but if writing speed is your only concern, the Lite-On is still the best buy. Of course, cd-rw discs are another story altogether.
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Postby Scour on Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:53 pm

Hello!

Nice review, Ian :)

It´s a good writer, but not perfect. But no writer is perfect. The only thing i don´t like is the media-compatibilty. But the writing-quality is good in the most cases, i think

Does anyone know, which chipset it has?

@vinnie97

I think it´s not important to write a CD-R in 2.30 oder 2.32. I have enough time for a few seconds more, my important thing is the writing quality
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby vinnie97 on Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:03 pm

Right, scour, like I said, the difference of a few seconds is negligible. ;). Use the right discs and any of the aforementioned drives will offer commendable writing quality. The question is which one can burn the quickest yet still maintain acceptable writing quality. That would require more extensive testing between all 3 drives.
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Postby Scour on Mon Apr 28, 2003 5:31 pm

vinnie97 wrote:Right, scour, like I said, the difference of a few seconds is negligible. ;). Use the right discs and any of the aforementioned drives will offer commendable writing quality. The question is which one can burn the quickest yet still maintain acceptable writing quality. That would require more extensive testing between all 3 drives.


Yes, you need all 3 writers, many different media and many time ;)

Maybe a user here get this mitsumi and post his media-experience with the Mitsumi in the compatibility-thread
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby eliminator on Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:31 pm

Thanks Ian ! 8)
Wake up ATI :-)
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Postby BurninMan921 on Tue Apr 29, 2003 12:55 am

Liteonguy, I have the 7.0c firmware in my drive.

Any speed differance between 48x/52x/54x drives is only a few seconds. No real point really. Just bragging rights. I was more interested in burning quality, and this drive wasn't a Lite-On (I've been burned by 3 Lite-Ons, soo......).

And I should've said it before: Nice review Ian (as always!)!
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Postby Ian on Wed Apr 30, 2003 11:12 am

Mt. Rainier performance has been added.

While the jump in firmware versions was pretty big (4.0B to 7.0C), the only thing 7.0C adds is support for Mt. Rainier. It didn't have any effect (that I saw) on media compatibility. I was really hoping it would. :(
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Postby Scour on Wed Apr 30, 2003 1:37 pm

Hello!

Damn, i hoped too, that a new FW can bring a better media-compatibility. That´s the only thing i don´t like at this Mitsumi
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby Ian on Wed Apr 30, 2003 3:10 pm

Scour wrote:Hello!

Damn, i hoped too, that a new FW can bring a better media-compatibility. That´s the only thing i don´t like at this Mitsumi


Hopefully that will be in the next update. Will not as often as Lite-On, Mitsumi releases updates pretty frequently.
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Postby Scour on Wed Apr 30, 2003 5:06 pm

Hello!

@Ian:

LiteOn makes to many FW-updates; i don´t think that every new FW have new media-list. Maybe they want to kill the bugs that were included in the old FW

When Mitsumi it makes like Plextor and Cyberdrive do, that will be allright :)
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby Scour on Thu May 01, 2003 11:07 am

Hello!

I have 2 questions about the Mitsumi:

1. When a CD-R-media is inserted, show the burning-prg the max. Write Speed or did it says always that the media can be burned at 54x?

2. When a lower-quality-media is burning, did the Mitsumi decrease the speed meanwhile writing? The LG decreases the burning-speed, when he detected low quality at end of the media
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby BurninMan921 on Fri May 02, 2003 12:46 am

Scour, yes it lets you select 54x for any media. But it's equalivent of SmartBurn automatically drops the burn speed down to whatever the media can handle. The drive just doesn't report that speed.
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Postby Scour on Fri May 02, 2003 1:22 pm

Hello!

Thanks, BurninMan921. That cleared my first question :)
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby Scour on Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:19 am

Hello!

@Ian:

In the review you write about a media-list for this writer; where can i get that list?
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby Ian on Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:35 am

You would have to come to my house and look at it.
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Postby Scour on Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:43 am

Ian wrote:You would have to come to my house and look at it.


Tell me your address :wink:
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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Postby Ian on Thu Jun 19, 2003 10:55 am

It's probably out of date anyway. It was for the original firmware.
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Postby Scour on Thu Jun 19, 2003 11:25 am

Ian wrote:It's probably out of date anyway. It was for the original firmware.


Better than nothing, I think. I didn´t found anything like this at Mitsumi Homepage.

And I´m not sure, that the media-compatibility has much changed with the new FW
Benq DW 1640 and 1650 , Plextor PX-755, Pioneer BDR-208 and 209D, LG GH24NSC0, LG BH16NS40 and 16NS55, Liteon ihas 124F and 324F, Pioneer DVR-215 and S21, Samsung SH-224DB and 224GB, and some more

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