CDRLabs.com

I emailed them once and they said they would be coming out with a 48x24x48x16x combo drive in January but they didn't say when it would be on retail shelves. I am not to sure about the Samusung combo drive since it doesnt have Mt. Rainier. However, the LG combo I would assume would only have a 2mb cache buffer since all of their other drives do. Then their is Cyndene's new combo coming out soon also. I guess Cendyne's new combo will be Lite-On's new combo. I guess Cendyne's new combo will also have a 2mb cache buffer. Would a 2mb cache buffer be good? Thanks, Craig.

The 2mb cache should be good if you have a descently fast computer (ie. anything above 500mhz). The LiteOn's new drives should be interesting. They have all those new letters like K and W.
Looking at how slow LG and Samsung have been in releasing their recent drives, I would suspect LiteOn's coming out before them.

is Plextor making a CD-RW/DVD Combo?.. if so when will it come out?.. Im looking to buy a new drive in the next month and want a combo. so if a company is planning to make one please tell me

DrunkinMonkey58 wrote:is Plextor making a CD-RW/DVD Combo?.. if so when will it come out?.. Im looking to buy a new drive in the next month and want a combo. so if a company is planning to make one please tell me

They already make one:

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/20_10.html

cfitz

Sorry I meant a faster drive or more newer.. When is the next PleXCombo gonna be out?..
(Looking to buy a new drive in the next month... 'Looking at Plextor')

I think that would be cool if Plextor came out with a 48x24x48x16x combo drive soon. I wonder if that drive would have 4mb cache buffer.

im not even gonna say nothing

anyways why would they have a 48x24x48x16..
if they have 52x read and write out 20x dvd read??
or am I just wrong again like always

I thought Plextor was going to stop at 48x speeds. Or am I wrong?

why are these companies stopping at 48x?

Just Plextor I heard. Their were topics in here that had articles stating that burning CD's at 52x speed shattered CD's. I'm not sure if that is true.

so why do they have 56x cd roms?

Here is the thread on the "danger" of 52x drives:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7597

It really isn't a concern as long as you don't put damaged discs in your drive. The "danger" was overblown - another example of media hype and Internet rumormongering.

Still, there is a limit to the speed at which you can spin a disc in a CD-RW drive. The faster you go the more vibration is induced, making it harder to keep the laser properly focused on the proper spot. This, as you would imagine, degrades the quality of the burn. And there is some speed high enough that there truly is a danger of discs disintegrating, although 52x isn't that speed.

At this point manufacturers have likely decided that recordable DVD formats are the future, and will be concentrating their new design efforts in that arena. The data density of DVD's is much greater, allowing not only more storage per disc, but also faster transfer rates at the same or lower rotational speeds than CD's. I would imagine that from here on out any advancements in CD-RW drive technology will be primarily directed towards reducing production costs.

cfitz

Why do discs break in 52x writers but not 48x..??
Is 52x spinning that much faster then 48x..??

1 more thing. Why is TDK a 52x24x48?
it doesn't break at 52x when burning? it only break when reading?.. whats the deal here?

eric_sermon wrote:Why do discs break in 52x writers but not 48x..??

They don't. Read the thread I referenced. And I said it isn't a danger two posts up.

cfitz

eric_sermon wrote:Why do discs break in 52x writers but not 48x..??
Is 52x spinning that much faster then 48x..??

In the overall scheme of things, its not that big of a difference. Most of the 52x writers I've looked at spin at about 12,000 RPM. The 48x writers are a little slower. About 10,000 RPM.

eric_sermon wrote:1 more thing. Why is TDK a 52x24x48?
it doesn't break at 52x when burning? it only break when reading?.. whats the deal here?

Good question. I've asked TDK that myself and they haven't had an answer for me.

Here's my theory. The drive can monitor the writing quality while burning so it knows if something is going wrong. If problems pop up, it can slow the writing speed. It doesn't have this capability when reading. It just goes full blast, no matter what. By limiting the read speed to 48x, TDK is helping prevent some of the problems people worry about like cracking discs, crap shattering, etc. Not to mention, its quieter and the difference in performance really isn't that much.

so the only reason a lot of companies don't move up to 52x is MOSTLY because of noise issues?

No. Like cfitz said its because of the hype about discs cracking/shattering.

o. that shouldn't mean anything.. because i didn't know anything about disc breaking till I came to this message board

OK, here's the official word from TDK:

TDK wanted to launch the safest 52X CD-RW drive possible so we did not increase the read speed to 52X as some vendors did. When reading at 48X, the drive spins the CD media at about 10,000 RPM. This is the maximum speed that TDK feels is safe considering that the end user might use an older disc that has an inner hub crack. There is a 0.01 percent risk of shattering a damaged disc at speeds higher than 10,000 RPM.

The drive is capable of writing at 52x safely because 52x capable media is needed to reach maximum burning speed. As you probably already know, you can't burn an older disc (say a 24x certified) at 52x. Therefore, an older disc will never be spun above 10,000 RPM while it is being written to.

In essence, it's a safety issue and TDK wanted to make sure its drives were as safe as possible.

Does this mean TDK is stopping at 52x24x48x with their CD burners? Then the next step for TDK is DVD Burners?

TDK will probably have some combo drives as LiteOn will be releasing a wide variety of them.
As for DVD burners, they already have 2 drives. One is a 4x and the other is 2x DVD+R/RW http://www.tdk.com/burners_drives/index.html

I guess this means TDK will do a 48x24x48/16x combo and it will be based on Lite-On's design? I know LG is doing a 48x24x48/16x combo and so is Cendyne. I wonder if those will be based on Lite-On also?

LG based on LiteOn gotta see that one. lol. You already mentioned in your first post in the thread that the CenDyne will probably be based on LiteOn.

CenDyne and TDK (if they even make one) - Probably made by Lite-On
LG - definitely made by LG

Somebody asked if TDK will be stopping with the veloCD 52x24x48x. Keep in mind that drives with 32x rewriting speeds are right around the corner. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a veloCD 52/32/48.