CDRLabs.com

The I-O Data version of the ND-4550A will be available in Japan:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005 ... odata2.htm
http://www.iodata.jp/news/2005/08/dvr-abn16r.htm

I'm guessing the OEM version of the drive will be available about the same time.

any specs? (not the rumors i mean but concrete info)

the external version sure looks nice!

Specs: http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/dvd/2 ... index5.htm

thanks.
so only 5x DVD-RAM.
wasn't this the drive that was supposed to do 16x DVD-RAM ?

so what's so new and special about this drive?
why the jump from 3xxx to 4xxx ?

As far as I know, the 16x DVD-RAM was just speculation due to the drive's chipset.

I think the jump is due to it being a Super Multi drive.

ahh DVD-RAM now thats a format i need so badly

My next drive for sure! Blue ray is in the weeds for years! What a mess!

I wonder if it's a LiteON OEM or using the MTK chipset?

It's also possible that it's an NEC design, but manufactured by LiteON..... or it might be 100% NEC. Only time will tell I suppose.

From what I've heard, its an NEC design using an NEC chipset.

Ian wrote:From what I've heard, its an NEC design using an NEC chipset.

That's good news!!

I was poking around the FCC's website and it looks like this drive was originally going to be called the ND-3550A. NEC filed with them back in July and then again in August stating the name change.

July filing

August filing

If you look at the schematics (pdf), you can see that it uses NEC's μPD63645 and μPC3345 chips. Oddly enough, the manual makes no mention of DVD-RAM support.

The review of the "I-O DATA DVR-ABN16R" firmware 1.26
(version of the NEC ND-4550A sold in Japan)
by YSS has jus been published:
There are 9 pages of tests accessible from this link:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/nd4550a/nd-4550a.htm

At the moment only the tests of:
- CD's
- 4 different DVD-RAM's
- and the MID codes TYG03, MCC-004 and TYGO2 (PIE, PIF and jitter compared at different writing speeds ranging from 4x to 16x)
are online.

More tests of different 4x, 8x and 16x MID codes are announced (4 links remaining empty at the moment)

Hello!

I´m not very impressed about the writing-quality @16x. Overall to high PIF, 8x could be better, too.