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Artec 12x DVD+/_R $79.99 !

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Artec 12x DVD+/_R $79.99 !

Postby eliminator on Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:31 pm

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4085422

It's 79.99 in store (no mir) !! 8) ... who makes the drive anyways !?
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Postby pchilson on Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:32 pm

Artec makes it.
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Postby aviationwiz on Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:44 pm

Wouldn't catch me dead with it either.
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Postby eliminator on Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:47 pm

http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t222263.html

not lookin' good tho... !? :roll: #-o
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Postby code65536 on Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:23 pm

I've owned one Artec drive in the past, and I ended up just giving it away almost immediately. It was that bad.

The initial tests I've seen with the drive haven't exactly been spectacular, either.
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:25 pm

Initial tests of this drive have shown that it is completely incapable of burning at 12x on *ANY* media!

It also sucks at 8x, and probably 4x, 2x, and 1x also :P
Punch Cards -> Paper Tape -> Tape Drive -> 8" Floppy Diskette -> 5 1/4" Floppy Diskette -> 3 1/2" "Flippy" Diskette -> CD-R -> DVD±R -> BD-R

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Postby code65536 on Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:44 pm

The great thing is that Artec is a MediaTek-based drive, like BTC and LiteOn. Which means that the format of its media code tables are nearly identical.

So I opened up a copy of the Artec firmware with my BTC media code tool, and sure enough, it opened just fine. :P

And as it turns out, there's not a single media code in that table--not one--that is supported at 12x. Heck, based on a write graph that I've seen, its 6x-8x shift point is already so darn late in the burn that there's not much room for 12x. :lol:

At least BTC had the sense to write their own firmware flashing tools and write a firmware flashing mechanism into the firmware itself like what LiteOn does. Artec didn't do that. And in fact, the official firmware updater from Artec is a raw binary firmware plus a copy of MtkFlash! I mean, they're making BTC look good. :lol: Now how cool is that! ;)

And the media code support in this darn thing is miserable. The number of media codes supported in this firmware that I downloaded from their website is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 that of the media support in the latest LiteOn firmware. The Artec firmware supports a grand total of just 73 media codes. The latest LiteOn firmware has 201. Yea, very poor media support. So poor that I suspected that my tool was misreporting, so I opened up the firmware and verified that the code tables really were that sparse!
Last edited by code65536 on Fri Jul 02, 2004 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Wesociety on Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:56 pm

OMG! Not ONE 12X write descriptor in a "12X drive" ????
WTF?
False advertising at its' worst??? :evil: :evil:
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Fri Jul 02, 2004 8:00 pm

wesociety wrote:OMG! Not ONE 12X write descriptor in a "12X drive" ????
WTF?
False advertising at its' worst??? :evil: :evil:


I already suspected this... but I'd like to see someone call Artec on it. How can they advertise a 12x drive that literally cannot burn ANY media at 12x?!?
Punch Cards -> Paper Tape -> Tape Drive -> 8" Floppy Diskette -> 5 1/4" Floppy Diskette -> 3 1/2" "Flippy" Diskette -> CD-R -> DVD±R -> BD-R

The Progression of Computer Media
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Postby aviationwiz on Fri Jul 02, 2004 8:06 pm

My Artec 52x CD-RW (that I returned within a day or so) couldn't write at 52x at all, in fact, the drive was only recognized as a 48x24x48 drive, not a 52x24x52 speed drive. I have come to expect this from Artec now...
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Postby Ian on Fri Jul 02, 2004 9:46 pm

No 12x media, even with the 100a firmware? Hmm.. maybe that's the reason why they never sent me a list of supported media.
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Postby code65536 on Fri Jul 02, 2004 10:20 pm

Ian wrote:No 12x media, even with the 100a firmware?


Correct.
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