By Elina Shatkin, October 20, 2003
Sony Electronics announced two new Dual RW DVD drives that support 8X DVD+R recording.
Its latest duo of high-speed burners underlines Sony's DVD drive ingenuity and market leadership. In fact, The NPD Group ranked Sony number one (based on dollar market share) for DVD burner sales in the combined U.S. retail and reseller markets during August 2003.
Sony's award-winning Dual RW drives, which started shipping a year ago this month, were the PC industry's first combination drives to support the DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD-R formats. Speed takes center stage with Sony's fourth-generation Dual RW drives - the internal DRU-530A and the external DRX-530UL - which are capable of recording to compatible DVD+R discs at speeds of up to 8X, enabling users to burn an entire 8X DVD+R disc in about ten minutes.
The new drives also support up to 4X DVD+RW and DVD-R recording, as well as 2X DVD-RW, 40X CD-R and 24X CD-RW recording, making them among the fastest and most proficient on the market.
According to IDC, with an expanding consumer and professional appetite for high-capacity applications, stand-alone and PC-attached DVD recorder purchases are expected to grow from five million in 2002 to 19 million in 2003, a more than-threefold increase over last year. IDC further anticipates that the DVD recorder market will grow to over 100 million units in 2006, including over 60 million PC DVD burners.
A popular application for Sony's Dual RW DVD drives is transferring VHS tapes to DVD
. They are also ideal for recording and distributing corporate training programs, which can save a company the expense of having a large number of employees travel to headquarters for training.
The internal DRU-530A drive comes with an ATAPI interface for easy installation inside a PC, while the external DRX-530UL drive includes both an i.LINK (IEEE 1394) and a hi-speed USB (USB 2.0) digital interface for simple set-up and maximum flexibility.
DVD and CD Software Suite
Both Dual RW drives come bundled with DVD video authoring software, as well as DVD/CD burning software for creation of data, music, and video DVDs and CDs. The full-featured software suite also includes packet-writing software for users to easily record files and folders by dragging to the icon of a DVD+RW/CD-RW disc. The software suite includes:
· Sonic RecordNow mastering software that allows users to create custom CDs and DVDs and create backup copies of CDs or DVD-ROMs; also includes quick archive function for backing up your hard drive;
· Sonic DLA packet-writing software that enables users to format, drag-and-drop or delete files on DVD+RW or CD-RW discs similar to a hard drive or floppy disk;
· Sonic MyDVD authoring software that allows users to quickly and easily transfer home videos to customized DVD-video and Video CD discs, plus video editing software for customizing video footage;
· CyberLink PowerDVD DVD-Video playing software that enables interactive viewing of both DVD-Video and Video CD discs on a PC; and
· MUSICMATCH Jukebox personal music system to help play, record, organize and discover new music with a guide to thousands of streams of personalized music programming.
The internal DRU-530A Dual RW drive will be available in December for an estimated retail price of around $270, and the external DRX-530UL model will be available in January for around $350. Sony DVD/CD rewritable drives are sold through resellers and retailers nationwide, mail order catalogs, and select online shopping sites, including SonyStyle.com.
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