Introduction

With DVD write speeds increasing, almost all optical storage device manufacturers ante up to keep up with demands of consumers and also to compete with other manufacturers. Recently, some of the bigger names have led the industry to increased DVD-R, DVD+R DL, and DVD+/-RW write speeds adding to the generations of DVD burners.

Sony is one of those big names and they have produced their 8 th generation DVD burner with the now standard, dual layer burning capability. The new DRU-720A model allows the 16x DVD+R burning capability with higher write speeds for all of the other formats. The most significant speed increase has been applied to the DVD-R standard. DVD-R media can now be burned just as fast as DVD+R media at 16x. Along with the write-once update, the DVD+/-RW write speeds have also been increased to 8x/6x respectively. We’re assuming that the next version of the DRU drive series will update that 6x DVD-RW write speed to match the +RW standard. Also updated is the DVD+R DL write speed at 4x. In our 16x roundup in November of 2004, there were only two drives capable of writing to DL media at 4x speeds, NEC’s ND-3500A and Pioneer’s DVR-108D while Sony’s DRU-710A could not complete a dual layer write successfully. Hopefully, that has changed with the DRU-720A.

We’ve taken the DRU-720A and threw our usual benchmarks at it to see which areas have been improved upon. We are predicting many improvements in write speeds as well as quality, and we’ll see if Sony can be a competitor among the rest of the new generation of dual layer burners.

The Updated DRU-720A

Visually, the DRU-720A is not much different than the past few models that Sony has put out. The bezel is white in color with the tray bezel being the trademark translucent gray with a silver Sony logo printed at the center, and DVD and CD standards logos printed in blue along the bottom of the tray's bezel. Sony does include an extra all-black bezel for those with black computer cases.

The physical dimensions of the DRU-720A are identical to those of the 710A, which leads us to predict that aside from an updated chipset, everything else between the 710A and 720A is the same.

Chipset Information

The DRU-720A uses an updated version of the MediaTek chipset used in the 710A as well as the Lite-On SOHW-1633S. The chipset is, again, mounted on the underside of the circuit board and contains the MT1828E servo control and the MT1816E ASP (analog signal processor). The newer chipset version allows for 16x - R write ability (up from 8x on the 710A), 8x +RW write ability (up from 4x), 6x - RW write ability (also up from 4x), and a +R dual layer write speed of 4x (up from 2.4x).

Upon opening the drive, we first saw the ROHM Co. BD7902FS IC for the drive's motor as well as the Hynix DRAM module. To get to the backside of the circuit board, we had to disconnect two of the cables from the board. Obviously, we do not recommend doing this at home, since it may damage your drive. That's what we're here for!

Take a look at the DRU-720A's manufacturer's technical specifications in the table below.

Sony DRU-720A
Interface	PATA
CD Read Speed	40x
CD-R Write Speed	8x, 16x, 24x~40x P-CAV 48x CAV
CD-RW Rewrite Speed	4x, 10x, 16x, 24x Z-CLV
DVD Read Speed	16x
DVD-R Write Speed	1x, 2x, 4x, 6x CLV 8x, 12x P-CAV 16x CAV
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed	1x, 2x, 4x, 6x CLV
DVD+R Write Speed	2.4x, 4x, 8x~12x P-CAV 16x CAV
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed	2.4x, 4x, 6x CLV 8x Z-CLV
DVD+DL Write Speed	2.4x, 4x CLV
Supported Modes	Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW DAO, RAW SAO 16, RAW SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96
Access Time	140ms (CD 48x) 135ms (DVD 16x)
Buffer	2MB
Dimensions	5.75x1.63x6.75 inches (WxHxD)
Weight	2lbs.

To further confirm these specifications, we grabbed a screenshot from Nero's InfoTool v.3.00.

This version of InfoTool has added detection for a handful of drive read and write capabilities. Among them are DVD-R DL read/write capability and BD-R/RE/ROM (Blu-Ray disc) read/write capabilities. It looks like Nero, Inc. is getting a head start on the new generation of optical media!

We have also taken a screenshot from DVD Info Pro's scan of the DRU-720A.

Click to enlarge.

The makers of DVD Info Pro have also added checkboxes for their list of capabilities, but Sony will not take advantage of them this time around. The DRU-720A has all of the features required by typical home users.

Sony has also included the standard accessories: a black replacement drive bezel, a pin to aid in installation of the replacement bezel, a 40-pin IDE cable to connect the drive to the motherboard, the full Nero 6 Software Suite, and detailed instruction manuals for the DRU-720A. Sony is also well known for its exceptional customer support.

Write Time/Quality Test - DVD+R 16x Media

We have tested the DRU-720A with a variety of media types from a couple of different manufacturers. Our usual Ritek media selection has been updated to include the Ritek R04 16x media to test the high speeds of the newer drives. We have also included Verbatim's 16x MCC 004 media and Sony's own home-grown 16x D21 media, which was included with the retail package.

All three types of 16x +R media burned at an average rate of 11.95x. The drive began its write at about 6.67x and increased its speed to 15.98x-15.99x at the end of the write on the MCC 004 and Sony D21 media, while ending slightly slower on the Ritek R04 media at 15.95x, which is not a big difference. These three media are some of the highest quality discs on the market.

We did notice a short drop in speed when writing to the MCC 004 disc right before the 3.5GB mark. Let's take a look at the read back of the media in our Plextor PX-712A drive. We have been using the PX-712A as a standard to detect PI/PO errors on media written by our test drives.

From the above screenshot, we can see how well the DRU-720A wrote to the MCC 004 media. The abrupt drop in speed had no effect on the final quality of the write. The majority of the errors were detected at the end of the disk beginning just before the 4GB mark. This did not scare us, however, since PI errors are correctable and a total number of 65947 PI errors is nothing to worry about if spread out over the course of the media. The Ritek R04 media had the most PI errors at 174223, mostly at the mid-point of the disc. There were 0 PO errors on all three media samples that we scanned with PlexTools, which is great, but not surprising since the DRU-710A performed just as well.

Screenshots of the 16x media read and write processes in Nero CD-DVD Speed as well as scans with PlexTools have been compressed into a downloadable zip file: 16xplus.zip

Write Time/Quality Test - DVD+/-R 8x Media

Though 16x speeds are coming in at full force from drive manufacturers, many end users who do not have a time constraint still choose to purchase more affordable 8x media to use with their drives. We have tested Ritek R03 and Philips C08 8x media with the DRU-720A.

Write times for each of the two 8x +R media were identical at 8:50 compared to write times of 8:13 (Philips C08) and 8:16 (Ritek R03) on the DRU-710A. The 720A took 11 seconds longer to complete the Ritek G05 DVD-R media. Let's see how the DRU-720A performed in quality as we read these discs back with PlexTools.

We noticed that, compared to the DRU-710A, the 720A took much longer to reach 8x writing speed with both of the 8x media. The 710A hit 8x just inside the 0.5GB mark while the newer 720A reached 8x speeds around the 1.1GB mark, which explains the increase in write time.

PlexTools shows 126020 PI errors on the Ritek R03 media while the Philips C08 media scan shows an amazingly low 21280 PI errors, which were also evenly spread out across the disc, basically eliminating any chance of uncorrectable areas. PlexTools came up with 254234 PI errors while scanning the Ritek G05 disc.

Hold mouse over for the Philips C08 image.

Screenshots of the 8x media read and write processes in Nero CD-DVD Speed as well as scans with PlexTools have been compressed into a downloadable zip file: 8xdvd.zip

Write Time/Quality Test - DVD+/-RW 4x Media

Though the DRU-720A is capable of writing +RW at 8x speeds and - RW at 6x speeds, we did not have any media on hand to test the drive. So, we used Ritek brand RW media rated at 4x to test the quality of the write. Take a look at our results.

Disappointingly, the DRU-720A could only spin up to 1.98x speeds. It took 30:03 minutes to burn the full 4.38GB Ritek W04 DVD-RW media. Meanwhile, it wrote to the Ritek 004 DVD+RW at just above the full 4x speed that the media was capable of in 14:28 minutes.

Hold mouse over for the Ritek 004 DVD+RW image.

The Ritek W04 media has almost 3 times as many PI errors as the 004 DVD+RW media. The combination of the slow write speed and the amount of PI errors shows us that the DRU-720A, undoubtedly, had trouble writing to the Ritek DVD-RW media. Hopefully, a future firmware upgrade can fix this.

Screenshots of the 4x RW media read and write processes in Nero CD-DVD Speed as well as scans with PlexTools have been compressed into a downloadable zip file: 4xrw.zip

Write Time/Quality Test - DVD+R DL 2.4x Media

Dual layer writing capability has made its way into every new optical chipset used in all newer drives. During our 16x roundup in November 2004, Sony's DRU-710A was one of two drives that failed to write to our dual layer test media. We hope that Sony has since fixed this issue with the DRU-720A.

As reported by Sony, the DRU-720A will write at 4x speeds to any certified media rated at 2.4x and it did just that, with the MKM 001 media at least. The drive wrote to the media at an average rate of 4.06x in 26:54 minutes. Surprisingly, the DRU-720A did not perform as well on our Ritek D01 media. The 720A could not kick the speed up past the 2.45x mark and it took 43:54 minutes to complete. From the Nero CD-DVD Speed screenshots, both writes seemed to complete without a hitch.

Again, we scanned the dual layer media for PI errors using our PX-712A.

Hold mouse over for the MKM 001 DVD+R DL image.

The number of PI errors found on the Ritek D01 media was astounding! With the majority of the PI errors on the first layer of the media, the total number came out to be 1838512. With this many PI errors, it is quite possible that this particular written media will be unreadable. The MKM 001 disc had very few PI errors, 54196 total, which occurred mostly on the first layer.

Screenshots of the 2.4x DVD+R DL media read and write processes in Nero CD-DVD Speed as well as scans with PlexTools have been compressed into a downloadable zip file: 24xduallayer.zip

Read Tests

Like manufacturer-specified write speeds, specified read speeds are not always the best measure of a drive's performance. We have chosen select media to test the following drive read benchmarks.

For our CD seek time test, we used a CD-ROM filled with 700MB of data.

The DRU-720A had seek times much higher than the 710A and even the 540A, which had the lowest seek times. We found the trend to be a bit odd, since we're used to drives improving as newer models are released.

Take a look at how the DRU-720A performs with DVD media.

For our DVD seek time test, we used a 4.5GB DVD-ROM with the maximum 4.35GB of data.

Though not as quick as the DRU-710A, the 720A had a random seek time of 105ms, only 2ms faster than the DRU-540A.

For our 4.5 DVD read speed test, we used a home made 4.5GB DVD-Video disc.

For our 9GB DVD read speed test, we used a pressed dual layer DVD-Video disc, specifically "The Matrix".

With the 4.5GB home-made DVD-Video, the DRU-720A had read the disk the fastest at 6.17x. It's not as quick as some of the other 16x drives out there, like NEC's ND-3500A or Pioneer's DVR-108D, but it is an improvement over the older Sony drives.

As for the read test with "The Matrix", the DRU-720A doesn't perform as well as its predecessors. The DRU-540A reads the disk faster than the 720A and 710A at 6.91x, while the 720A comes in at 4.3x.

Final Thoughts

The DRU-720A performed much better than the year-older DRU-710A in almost every area. It performed flawlessly with both the MCC 004 and Ritek R04 16x media, which is just a start, since it is a 16x DVD+R burner. We did not have any 16x DVD-R media on hand for this review, but we did test some 8x Ritek media. The Ritek R03 and G05 media burned at the full 8x speed by the P-CAV method. The DRU-710A that we had looked at in our 16x roundup did write to these media significantly quicker because it picked up to 8x faster at the beginning of the write process. We also tested the Philips C08 DVD+R media, which, when scanned with PlexTools, showed an extremely small amount of PI errors.

The DRU-720A also handled our 4x Ritek DVD+RW media well and burned it at the full 4x speed, but the drive had some trouble with the DVD-RW flavor of the Ritek media, only getting as high as 2x speeds during the write process. PlexTools showed a close to flawless burn, however, which is what really matters in the end.

The most significant improvement, whether it be from an improved firmware version or chipset, was the ability to write to dual layer media successfully, let alone cleanly. The DRU-710A burned a few dual layer coasters, which really disappointed us considering what we would pay for the drive, but Sony has since then improved on their firmware, and with the DRU-720A, writing to dual layer media is not a problem. Our Verbatim brand 2.4x MKM 001 media had the least PI errors with the majority being on the first layer, and data was written at 4x speeds throughout the burn. The DRU-720A did, however, have issues writing to the Ritek D01 media. The drive could not hit speeds above about 2.4x and when read with PlexTools, we saw that the media had almost 2 million PI errors towards the end of the 1 st layer.

With the current firmware on the drive and a retail price of around $105 at certain online retailers, the DRU-720A seems a bit expensive for a drive with this type of performance. Both NEC and Pioneer, the winners of our Fall 2004 16x roundup, have newer versions of their drives out at this time and we’re assuming that they will perform just as well as the units which we had a chance to look at. Before we make any decisions, we’d like to wait until we look at those other drives to weigh their performance and price. But at this time, the DRU-720A still seems over-priced for the performance that we’re getting out of it. Hopefully, by the time that we have units from the other big name optical storage manufacturers, Sony will have an updated firmware out as well as a lower, more competitive price.