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The same problem that arose when 8X first hit the market rears its ugly head for 12X. The drive may be capable of 12X speeds, but the recording media is only 8X-certified. The result is a drive that is slightly faster than 8X drives, but won't reach its full potential until the media catches up. Sony's DRU-540A arrived with a small assortment of Ricoh DVD+R, Maxwell DVD-R, and Memorex DVD+RW discs. Copying a 4.43GB test DVD, Sony's DRU-540A tore through the Ricoh 8X DVD+R, creating the disc in nine minutes. However, using the same test DVD and a Ridata 8X DVD+R, the drive took more than 15 minutes to create the disc, almost a minute longer than it took using a Ridata 4X DVD+R. Still, the drive lived up to its other DVD speed claims, writing to 8X DVD-R media at 8X, and to 4X DVD+RW media at 4X. (In early September, Sony announced a firmware upgrade that broadens it media support for the DRU-540A; users can download it at http://sony.storagesupport.com/dvdrw/dru540adwn.htm.) The drive also exhibited discrepancies in the CD writing speeds. I tested three CD-R discs, one Verbatim and two Memorex. The Memorex CD-Rs wrote fine, clocking in 807MB at 5:48 and 5:26. The Verbatim CD-R, however, wrote 707MB in at 21:13. The DRU-540A ships with a suite of Nero software, including Nero 6 Express for burning CDs and DVDs and NeroVision Express for editing video and burning to disc. Also included are BackItUp, Showtime, Cover Designer, Toolkit, Soundtrax, ImageDrive, and WaveEditor. System Requirements: Pentium 3 400MHz with 64MB RAM running Windows 2000/XP Home or Professional with 1GB free HDD space; Pentium 3 800MHz with 128MB RAM recommended for real-time video authoring/editing.
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