TDK is a Terrific CD-RW Device
Written: Apr 19 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, reliable, Burn proof technology, handles every situation
Cons: No audio cable provided with drive, bundled software good but could be easier
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this drive given its ability to reliably create every type of CD that I've needed with no rejects, its speed, and its software bundle.
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| All_she_wrote's Full Review: TDK veloCD ReWriter 12/10/32 |
I purchased the TDK Velo CD 12x/10x/32x about a month ago after doing extensive research on CD-RWs. In my research I considered Sony, HP, and Plextor. I recommend you check out www.cdrfaq.org for a tremendous amount of information on CD-RWs.
I finally chose the TDK VeloCD, and got it for the decent price of $199 at CompUSA. It installed easily in my system -Windows 98, 733 Mhz Pentium III, 128 MB RAM, 27 GB hard drive. The only thing that surprised and disappointed me was that it didn't come with an audio cable out of the box, and there was nothing on the box to indicate that an audio cable was not included. This means that you have to go back to the store (annoying) and separately buy an audio cable (for a few dollars) if you wish to use the drive to play back music through your computer. You don't actually need an audio cable to use the drive, especially if your system already has a CD ROM drive that can play audio CDs.
The other annoyance that I discovered after the fact was regarding which IDE cable you connect to the TDK. PCs typically have two IDE cables attached to the motherboard. Each IDE cable can connect to two drives (either hard drives, CD ROMs, or CD-RWs). My system had a hard drive on one cable and a CD ROM on the other cable. If you install the VeloCD on the same IDE channel (the same IDE ribbon cable) as an existing CD ROM drive, you can get a warning when copying directly from the CD ROM to the CD-RW suggesting that the data copy to the hard drive first. This is slower than direct copying from drive to drive. What annoyed me was that I didn't find out until after I installed it, and I chose not to be bothered with reinstalling it on the other IDE cable. Knowing this, I would have installed the TDK on one cable by itself, and moved the other CD ROM to be the slave device on the cable with the hard drive. Also, the TDK wants to be set up as the master device on its cable. It has jumpers that allow it to be set up as master, slave, or CS (cable select), but the manual recommends master.
The VeloCD has a 2MB buffer with "Burn Proof" buffer under run protection. This is a clever technology that prevents buffer underruns from occuring. Buffer underruns are the leading cause of writing bad CDs. In my system it seems to work very well. The recommended minimum system requirements for the TDK are 200 Mhz Pentium, 64 MB RAM, 160 MB hard disk space, available half height drive bay, and Win 95/98/ME/2000/NT 4.0
The bundled software includes Nero 5.0, TDK Mixmaster, and In-CD (RW packet writing application). Nero works great for making backups of both audio and data CDs and the wizards make it easier to use. TDK mixmaster has a nice graphic equalizer feature when creating music CDs that help to balance the sound from MP3's or audio CDs to your taste. I haven't used InCD yet. The software also has a CD label editor so you can create and print your own CD labels and jewel case labels. All in all, the software bundle does everything I can think of. It takes a while to get used to the software - its not intuitively obvious at first - but after some practice you get to know it.
I wanted to use the drive for all of the typical uses -backing up files on the hard drive, backing up data and software CDs, creating MP3 and audio CDs. It can also make video CDs (VCDs) from MPEG-1 video files. The drive has performed very well at every task, completing all of these activities quickly. In addition, I've burned about 50 CDs so far and have not burned a single bad CD.
All in all, I think its a great drive drive - even in spite of the two problems I mentioned earlier. I would recommend it to anyone, but be forewarned about the audio cable and the IDE installation. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
All_she_wrote
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Location: Rochester, NY
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Engineer and MBA, I research all major purchases, I'm very particular about quality and value
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