Sony NEC Optiarc joint venture set to release 18x DVD burner

The optical drive industry has been dominated by joint ventures lately, ranging from the Hitachi-LG partnership to the Toshiba-Samsung mashup, so both Sony and NEC knew that they'd better get in bed together if each wanted to remain competitive in the marketplace. The first product resulting from the new Sony NEC Optiarc, an 18x DVD burner called the AD-7170A, is set to hit the market next month -- but competition will still be fierce, as 20x burners are just beginning to see the light of day. Sources quoted by DigiTimes indicate that soon the actual drive manufacturing will be outsourced to Lite-On IT, whose prowess in volume production should complement Sony's skill at developing optical pick-up heads and NEC's chipset design capabilities to allow the JV to produce attractive products at higher margins. Or something like that -- either way, we'll bring you more on this inaugural product (including pics) when it becomes available.

[Via TG Daily]

[sc00tert00ter @ Aug 26th 2006 2:43PM]

first! ya thats cool i guess that like a 300% increase! burn in a 3rd of the time! i hate wating for ever

[Alex @ Aug 26th 2006 3:22PM]

300%?
I thought they had 16x burners by now.

[Raider @ Aug 26th 2006 3:35PM]

Leave it to Sony to find some way to make these go boom. JK LOL

[projects @ Aug 26th 2006 4:09PM]

Relying on Lite-On IT in product manufacturing will help Sony NEC Optiarc minimize production costs, so the JV is expected to collaborate with the Taiwan-based maker on a long-term basis, the sources indicated

[Tom W @ Aug 26th 2006 6:27PM]

I use DVD's to back up my mp3 collection. Let's hope the error rates on these fast drives is not so high that it effectively downgrades my 192 kbps mp3's to something that sounds like 128 kbps.

[Dave L @ Aug 26th 2006 7:53PM]

Tom W. you're an idiot. Why do you think a read error would degrade the quality of your mp3 files. If anything, it would just not play at all. That's because it's digital, and uses error correction. Besides, you can't tell the difference between 192 and 128kbps anyways.

[Tom W @ Aug 26th 2006 9:09PM]

Dave L,
Questioning error rates makes me an idiot? Consider this. Digital music is a measurement of the analog waveform at regular intervals. The waveform value at each interval is recorded as a binary value. An error in the binary value results in a defective analog recreation when converted from binary to analog. The file would play, but it would play inaccurately. Error correction is not capable of determining the correct binary value. It only makes the file playable. I will not go as far as to call you an idiot, but I will call you ignorant.

[Tony Rayo @ Aug 27th 2006 2:29AM]

There is no digital to analog conversion happening by playing mp3s off of a DVD Tom. Dave didn't say it in a very nice way, but bad burning would give you corrupt mp3s, which would either not play at all or have skips and random noise spurts (once it's in a digital format, it doesn't change unless you trans/re-encode it and that doesn't happen from opening up mp3s normally). Also I'll stick with Plextor for all of my optical drive needs, as they remain the best (I haven't had a bad burn over the three CD/DVD/DVD-DL plextor drives I've owned over the last 7 years... that says something to me =).

- Tony R.

[Tom W @ Aug 27th 2006 4:25AM]

"There is no digital to analog conversion happening by playing mp3s off of a DVD" -Tony Rayo

Do you think your speakers are receiving a digital signal when listening to mp3's?

All digital music files must be converted to an analog signal at some point in order to listen to them.

As a side note, I don't listen to mp3's off of DVD's. I just back up my mp3 files to DVD in case a fire, theft, or hard drive failure causes me to lose the songs on my computer. I put the DVD's in my safe deposit box at the bank. I have over 8300 songs totaling about 50GB so I sure would hate to lose them. I have a 16x drive, but I burn my backups at 8x to keep the burn error rate low.

[All Knowing Being @ Aug 28th 2006 1:20AM]

Tom W,

I believe I will be the 3rd person to say that you are wrong in this situation. The DVD drive does not convert digital signals to analog. That is what your sound card will do. If you burn a DVD and there is a bad bit(s) written when burning MP3s, you will either not be able to access the file or you will hear skips, clicks, pops when playing the file back, as the others have mentioned.

That's it. Discussion is over. On a side note, why spend $20 more on an 18x burner when it won't cut a significant amount of time off burning a DVD? My PX-740A is working wonders for me at 16x.

CrzySheeit

[Stu (uk) @ Aug 29th 2006 5:02AM]

can i just have a cd/ dvd/ blue ray/ hd dvd burner for my laptop please.

can't be bothered with all this faffing around.

:)