BIOS: Technology Means Business

In today’s world, digital media is thriving and hard disk drive space is at a premium as consumers and business users fill their computers with photos, music and videos and demand convenient products to support new pastimes and critical data. LG’s External Super Multi DVD ReWriter (GSA-5169D) is a one touch AV capture device offering the convenience of Super-Multi compatibility and reliability.

Making home movies should be quick and simple, but quite often giving copies to friends and relatives can be difficult. The innovative and stylish GSA-5169D (£99.99) is an external unit that connects to your Windows XP PC or laptop with a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection (cable and PSU provided). And although is supports every popular DVD and CD format, the neatest feature of the drive is its ability to capture video directly from an external AV source.

LG’s silver GSA-5169D (160x230x50mm, 1370g) is much more than a DVD writer. On the back of the unit are four ports to hook up your preferred multimedia device (TV, camcorder or digital camera). There are two RCA sockets for stereo sound, an S-Video connector and a composite video port. The ‘One Touch’ button on the drive’s front panel opens the One Touch DVD software in Easy Wizard mode which presents you with a simple interface that has only two self-explanatory buttons. The first handles video recording while the second button is for DVD burning.

The Advanced User mode gives you control over the process and allows you to select your preferred format (Video CD, DVD and so on), the quality that you want (Best, Normal and so on), the split point for large movie files, video type (NTSC, PAL) and the recording time for TV capture. Once you’ve made your settings selections, you can make your recording by capturing video through the ports on the GSA-5169D or you can import a movie file from your PC.

This function is only available for DVD burning, rather than Video CD and SVCD, but it does help to ensure that the burning process is quick, simple and fool-proof. LG also includes a full software package of Nero Express 6, PowerDVD, PowerProducer Gold and InCD, which should be all that you need for your day-to-day tasks.

In terms of specifications, the GSA-5169D is no slouch. It currently leads the field with 16x DVD-R and DVD+R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R Dual Layer, 4x DVD-R Dual Layer and 5x DVD-RAM, as well as 48x CD-R and CD-RW. Access times are 175ms for DVD-ROM, 250ms for DVD-RAM, and 120ms for CD-ROM. It has a data transfer rate of up to 7200KB/s for CD and 22.16MB/s for DVD, and comes with a 2MB buffer for burning prevention.

Write methods are also plentiful, comprising Disk-at-Once (DVD-R/RW), Incremental Recording Restricted Overwrite (DVD-RW only), (DVD+R) Sequential Recording, (DVD+R/-R DL) Sequential Recording, (DVD+RW/RAM) Random Write (CD-R/RW) Disk-at-Once, Track- at-Once, Session-at-Once, and Packet Write.

LG’s External Super Multi DVD ReWriter pretty much covers all bases. It’s fast, looks good, and comes with some useful applications. The one-touch feature is perhaps a little gimmicky, especially as you’ll likely want to edit your videos first, but it’s still a welcome feature for newbies. The only feature we’d like to have seen is built-in LightScribe technology.

It’s not hard to fill a DVD or CD with perfect digital copies of data, music, and video files, but it’s not nearly as easy to create a picture-perfect label for that same disc. Scribbling song titles with a marker is a primitive solution, and printing directly onto the surface of a disc is expensive and requires specially designed printers and media. Adhesive ink jet labels have long been popular for CDs, but they’re cumbersome to print and affix. They also tend to unbalance discs at higher playback speeds, which makes them problematic for some CDs and unusable for DVDs.

HP’s LightScribe direct disc labelling fixes all that. The technology uses an optical drive’s CD laser pickup to etch text and graphics onto the surface of specially coated media. Announced last January by HP, LightScribe has already been integrated into the internal drives built into HP desktop and laptops computers, as well as into a few pioneering aftermarket rewriters from such vendors as LaCie, Toshiba, and BenQ.

If you don’t need the AV connectivity, LG’s GSA-5169D feature set would be a little wasted. Having said that, the competitive pricing of the drive means you’re not really paying a premium price for the pleasure. The only real limitation is the lack of direct optical media labelling, which would have been perfect for this type of device. [7]

[Best DVD Burner Pricing UK]
[Best DVD Burner Pricing US]

Got this product? Got a camcorder/mic? Let us post YOUR video/podcast review!