BIOS: Technology Means Business

NEC’s internal ND-1100A DVD+RW drive provides high-speed 4X DVD+R and 2.4X DVD+RW burning, plus 16X CD-R and 10X CD-RW burning in a single device. Maximum read speeds are 12X for DVD-ROMs and 40X for CD-ROMs. The E-IDE drive also features NEC’s Active Optimum Power Controller (ACTOPC), which continuously monitors the signal level during recording and adjusts the laser power to compensate when a disc is dirty to help maintain the quality of the recording.

The 145.8x41.3x190mm, 1.0kg, NEC ND-1100A is a DVD+RW drive, so it can read and write to DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R and CD-RW media. It can’t however, read DVD-R, DVD-RW or DVD-RAM media. This is the other DVD format supported by companies such as Hitachi, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony. The ND-1100A can also read DVD-ROM, CD-DA, CD TEXT, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-I, Photo CD, CD EXTRA and CD-G media.

DVD+R is a write-once technology and discs created using this format have a life expectancy of 100 years, making it a good choice for archival purposes. According to the DVD Alliance the DVD+R standard is now compatible with 90 per cent of home DVD video players and fully compatible with Windows-based systems. However, its compatibility with older consumer set-top DVD players is doubtful compared to the wider supported DVD-R standard. Some of the other major companies supporting the DVD+RW standard include HP, Microsoft, Ricoh, Plextor and Sony.

DVD+RW was designed to support both data and video recording. Its compatibility with modern DVD players and DVD-ROM drives is a major strength but, like DVD+R media, older players are less likely to support the standard. DVD+RW is essentially the rewritable version of DVD+R and offers both CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) and CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) writing, background formatting so you don’t have to wait before you can use the disc, built-in defect management and multi-session writing.

The NEC ND-1100A writes to DVD+R media at a maximum speed of 4X (5,520KB/s), which is equivalent to burning one hour of video in 15 minutes. DVD+RW discs are recorded at a maximum speed of 2.4X (3,300KB/s). The maximum storage capacity of DVD+R/RW discs is currently 4.7GB. Data can be written once to CD-R discs at a rate of 16X (2,400KB/s) or up to 10X (1,500KB/s) using CD-RW discs. All of these recording speeds are competitive to combo drive offerings from other manufacturers, but faster recording speeds can be achieved if you only need a single-format drive.

The plain beige front panel of the drive houses an eject button, manual emergency eject hole, single busy/write LED, 3.5mm stereo jack and thumbwheel volume control. At the rear of the drive are all the connectors you’d expect to find on a modern DVD drive, including a DC connector, ATAPI/E-IDE data interface connector, analogue and digital (S/PDIF) audio output interfaces and jumper settings (master, slave, cable select, UDMA).

The drive ships with a complete suite of applications, including NeroVision Express (with MPEG-2 encoder) for editing/authoring DVDs, SVCDs and VCDs; Nero Burning ROM 5.0 packet writing software for burning CD-RW and DVD+RW discs; NeroMedia Player for playing back audio CDs, MP3s and video; and Sonic’s MyDVD for playing back DVD movies on your PC. You also get one blank DVD+R disc and one blank DVD+RW disc, an IDE Cable and four silver mounting screws.

The NEC ND-1100A is a fast and reliable drive that lets you create and share custom DVDs and CDs comprised of videos, digital images, music and data using several recordable media formats. The DVD+RW format is a direct descendant of the CD-R/RW standard and is being promoted by major players that played a central role in the promotion of CD-R/RW, so its compatibility now and in the near future should be as secure and the DVD-R/RW standard. Overall, if you’re looking for a good value DVD recorder with lots of software that can also be mounted vertically – and don’t care about its plain beige looks - the NEC ND-1100A would make a wise investment.

Links:
NEC ND-1100A Web site
NEC ND-1100A Features list
NEC ND-1100A Media support