Sony DRU-500AX user reviews

Pros Very Little. It looks cool... 8( on September 17, 2004  | Read full review

Pros burns both + R AND + RW. bundled software hangs. use nero 6.0 and dvd Architect for dvd. on September 5, 2004  | Read full review

Pros When it works... it works... on July 7, 2004  | Read full review

Cons Má assistência para a resolução de problemas pela parte da Sony, já por 4 vezes foi enviado para reparação e continua na mesma. Ao Introduzir um DVD ou CD faz barulho, acabando por os danificar, mais grave nem sequer reconhece o cd de instalação, contudo

Pros worked good for one year on April 23, 2004  | Read full review

Pros Support both format Good perfomance when it's working. on December 16, 2003  | Read full review

Pros I've burned over 750 discs and the thing works great. I use Accu (-) media from meritline.com which burns at 2x and goes for about $.85 in bulk sizes. I plan to use this thing for another 750+ discs. I understand the issues that others have with the dr on December 15, 2003  | Read full review

Pros Easy to install, multi-format Have had no problems ...yet. Bought DVD X-copy Express and have burned 3 perfect copies. I have to admit the first attempt at burning a DVD went south, but not because of the Sony drive, but my slave (primary IDE) hard drive on October 22, 2003  | Read full review

Pros Writes and Reads +/-R,RW on October 12, 2003  | Read full review

Pros Burns every format, consistently, reliably. on September 1, 2003  | Read full review

Pros Installation was 1,2,3. WinXP recognized the drive and was ready to roll. The software bundle installed easily. DVDs and CDs were ready to burn. on July 12, 2003  | Read full review

Pros I have not had s ingle problem with this drive. It burns everything perfect the first time, no matter which media I use. on June 23, 2003  | Read full review

Summary I purchased the drive two weeks ago. It seems to work great for me. No problems with the software installs. The use of all the formats is really great for flexablity. I have tested several brands of media and they all work great. I use DVD+RW for myself for home movies/burn experiments and DVD-R for friends. The DVD Authoring software in the market is S@#T so be calm when it works/crunches for 4 hours and crashes! Ulead Movie Factory 2.0 seems to be the most stable program going for DVD-Video. MyDVD is easiest but limited.

Summary I bought this drive a couple of months ago. I've burned about 25 DVD's and 50 CDR's on this drive. Not one blank media was wasted on this drive. You can't get any better drive than this right now on the market. I recommend this drive to anyone looking for a replacement for their CDRW and DVD drive.

Summary Installation of software was very difficult. The bundled software conflicted with the nero burning software that was already on the comuter. I had to re install xp to make the software work. Tech support had me pulling out drives and proving that everything was correctly installed. The bottom line is the drive can not play back video. I was able to burn an mpeg-2 file onto the provided sony disc without any problem. It looks really bad when I play it back on the DRU drive. I tested other DVDs to see how they play back and none of them look good. When I play back on an older drive the burned dvd look fine. It also looks good on a set top dvd player. I guess I could re install the original DVD player and use it for playback. For someone who wants to playback there video on the Sony drive forget it.

Summary After reading all of the reviews of the Sony DRU-500AX, I was hesitant to buy this (or any of the DVD burners). I purchased and installed the internal unit and have been very pleased with its performance. It has worked almost flawlessly from the start. In contrast to other peoples’ experiences, the bundled software works fine. I didn’t install Simple Backup since I already have Veritas Backup MyPC, which is an outstanding product. The DVD player works perfectly (with the Power DVD software included) for playing commercial DVD movies without the display problems that others have experienced. I installed DLA after the other applications and that, too, works fine. Some people complained that you could only burn one hour movies instead of two hour movies with the Sonic MyDVD. I had that experience only with two large VHS cassettes that I was transferring to DVD. It only allowed one hour’s worth of video onto the DVD. I still don’t know why. All of the 8mm video cassettes that I have transferred to DVD allow high quality 2+ hours of video to be transferred to the DVD. SVCDs also burn perfectly and look great. Everything about this unit and the bundled software has been excellent so far. I would add that I capture the video from an analog camcorder and VCR using Hauppauge PVR –250 video capture card. I have a Dell 8200 Pentium 4 2.2 gig processor with 528 meg RAM in Windows XP. So I cannot comment on the ability of the software to capture video otherwise. I also cannot comment on Sony’s technical support because I have not had to contact them. I did, however, download their version 2 firmware to go with the unit after I burned one “coaster”. All in all, this is a great product.

Summary I've burned a couple home movies so far (DVD-R) and have backed up lots of things to DVD+RW disk, and I am very satisfied. Installation in a Presario 5000 tower was easy and only involved removing one screw, opening the case, sliding out the old DVD-ROM, and sliding in the Sony. Windows XP recognized the drive immediately. The bundled Sonic MyDVD program is mediocre, so bought Dazzle DVD Complete Deluxe instead.

Summary I purchased a Sony DRU 500 AX the end of April, and after a little over 3 weeks it completely died. The first sign of trouble was when I tried to format CD-RW's. It would always fail right before they were finished, giving a vague "general" failure message (I can't recall the exact wording). Then it disappeared from "My Computer", and wouldn't even show up on the BIOS. It was completely dead - even the door wouldn't open. Since this was over the holiday weekend, I had to wait 'til Tuesday to call Sony. After waiting at least 15 minutes, I got a rep who took my information and said she'd transfer me to a tech suppor rep. This was surprising because, according to the menu, I should have already been talking to one. I had to wait at least another 20 minutes before I finally got a live person. She wanted me to disconnect the IDE cable and see if the drive powered up. I said I wanted to put the phone down for a minute and she cut me off, insisting that I call back after the computer was open. I told her I'd been waiting over 30 minutes and she could wait for one or two. She corrected me, saying it was only 20 minutes, but she wasn't including how long I'd been waiting for the first rep to answer. I told her that all I had to do was remove two thumbscrews and the side opens right up and that it would have been easier to do without holding the stupid phone, but I opened it anyway (it's an Antec that's very easy to open). I started the computer and, just as I'd told her, the drive would not power up and did not show up in the BIOS. She told me to remove the drive and, once again, call her back. I said it comes right out and before she could argue I had it in my hand. If you haven't gathered, she was very impatient and did not seem to know much about computer cases, presuming they all must be hard to open. After I gave her the required info she gave me the RMA address and said it would take three to six weeks before it would be returned! I told her this was entirely unacceptable as I hadn't even had it a month, and that I'd have returned it but it was past CompUSA's 14 day return period. She offered the standard, unconvincing apology and otherwise acted as if she wished I'd hang up. I finally asked for a supervisor, who arrived after a few minutes (what a surprise!). At least she had a more profesisonal attitude, and said that the turnaround was about 8 days. I explained again that I'd just gotten the thing, that I was having to pay to have it shipped from Florida to San Jose, CA, and that I'd keep this in mind the next time I considered getting a Sony drive, plus I'd have to go out and get another CD-RW so I could continue to do my back-ups. She apologized and said the other rep could give me the RMA data. I told her that the rep had been very unprofessional and argumentative, but she said the rep had to finish processing the RMA. So I got the RMA info and sent the drive via Priority Mail. With insurance it came to nearly $16. Fortunately, OfficeMax has cheap Cendyne drives for $10 after rebate, so I just picked up one of those. Has anyone else had these kinds of problems with the DRU 500 AX? Also, does anyone have a corporate address for Sony? They don't make that information very public. Hopefully this won't drag out too long......

Summary This burner is reliable. The software that comes with it is more fully featured than you usually get with burners. The only thing you have to understand is the lack of standard formats, but the DVD +R format has worked in every home theater component I've tried.