Sony DRU-720a DL drive

Pros: PERFORMS IN EVERY FORMAT OUTSTANDING

Cons: NERO 6 & LABEL LIMITATIONS

Summary: I thought I would come back and update my review since I only ran less then 10 DVD burns with my first review. Now I have done over 75 burns, may formats and still going strong. NO COASTERS - NO PROBLEMS. I am glad that I saved money buying the internal drive, and I needed to - to buy some DVD +R DL disks. Before I begin, I just want to let you all know that I only use Verbatium DISKS. I've tried others, but like these overall. So lets start off with some of my findings:

CD-R/RW: Great improvement over my first drive. 40X is nice, but I expected that this drive would have reach 52X, like the CRX320 that came out about the same time.

DVD +/-R 16X==> PROS: 5 minute burn time. CONS: 1) DVD's are very pricey at a $1.00/Disk. Note: I found that they really don't burn at 16X until about 75% of the way though the burn. They averaged about 12.1X.
DVD +/-R 8X==> PROS: 1) less the $0.45 per disk CONS: 8 min burn time.

OVERALL Right now, 8X Disks are worth the price over 16X, eventhough it takes 3 mins longer.

DVD+/-RW==> Now I can really backup all my digital camera pictures without waiting forever. 8X/6X speeds are much faster then my old 2.4X drive and disks. I could only fine 4x on the shelf, but it really makes a difference (28MINS/16MINS). Hope to see 6 & 8X disks soon.

Finally, what you are looking to find out about, the DVD+R DL. WOW! These disks are great, Still too expensive to move to ($8.00/per), but I had to try them. So, I bought (ouch) a 3 pack of Verbatim 2.4X DVD's, and I was surprised that the Sony drive burned the entire disk at 4.1X (28mins). No Compression needed and it played crystal clear in my DVD player. There is one catch, DVD +R DL do not play in every DVD player, DVD-ROM drive, DVD/CD-RW drive. If you want to make sure that they work with your DVD player, check out this website WWW.VIDEOHELP.COM. Click on DVD PLAYERS, and then key in your make/model to see what your DVD player's qualifications are. Qualifications on this site are based on others who have inform them of their findings (Disk Formats: plus, minus, RW; Video types: DivX, MPEG3, and lots of other stuff). I found my DVD player on the list, but DL was not check off, so I updated my make/model on that site. If your player does not play them, you can search for one that does. What a nice website.

My Disappointment: NERO 6 and its label limitation. Not sure why they did not allow long label names. This is the first burn software that I have come across that has done this. No problems with Roxio.

Enjoy your DVD burning.