TDK DVW-A080412N

As we saw during the days of the CD-RW drive, another month takes us another notch up the speed ladder.

DVD+/-R drives have now reached eight-speed and the TDK DVW-A080412N claims the fastest writing speed on the market.

It supports this speed for DVD+/-R, although +/-RW speeds are limited to four-speed.

Unfortunately, the speed claim didn't stand up in our tests. It took almost 25 minutes to copy 4.7GB of data from a standard DVD containing a variety of file types.

It also claimed to be able to copy an entire DVD in less than eight minutes, but it was running much more slowly than the eight-speed maximum.

However, there is a great deal of difference in performance depending on the media used, so better results may be possible if you persevere and experiment. Not many of the other drives on the market fare much better.

The drive is dual format, and the choice of media means that you can experiment and select the best discs for use with standalone DVD players.

The excellent Nero 6 software utility from Ahead rounds off the package.

Had the drive lived up to its printed specifications it would have been a fantastic piece of hardware. The reality, however, is that its performance is about the same as other eight-speed drives on the market.

Contact: TDK (01737) 771212
www.tdk-europe.com

Specifications:

• DVD+/-R write speed: 8X
• DVD +/-RW write speed: 4X
• CD-RW write speed: 32X
• Buffer overrun protection: BurnProof
• Bundled software: Ahead Nero 6