Holiday Shopping Roundup: Eight Dual Format Recordable DVD Drives

NEC 1300A

Along with Sony and Pioneer, NEC was one of the original risk takers that brought DVDR and dual format DVDR home to the mass, particularly in OEM systems. We included the NEC 1300A as somewhat of a legacy control.

NEC 1300A DVD-/+R Drive
Interface	IDE
CD Write Speed	16X, 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV)
CD Rewrite Speed	10X, 8X, 4X (CLV)
CD Read Speed	40X Max (CAV)
DVD-R Write Speed	4X, 2X, 1X (CLV)
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed	2X, 1X (CLV)
DVD+R Write Speed	4X, 2.4X (CLV)
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed	2.4X (CLV)
DVD Read Speed	12X Max (CAV)
Supported Modes	DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write Multi-Session
Supported Formats	DVD+R (incremental) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, multi-border) DVD-RW (restricted overwrite) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, Mount Rainer
Access Time	CD: 120ms DVD: 140ms
Buffer	2MB

The 1300A is really not up to par with the more capable Sony DRU-530A and Plextor 708A, but it does get the job done for a decent price, around $100. Unfortunately, for that price, the LiteOn LDW-411S has our NEC unit totally beat. NEC's saving grace will probably come in the form of better quality than LiteOn's LDW-411S, but that's why we have our benchmarks.

NEC has had a lot of quality problems with this burner, particularly with unusual media. Fortunately, we haven't experienced any first-hand problems with the newest firmware; and, there were certainly no problems with the media used in this roundup.