several months ago the dvdrw drive in my tr5 half-died (it would still read and write cds, but did not recognise any dvd movies or blank dvd media when i inserted it)

at the time i could not send my tr5 off to sony for them to fix it under warranty, as i was nearing deadlines for my degree course and needed the notebook to complete my work.

so i rang sony and registered the problem, knowing that it would be nearing the end of my warranty by the time i could send the tr5 off to be fixed.

so after my work deadlines, i called sony again, and they said they had no record of my call from several months earlier :cry: the woman on the phone then told me that my warranty had expired TWO days previously, and so I would have to pay for the repair! they quoted me around £150 - £200 GBP :shock:

anyway, the point of my thread is this…

I just bought a new matshita UJ-812B drive, and spent 3 hours this evening opening up my tr5 and installing it (i found it very difficult :( )

my question is this:

under My Computer, the drive is now listed as a ‘dvd-ram drive’ (whereas my old drive used to say ‘dvd-rw drive) - does this mean that this new drive is different? and what kind of blank dvds do i need to buy to burn with this dvd-ram drive?  :idea:

any advice would be very helpful!

The website below gives some specs for Matshita optical drives.  Seems like yours will burn pretty much anything though I don’t know what speeds.  The UJ812 is a popular drive so I’m sure if you do more search here on the forum or on google, you’ll come up with the exact specs.  It may also burn RAM if the drive name under ‘my computer’ shows up as RAM, but this is just conjuncture on my part.

Hope this helps.

http://www.photodex.com/support/drivelist.html?make=Matshita

thankyou for your help :D

however i’m still unsure about a few things - what are the differences between dvd ram disks and dvd rw disks? i’ve read a few descriptions on the net but they’re pretty vague and just say something like ‘dvd ram disks provide better recording capabilities’  :?

and does this mean that my drive will burn both dvd-rw media, and dvd-ram media?

[quote author=“Joe”]thankyou for your help :D

however i’m still unsure about a few things - what are the differences between dvd ram disks and dvd rw disks? i’ve read a few descriptions on the net but they’re pretty vague and just say something like ‘dvd ram disks provide better recording capabilities’  :?

and does this mean that my drive will burn both dvd-rw media, and dvd-ram media?

Why didn’t you buy the 822? The 812 is DVD-R only. The 832 is dual layer.

The DVD-RAM is a nice feature although very outdated. The DVD-RAM disks have very hard coating and are scratch resistant. They cost more (1-2$ per disk) and it takes longer to record. It allows you to record more times on the same disk compared to the DVD-RW. The technology that it utilizes is different and the “burn” is more reliable.

check cdfreaks.com for complete comparison between the two

because money was a big factor and i couldn’t justify the cost of a dual layer drive.

thanks for the link!

[quote author=“Joe”]because money was a big factor and i couldn’t justify the cost of a dual layer drive.

thanks for the link!

822 is DVD-+RW

811 is DVD-R only

I got a cheap 822D for my TR off ebay not long ago. The dual layer 832S is another story.