Shuttle SDVD101 DVD-ROM


Shuttle SDVD101 - Page 1

 

Shuttle's SDVD-101 10X DVD-ROM Drive

Is it time to dump your CD-ROM Drive?

By - Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta
8 / 24 / 2000

Shuttle, along with many other companies generally recognized as motherboard manufacturers, actually has a very diverse product line. They offer everything from CD-ROM drives to Video cards and a wide variety of motherboards for almost any application. Today we'll be taking a look at their newest DVD-ROM drive, the SDVD-101. 

DVD-ROM drives are quickly becoming the de-facto standard for most mainstream PC users. They offer all of the functionality of a standard CD-ROM drive as well as the ability to read DVD-ROM disks and play DVD movies. In general, DVD-ROM drives perform marginally lower than high quality CD-ROM drives.  It is only the most hardcore of users, who have a need to copy data from a CD-ROM at the fastest of speeds, that would have any reason to not have a DVD-ROM drive in their system. Some users (myself included) actually have a DVD-ROM, CD-ROM and CD-R all installed in a system together to have the best of all worlds. :)

SDCD-101 Specifications / Features
DVD? How can you tell?
  • Interface type 
    ATAPI/E-IDE (Support Ultra DMA 33, DMA Mode 2 & PIO Mode4)

  • Data transfer rate
    DVD:5535~13500 KB/sec 
    CD:2145~4800 KB/sec

  • OS Compatibility
    Windows 2000 / NT / 98 / 95 / 3.x 
    OS/2 Warp
  • Disc Formats
    DVD-ROM: Single layer, Dual layer (PTP,OTP)
    CD-ROM (Mode 1&2 )
    CD-ROM/XA (Mode 2, form 1 & 2) CD-R, CD-RW, 
    CD-EXTRA (CD+)
    Photo-CD (Single & Multi-Sessions)
     
    Video CD, Karaoke CD 
    CD-I/MPEG, CDWO, I-TRAX CD
  • Access time 
    DVD: 100ms
    CD: 90ms
    DRIVER Reliability (MTBF)
    50,000 POH (25% Duty Cycle at Room Temperature)

  • Dimension (W x D x H)
    149mmX42mmX196.5mm


  • Installation: 
    Vertical/Horizontal
    Audio Play/Skip button
    Load/Eject button 
    Emergency manual eject
    Stereo headphone jack
    Rotary volume control knob
    Power on/Busy/DVD LED indicators

  • Accessories:
    IDE40 pin flat cable & Audio cable 
    Screws
    User's Manual

   

Initial Impression:

In general the physical quality of the drive seemed very good. There isn't much to look at besides the front controls, the tray and a metal case but from what I could see this drive seemed solid. The buttons on the front are relatively large and have a good "feel" to them. The disc tray slides in and out smoothly and is very solid, there is almost no play at all. This drive was built with very low tolerances in mind.

Installation / Setup
Same Ol' Stuff with the SDVD-101

Installation was very easy also. The drive was set up as a master on it's own IDE channel using the supplied cable. Installing this drive was no different than the plethora of other IDE CD/DVD-ROM drives available. There is only one jumper with 3 different positions for master, slave and cable select. Once you short the proper position, plug it in and restart your machine, the only step left is to enter your BIOS and set the appropriate drive designation.

Noise Level, Spin-Up, Sound Quality:  

Well, here comes the good news and the bad news.  The good news is that this is one REALLY quiet drive.  Throughout testing this drive was virtually silent compared to most high speed CD-ROM drives.  The only drives I've heard that were quieter are Kenwood drives with the TrueX ZEN technology.

Sound quality when playing audio CD's and during DVD playback was also excellent. It very tough to discern a difference between players, but I was pleased throughout.

Now for the bad news...Spin-Up times were extremely long with certain disks and especially when a CD-R was inserted.  With some CD-Rs we had to wait around 10-15 seconds until the drive was ready and we could access the disk. However, most "commercially" produced disks opened quicker, so we would assume that a firmware upgrade may resolve this issue.

Performance, that's what it's all about...

 

 

Tags:  Shuttle, DVD-R, DVD, SD, rom

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