Toshiba SD-R5372 Review

CONCLUSION

Pros

• First drive to offer 5x double layer writing
• Excellent performance at reading scratched / damaged DVDs
• Very fast at reading Safedisk 2 CDs
• Very fast Laserlok read performance
• 16 Speed DVD-R & DVD+R Support
• Can read & write CD-Text
• Supports DAO-RAW mode
• Fast & perfect audio ripping
• Supports Burnproof
• Supports automatic Booktype setting
• Can read and write 96 bytes sub-channels (read: copy protections)
• Very good documentation

Cons

• Doesn't allow changing booktype manually
• Doesn't support Mount Rainier
• Doesn't support writing to 99min CDs
• 2MB Buffer
• Can not retrieve disk quality information
• Long disk recognition times
• Toshiba are not known for producing frequent firmware updates
• Limited DVD+RW 4 writing support (only two disks supported)

It must be said that the sample we were sent by Toshiba was faulty (could not write to the 2nd layer properly) and despite waiting for 2 months we only learnt of this fact recently (this review was completed 2 months ago before firmware TU55). We did not receive a new drive because shortly Toshiba will release a newer model.

Although not a strong competitor in the PC DVD writer market, Toshiba was well known for their excellent DVD-ROM drives and fortunately this DVD writer retains the abilities of their excellent older DVD-ROMs. You can see the excellent read qualities of this drive in the way in which it read our scratched DVD on page 5 - it achieved the best time we have seen. It also had no problems reading safedisk 2 and laserlok disks and read them without too much trouble, employing the famous "Toshiba gear-up" mode (whereby it speeds up the reading process after a short while into the test).

The drive was also good for backing up protected game disks and managed to backup Safedisk 2.5.1 but lacked the ability to backup newer titles, unlike the SDR5272 which could do much more.

The write quality at high speeds was excellent - much better than similar drives at the same price point. It is very fast at writing them as well, managing to write a complete DVD+R disk at 16 speed in only 5 mins and 27 seconds. The disks written with the "+" format are automatically changed to a DVD-ROM booktype (to improve compatiblity) but manual booktype control would have been nice.

Some of the things we didn't like about the drive were how long it took to recognise disks for example, once you have inserted a disk in the drive it will blink and blink for a relatively long time until it finally recognises it (this is much slower than Toshiba's older DVD-ROMs).

If there was any real problem it was the drives compatibility with DVD+RW media, it could only read the disks at 4x speed and the firmware table had only 2 entries for 4 speed writing defaulting to 2.5x on anything else (and only 1 entry for CDRW 24x disks). The drive also could not read or write 99 mins CDs.

Overall we think Toshiba have done a great job with this drive. It can be bought for as little as £44 in the UK, we think its excellent value and one of the best DVD writers out there.

Page 7 - Last Updated: 23 January 2005