TEST drive

By Lowell Rapaport

JVC 'Six-at-Once' Stands Alone

As you can guess from the name, the JVC Six-at-Once Standalone Duplicator System will record as many as six CDs at a time. It has its own built-in hard disc drive for caching data and functions completely as a stand alone unit; it doesnýt have to be tethered to a computer or network to function.

The six CD recorders make the Six-at-Once resemble a small CD tower. The front of the duplicator has a two-line display and an eighteen-button membrane keyboard. The back of the unit has a recessed power switch, a Centronics-style SCSI port and power connector. There are clips to hold the power cable in place. The clips and the recessed switch are important because any loss of power during a duplication process will result in half a dozen coasters.

Basic operation is simple. When you turn the unit on, it prompts you to insert a source CD. Any of the six CD recorders can function as a read drive when copying an original disc to the internal hard drive. When the duplicator is done copying the source disc, it ejects the CD and prompts you to insert up to six blank CD-Rs.

You can also duplicate directly from one CD to another by selecting the ýCD to CD Duplicate Modeý from the ýMenuý button. In this case you insert the source CD and up to five blank destination CD-Rs.

In addition to ýDuplicate Modeý and ýCD to CD Duplicate,ý there is also a ýTrack Editing Modeý used for duplicating audio CDs and a ýPass Through Modeý that lets you use the JVC Six-at-Once as a CD-R tower.

There is an internally terminated SCSI port on the back of the unit. When connected to a computer, only the four bottom CD recorders can be used. The four bottom drives use SCSI ID numbers 3 through 6. Since the duplicator has just a single SCSI port, it must be the last device on your SCSI chain.

Additional menu items let you activate verification, set up for firmware updates, simulate CD recording, downselect drive speed and choose between disc-at-once or track-at-once recording.

The simulated recording mode and drive-speed downselect capabilities are holdout features for older computers that are too slow to handle high-speed CD recording. Tested as a stand-alone duplicator, there were no problems with buffer underruns or bad CD-Rs.

ýDisk-at-Onceý and ýTrack-at-Onceý should be familiar to anyone who has recorded CDs from a desktop computer. ýDisc-at-Onceý records and closes CD-Rs in a single recording session. ýTrack-at-Onceý permits multi-session recording so you can add more data later on. ýTrack-at-Onceý is primarily for making hybrid (audio+data) CDs.

The JVC Six-at-Once records all standard CD formats. Since its function is based on CD disc images, it makes no attempt to rearrange the format of a source CD. This ensures that the destination CDs are exact duplicates of the original.

The CD recorders are 4x12 Teac drives, and the hard drive is a 1 gigabyte Seagate drive that is easily replaced. The duplicator reads a full 650 MB CD in about six minutes and records in less than 18 1/2 minutes. These recorders are about average in speed as compared to single-drive recorders connected to a computer. However, the ability to record six discs at once means that the duplicator will save considerable time when you have to make multiple copies of a single CD image.

The only criticism I have of the JVC Six-at-Once is that when itýs connected to a computer you can only access the bottom four CD recorders. Ideally, you should be able to access all six recorders and the hard drive from a host computer. That way youýd be able to duplicate six CDs at a time directly from the host computer. If your CD recording software wonýt support recording to multiple recorders at once, you should be able to download a CD image to the duplicatorýs hard drive and use the duplicator to record CDs from there.

If you routinely duplicate several dozen CDs on a daily or weekly basis, a duplicator like the JVC Six-at-Once Standalone Duplicator System can be a major time saver. Itýs faster than trying to duplicate CDs on a single disc recorder and will save you from tying up a record-capable jukebox. It is a rugged device that did not create a single bad disc throughout the testing period and it correctly duplicated all CD-ROM formats.

--Lowell Rapaport

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