April 2001

TEST DRIVE

Two Ways to Duplicate DVDs

by Lowell Rapaport

At 4.7 GB, DVD has more than seven times the capacity of a compact disc. While this is appealing, putting data on a DVD was, until recently, a costly proposition.

The earliest DVD-R drives sold for more than $15,000, and they were produced in very limited quantities by Pioneer, Long Beach, CA, which is still the only manufacturer of DVD-R drives. Now that Pioneer has ramped up production and lowered its prices, the format is showing up in duplication devices.

We recently brought into our lab two DVD production devices, the Rimage Perfect Image Protege and Primera Technology's Composer Optical Disc Duplicator.

Rimage, Minneapolis, offers a complete CD and DVD duplication appliance in its Perfect Image Protege. The device is aimed at users who want automated production of both CDs and DVDs for distribution or use in jukeboxes for enterprise archives. The device is network attached and offers an integrated server and plenty of automation options.

Rimage's Producer 2000 software comes in three parts. The Production Server and CD-R Image Server run on the computer controlling the duplicator. Workstation clients, which are used to collect the files and volumes you want to record to CD or DVD, can run on any computer on the network. The CD-R Image Server creates the disc images from the user files and submits those images to the Production Server for recording to CD or DVD. The software is completed by Perfect Image CD Designer, a utility for creating CD labels.

In addition to assembling files through Workstation clients, you can put files and folders in a special Edit List directory that is watched by the CD-R Image server. This lets you direct files from content management systems and other application software into the watched directory to create disc images automatically.

The Producer 2000 software comes preinstalled on a Dell Poweredge 2400 server. The computer has two 18 GB drives, offering a total of 33 GB free for storing DVD and CD disc images. The server also has plenty of extra bays for additional drives.

The duplicator includes both a PlexWriter 12/4/32 CD recorder from Plextor, Santa Clara, CA, and a DVR-S201 DVD recorder from Pioneer. This allows you to copy data to cheap CDs when you only need to archive a few megabytes worth of files. The DVD recorder comes into play when you have gigabytes of data to archive.

Protege's robot is essentially the same three-bin system used by Rimage's CD duplicators. On a CD duplicator, these bins hold new media, recorded media and rejected discs. With the addition of DVD, one of the bins has to do triple duty, holding recorded CDs, recorded DVDs and rejects.

Users in high-volume production environments have the option of connecting additional robots to the controlling computer that can be managed with the same software. The Rimage Production Server is smart enough to put disc recording jobs on the next available duplicator. Users can also put DVD and CD production on separate robots to reduce potential confusion.

Primera Technology, Plymouth, MN, offers a more affordable, DVD-only unit in its Composer Optical Disc Duplicator. Priced at $10,000, it's less than one-third the cost of the Protege, but it can't record CDs, doesn't include its own server and offers fewer automation options.

The Composer Optical Disc Duplicator integrates a robot, a Signature III disc printer and a single Pioneer DVD recorder. The device connects to any computer via SCSI connector. Completing the package is Primera's PrimoDVD software for recording DVDs and Prassi Disc Face editor software for creating disc labels.

When installed on a networked computer, the PrimoDVD software can pull files from any location to create a disc image or record directly to DVD. However, unlike the Rimage application, Primera's software can't automate the process of watching a directory, gathering files and recording new discs on the fly.

With the PrimoDVD software, creating a DVD is similar to making a CD on a desktop computer, but with the added convenience of a disc-swapping robot. The files for each DVD recording job have to be manually assembled, and recording is manually initiated. DVD recording jobs can be saved and multiple jobs can be loaded into the software and queued.

The Composer's robotics let you set up the Optical Disc Duplicator to run multiple DVD recording jobs unattended. The single DVR-S201 drive takes about an hour to record a full 4.7 GB, so it is not likely to be used to mass duplicate DVDs for customers.

In our tests, the Protege recorded reliably and handled all the automation features advertised. The software recognized and recovered from a recording error we intentionally forced. Primera's Optical Disc Duplicator also performed as intended in normal operation, but we experienced a hiccup when we attempted the same forced recording error. While the robot responded to the failure by attempting to remove the bad disc, the DVD-R drive failed to open. The software had to be restarted to regain control. This problem should not come up during normal operation, but an error during an unattended session could leave the machine hanging.

For straight DVD duplication, the Composer Optical Disc Duplicator gives you everything you need and nothing you don't. If you want the option of CD duplication as well as integration with applications and automation options, the Protege will seem more like the master.

Whether the 430M is suitable for archiving will depend on your storage demands. While the unit's four drives can support many users and, at 12 MB per-second native speed, the Mammoth2 tape drives are very fast, the library only holds 30 cartridges. By the latest standards, 1.8 TB is not large. We do expect Exabyte to announce the next-generation of the Mammoth tape drive later this year, and this should double capacity.

With its removable magazines and single-tape mail slot, the library is an excellent backup device. Just make sure you can feed its multiple drives through multiple backup streams to take advantage of its performance advantages.