I am an owner of an RD-SX32 where I had to replace the optical drive with the Memorex. I just picked up a slightly used RD-KX50 thinking it was an RD-SX52.

I'm a little disappointed in the 80gig drive instead of the 160, however, I was very disappointed to learn that the KX50 and the SX52 use proprietary optical drives.

Again, not doing my homework, I was disappointed that even the 50/52 was only spec'd for 4x media which I find surprising considering the difference in manufacture date from the 32.

I couldn't find a single media post on videohelp.com so I'm asking here. I was able to get my Memorex/32 to work on Playo 8x with reasonable success (maybe 80%?)

What nags me is did I just buy "another 32" which is not what I'd like for a "survivalist" unit which was my intent. (However, maybe it is worth it just to have a spare 80g hdd)

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks
Tom

I am an owner of an RD-SX32 where I had to replace the optical drive with the Memorex. I just picked up a slightly used RD-KX50 thinking it was an RD-SX52.

I'm a little disappointed in the 80gig drive instead of the 160, however, I was very disappointed to learn that the KX50 and the SX52 use proprietary optical drives.

Again, not doing my homework, I was disappointed that even the 50/52 was only spec'd for 4x media which I find surprising considering the difference in manufacture date from the 32.

I couldn't find a single media post on videohelp.com so I'm asking here. I was able to get my Memorex/32 to work on Playo 8x with reasonable success (maybe 80%?)

What nags me is did I just buy "another 32" which is not what I'd like for a "survivalist" unit which was my intent. (However, maybe it is worth it just to have a spare 80g hdd)

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks
Tom

These Toshiba RD-XS units must have been in development for awhile as it's often to find units manufactured in 2004, even though packaged and sold later. So burners may be circa 2004. In those days there wasn't 8X or 16X media. From some posts on this forum, using 16X media may decrease the lifespan of the burner.

One thing the RD-KX50 has over the RD-XS32 and a lot of the other RD-XS models is the HDMI port. Also Firewire.

The RD-XS32 is saddled with one big problem for me: it won't pick up a major OTA channel in Japan. It's in the 324-330 mHZ region and some owners in the U.S. have also complained about this. I've seen two units do this so it seems to be a quirk of the model. The tuner is soldered to the motherboard so there is no easy fix. On some of the other RD-XS models, the tuner is on it's own PC board. There are three pots next to the tuner on the RD-XS32 series but these are factory adjusted. You can hose the tuner if you mess with them on your own.

Interesting about the dates. My 50 has a date of March 2005.

Also, my 32 has Firewire on the front panel (?)

I also was never that impressed with the 32 tuner.

I'm so disappointed in DVD. Why would anyone adopt a spec that requires continuous firmware updates to recognize media yet manufactured?

I'm so disappointed in DVD. Why would anyone adopt a spec that requires continuous firmware updates to recognize media yet manufactured?

This problem is not caused by the hardware, its caused by the "death spiral" combination of misguided consumers demanding blank DVDs practically for free and the desperate media mfrs trying to cater to them.

Of all the many higher-end DVD/HDD recorders introduced since since 2003, statistically there were very few that were actually firmware-locked against 16x media. The majority (including Toshiba) could burn 16x media reasonably well using their "generic" burn instructions. The nightmare owners find themselves in now is not that these machines won't burn 16x media, its that they won't burn todays 16x media. Up until 2006, the 16x media formulations and quality controls was fairly similar to the previous 4x and 8x media. But then, sales of computers with DVD burners exploded, and PC users used to giveaway pricing on "obsolete" CD media began demanding ever-cheaper prices for DVD media. The mfrs were caught in a bind, and began slashing prices to below profitability levels.

The pricing bar simply fell too low to sustain fabrication of compatible, reliable discs that could function at the slower speeds used in standalone DVD recorders. Recorder owners are perhaps 20% of the blank media market, so the mfrs caved to the dominant PC burning market by cutting corners and cheapening quality (figuring PC owners could just update their software or buy a new cheap burner each year as the usability of the media declined).

The 16x media sold in stores today is a pale imitation of the 16x media sold three years ago: it is optimized for PC users at the expense of standalone recorder owners. It isn't the 16x speed rating that makes it bad, its other factors related to production cost. You can't make 16x discs that will burn reliably at all speeds from 1x to 16x if the price has to be $24.95 for a spindle of 100: bridging all those speeds requires an average selling price closer to $35-40/100. For $24.95, you get media that is optimized for 12-16x burning and is barely functional below that speed.

The only option for owners of older recorders is to shop online for the slower 8x-speed media. It is relatively easy to mfr 8x media that will burn correctly from 1x-8x. Supermedia store, Rima, and Avendirect stock Verbatim DataLife 8x and Taiyo Yuden (TY) 8x DVD-R: these are both great, no coasters. Sometimes vendors have "pro"-series Sony, Maxell or TDK 8x: this is also excellent, but may be overpriced. Overall the TY and Verbatim DataLife are the best 8x available. Cost is about $32-40 for a 100-ct spindle including shipping. Stockpile these for your older recorder, and you won't have any media worries.

Citibear,

I have no doubt that what you say is true, however, being an engineer (not familiar with the engineering of the burning/read process), it doesn't seem like it should be such an issue.

From what little I have read, firmware updates burn parameters so a good DVD can be recorded. (I don't think there are read tables since DVD's seem to read OK independent of their speed rating.)

So that leaves burn parameters.

From here I'm just guessing with my engineer hat on.....

The biggest problem is that media varies as does burning lasers. So a particular model laser has its own characteristics.

My guess is that because of this variability in the laser, it is up to the burner manufacturer to set up the new media tables for subsequent firmware release.

Since the objective is to burn pits with specific dimensions (L x W x H) the process can be only so complicated.

I guess what these tables might be:

I would think the primary table would be INTENSITY -v- SPEED reminiscent of Recording Level in a tape recorder.

Then there may be secondary parameters of which I can only guess:

TIME CONSTANTS:

perhaps the start and stop of the burn interval for a single "pit" may need adjusting to get the proper pit length at a given burn intensity.

WIDTH/FOCUS:

perhaps adjustments here to obtain a spec pit width.

...and OTHERS perhaps.

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I guess there are a lot of things burner manufacturers could have done ranging from auto calibration to user set burn parameters, but these would simply add cost or confuse the consumer even more.

Again, it goes back to the industry standards people and perhaps the government to adopt a standard. The current situation is exactly what you would expect if, basically, there are no standards since who would design a media system that was this problematic?

Oh well,

what is really sad is that all of this is probably to be expect regarding Blu-Ray. With what people learned from DVD, who would be in a hurry to buy some slow, expensive BR burner that will eventually become a door-stop.

I'll bet this issue has a noticeable bearing on BR adoption.