Introduction

If you'd read about our recent HP dvd200e DVD writer based on the DVD+RW technology, you should have known that to date there are currently three primary DVD formats - DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW and DVD-RAM. Although the DVD Forum have only approved the DVD-R/-RW and DVD-RAM formats, the DVD+RW Alliance have been pretty aggressive in garnering market acceptance for their own format. Until next year, when a single DVD format will be finalized, users for now will have to choose between these three writing formats.




Today we shall take a look at another DVD+RW drive, the RICOH MP5125A DVD+RW, which was sent to us by MET - the exclusive agent for RICOH drives in Asia. One of the founding members of the DVD+RW Alliance, RICOH is also one of the major OEM vendor for DVD+RW drives. The MP5125A is an internal drive and is what you would call a "super-combo" drive - with the ability to burn CD-Rs at 12x, rewrite CD-RWs at 10x and write to both DVD+R and DVD+RW media at 2.4x. Like the HP dvd200e, the RICOH MP5125A also features lossless linking, defect management and background formatting.