| Specification of the NEC NR-7700: |
| Firmware version |
1.01
|
| Recording modes |
Disc-At-Once, Track-At-Once, Session-At-Once,
MultiSession, Packet Writing |
| Recording formats |
CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-Audio, CD Extra,
CD Text, CD-I, CD-Bridge, Photo-CD, Video CD |
| Read/write support in Raw-mode |
RAW-DAO - supported
RAW-DAO Write Simulation - unsupported
CD+G RAW-DAO - supported
RAW-SAO - supported
RAW-SAO Write Simulation - supported |
| Average access time |
98 ms |
| CD-R recording |
2x, 4x, 8X, 12X |
| CD-RW recording |
2X, 4x, 10X |
| Buffer underrun error prevention technology |
JustLink |
| Interface |
Ultra DMA 33 |
| Reading |
32x max (4800 KBytes/s) |
| Buffer size |
2048 KBytes |
| Production date |
March 2001 |
| Manufacturer |
Malaysia |
| Price as tested |
$80–85 |
The drive ships in an OEM package.
The box contains:
Although the NEC NR-7700 doesn't cost an arm and
a leg it is not less powerful than its competitors. This drive,
above all, supports the JustLink technology.
Unfortunately, the drive has no overburn support,
but it is not important if you are not going to record MPEG-4 movies
and 90 and 99-minute discs. Moreover, its low price puts me on my
guard; I think that NEC saves on lenses. There is no doubt that
they are plastic, and the question is how long is their service
life, i.e. how fast they become turbid.
By the way, the Nero informs us that the NEC NR-7700
does have an overburn support, but it is clear desinformation.
As well as the CDSpeed data. Because when you try
to overburn a disc you will get the following message:
Another drawback of the NEC is a limited maximum
speed of CD-R recording. For instance, Mirex CD-Rs are recorded
at a maximum of 8X. This also concerns CMC, Prodisc and other discs.
Here is what we get in the Nero and EasyCD Creator:
At a speed higher than 4X a writing procedure is
unstable and slow, the JustLink gets enabled often, and sometimes
the recorder refuses to recognize newly loaded discs. This problem
is similar to the bug of the TEAC CD-540E + VIA KT133. The NR-7700
works correctly on motherboards with the VIA KT133/KT133A chipset
only if it is on the Primary IDE channel (irrespective of slave/master).
On the Secondary IDE the NEC operates correctly only if the DMA
is disabled. But it doesn't fair for all mainboards.Besides, when
the NEC NR-7700 is on the secondary channel it reads data unstably,
while on the primary one the graph is more pleasant.
Another disadvantage is a weak technical support.
In the new 1.03 version the overburn is still unfortunately unsupported;
nevertheless, some bugs are fixed, for example, a possibility of
recording of CD-Rs, earlier detected as 8X, at 12X, and correction
of a problem connected with operation on VIA mainboards.
On opening the drive we found out that the chipset
is from Ricoh (RL5E838) and plastic is used for the most of mechanical
details.
The form of the drive is typical of NEC.
On the front panel you can find one LED, a headphones
jack, a volume control, an emergency ejection hole and an open button.
The tray goes out with a humming sound. On the rear panel there
is a digital-out.
Discs ejected from the drive are quite warm, but
the drive works rather quietly.
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