Digital Trends

TDK AID+440BX

June 29th, 2003 | by Ian Bell

Introduction

TDK's new 440N Indi DVD writer joins Sony's DRU-500AX as one of the few commercially available multi-mode DVD writers. Those wanting to stay under the $300 dollar price point will find the TDK 440N very appealing.  However, if you absolutely need to have top-of-the-line you may want to spend $50 extra for the Sony DRU-500AX as it offers a larger 8MB buffer and 4X DVD+RW writing speeds. What separates the TDK 440N from past TDK drives and from the current competition are friendly setup instructions and an external faceplate which gives the 440N an upper-end, polished look.

Features

The first thing to grab your attention about the 440N is the black faceplate, compete with a shiny polished black tray and a recessed eject button. The days of beige computer cases are coming to an end, as black colored computers and peripherals are starting to gain momentum in the market. TDK recognizes this, thus creating a matching black face plate. Other manufacturers such as Plextor and Lite-On also have optional black faceplates but none look as good as the TDK's with the polished upper half of the tray.

The 440N writes DVD+R/-R at 4X speeds, DVD+RW/-RW at 2.4X/2X speeds and CD-R/RW at 16X/10X speeds. The TDK 440N features a 2MB buffer and utilizes Sanyo's patented Buffer Underrun technology to prevent buffer underrun errors while creating media and multitasking at the same time. A 2MB buffer is pretty much standard with DVD writers in this price range, although we would take a larger 4MB buffer any day.

Packaged with the TDK 440N is Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6.0 which includes software to create music CD's, DVD movies and other forms of media. If you decide that Windows XP's built in packet writing software is not good enough, opt to install Direct CD which will allow you to drag and drop data to your rewritable media as if it were a hard drive. Also included with the TDK 440N is a CD dedicated to supporting your new drive.

Setup and use

When it comes to CD/DVD writers, TDK always seems to take the installation process one step further than the rest. Included with their TDK 440N Indi DVD writer is an easy setup poster, a very long and descriptive manual and a video to help you through the setup process. In all fairness, setting up a DVD Writer is no different than any CD-ROM drive.  But for those new to this process, TDK walks you through it in an easy to understand fashion. The connectors are all clearly labeled on the back of the drive and after watching the video you will see that installing the TDK 440N on its own IDE channel is the best route to preventing any writing errors.

Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6.0 is a little different than its predecessors. First of all, the record disc option is moved from the big red “record” button located near the top menu to inside the File menu, so take some time to familiarize yourself with the new GUI interface. We also recommend running Roxio's drive tests so the software can easily determine the best transfer rates for both your hard drive(s) and the TDK 440N DVD writer. By doing this you will both speed up writing performance and reduce any errors that may occur.

We noticed upon installing the TDK 440N that there is no volume control or headphone jack located on the front of the drive. Now in all honesty most people will never use those controls, but we cannot help but think that either TDK is trying to reduce costs of the drive itself, or they think that by not adding these controls it helps add to the overall aesthetic look of the drive. In any case we would like to have seen these present on the drive.

Some people may find the recessed eject button annoying, but it worked every time for us and we never had a problem finding it. Once opened, the drive tray on the TDK 440N goes back in with a slight nudge, a trait we like to see because we know most people push the tray in to close their drives. Plextor's PX-504A drive bay takes a bull dozer to push in and is most likely hurting the drive bay mechanism altogether.

One thing which certainly was upsetting about the TDK 440N Indi DVD writer is the lack of an audio cable or DVD+RW media disc packaged with the drive. We noticed that Plextor's PX-504A drive was missing the same contents and we hope this is not the way most manufacturers are going to follow. For $299 we like to see a complete package which makes us feel like our money was well spent.