The only problem with the Sony DW-U18A model you mentioned is that it is an OEM drive. It is NOT supported by Sony in any way, shape, or form. You won't find specs on it on their web site, techs won't answer questions about it, etc.! The fact is, in all likelihood, the drive was NOT EVEN BUILT BY SONY (most likely Lite-On)!!!

It was made (along with 7 other models) to be put inside PC's which are manufactured HP, Compaq, and other pre-built PC's. It's a way for Sony to sell drives, but not take responsibility for them. The reason for using "name brand OEM components" is due to NAME RECOGNITION; would you buy a DVD player for your home theatre system if the name on the front was "Joe Shmoe" or would you "feel more comfortable" seeing the name brand of Sony, Mitsubishi, etc. emblazoned on the front panel?

Let's give you all a REAL WORLD example of this:
There have only been FOUR companies which EVER made the tape transports for ANY consumer (and the majority of "prosumer" VHS recorders since their inception. Yet, there are over 200 unique "company names" which are on the front panel! Companies such as Sony, et al, would buy the transports and the casing. They would then fit their own design (or buy the OEM circuit boards) to go inside the case. Perhaps less than 2% of the total components of the VHS VCR were actually made by Sony and put onto it (the logo, and any/all labels). Everything inside the unit was made by someone else! Sony would warranty the unit (with a few exceptions), as they knew who put the internal parts into it.

This type of "name recognition" has been going on for decades, and the majority of the consumers do not have a clue to this totally legal "deception" (and, yes, it is legal!).

The only way to be assured that you're actually buying a Sony designed and built DVD recorder is to buy the RETAIL PACKAGED unit, which says Sony everywhere on the box. Every U18 I've ever seen sold at computer shows, stand-alone PC vendors, even on places like New Egg are labeled as OEM... no box, no manual (the vendors buy them in bulk, and they usually only receive ONE MANUAL for every 10 cases of drives; you may see different software included when you buy a U18 from one vendor, and other bundled software from another. It all depends what kind of a deal they make with the OEM manufacturer at the time of purchase.

Besides owning a professional post-production audio/video company, I have been in the PC repair business since the days of the original Altair! I've seen so many "name brand" (OEM) components inside PC's, yet when I try to obtain repair info on these items, the company whose name is on the label says, "You need to contact who you purchased the item from, as we do not support the item in question in any manner." It's a legally vicious circle, but one which, in the long run, keeps prices for the consumer down, except when it comes time to repair the unit once the warranty runs out! Read the warranty section of most new PC's sold over the last 5 years. You'll see, usually in very small print, that if an in-warranty item needs to be replaced, the replacement part will "meet or exceed the specifications of the original part"; you may also very well see sentences such as, "The replacement part may be new or refurbished, at the Company's discretion. If an exact replacement part is no longer available, the replacement part (which may be new or refurbished) which meets or exceeds the specifications of the original component will be installed." BTW, the LAST sentence is directly from the manual (actually it's a single sheet of paper included [i.e., buried] with a lot of "odds and ends" notices about the PC) of a brand new (2 weeks old) Compaq Presario 1620 which is sitting on the workbench waiting for the new 500 GB Hitachi DeskStar SATA-2 to finish formatting; the customer (my neighbor) wanted a second HD installed for more storage space for the (literally) thousands of 35mm negatives he's going to scan onto the new HD to archive onto DVD media for protection purposes. The DVD drive is a (can you guess what I'm about to type in?!?!?!?!) Sony DW-U18A, with a date of manufacture of May 2005!


As far as anyone who bought a DW-U18A, you actually need to contact who you bought the drive from, as they are the people who are TOTALLY AND EVENTUALLY responsible for "making sure it works". Sony will NOT honor any type of warranty on OEM drives. They will not work on them at all, as they could be made by ONE OF EIGHT DIFFERENT COMPANIES! Sony sends the manufacturer the front panel (usually black, some beige, and a small percentage of silver, depending on what "color" PC the unit will be going into) as well as the Sony labels.

DVD-A has a very difficult time burning DL DVD's on that model (I own 5 of these, I know what the BEST units are on the market right now which are made by whose name is on the unit!!!!). My professional opinion is to get purchase this drive:

BenQ Model EW1621 external USB 2.0 recorder. It will PROPERLY work in both a horizontal as well as a 90 degree vertical position. Where as 90+ percent of all other PC-based DVD recorders have the burning laser striking the media at an angle of anywhere between 15 and 32 degrees (layer independent in the case of DL media), the BenQ's recording laser's beam hits the media at a true 90 degree perpendicular angle. Not only does this assure a higher quality of recording, it requires less power to do so, and it results in the "pits" having the highest quality "start / end" angle. Other recorders/players (PC or stand-alone units) have a much easier time reading the data, and the decks do not have to rely on the ECC (error correction circuit) having to work as hard to try to properly read the "pit data". I have not had a single CD or DVD media (no matter the "+R / -R format" turn out as a coaster, even when using the worst brand of media that customers insist on using (ones which they brought in themselves). I record CD's at a maximum of 4x speed, and DVD's (single or DL) at a maximum of 2x speed. Not only does this assure for a "cleaner burn" (due to the media running at fewer RPMs), but the laser does not have to work as hard to get the "pit" to the correct depth. These BenQ's have recorded more than 300 discs each, and honestly, I have not has ONE BAD RECORDING (CD or DVD/DVD-DL).

The drive's specs state that it is capable of a the following recording speeds:
CD = 40x
DVD+R or -R single layer = 16x
DVD+R DL = 4x

While it's not an inexpensive unit ($110 USC at Circuit City), it's worth every penny. It allows you to choose the "Book Type", it's portable, has worked with PC's using Win98SE up to WinXP (Home or Pro), as well as Win Media Edition, etc. There are Linux drivers on the Net, and while I do not work with Linux, there have been no reported problems with any of the many versions of Linux on the market. Have not had a single DL burn problem using DVD-A since I bought the BenQ a month ago. Most of the projects I do at my Studio require the project to be longer than 2 hours / 4.6 GB; Either I had to burn 2 single layer DVD's with the U18 (the single layer media is inexpensive, but a number of customers did not want to have to change discs.

I have not had to use any other software to correctly DVD DL media since I switched to these BenQ units. I have not seen a "name brand" PC (or one which a person properly custom built by themselves, using good to professional quality components) that would not recognize this recorder (and media format or single/DL DVD).

Again, you should take ALL of the personal recommendations into consideration, as they are based on my own personal and professional experiences. I know of 16 other people who have bought this drive on my recommendations, and they have not told me of any negative experiences. But, I can tell you that my Studio is well known in "indie recording circles", and I do create a fair percentage of DVD recordings for businesses, a few PBS stations in the Midwest, as well as making audio compilations for friends who just want to put in a single DVD and be able to listen to 19 hours of continuous music of their choice.

I use Sound Forge 7, and the "bundled" Vegas 6 / DVD Architect 3 for a lot of the "down and dirty work" when the project is not one which requires an extremely high number of A / V manipulation. I do use DVD-A 3 for recording the final DVD's for customers (hence the need for 5 of these BenQ drives, since I have 12 PC's which are strictly dedicated for doing "mass recording" without the hassle and cost of going through a mastering and duplication house.

I am also a beta tester for a company which sells the software which most professional movie studios are now using to edit audio and HD video (it's not ProTools) "in house"; this software package comes with a proprietary set of audio cards which must be present for the program to function; the program's starting price is $125,000 USC for the "starter package" (there are many options which can raise the final price to just over $200,000 USC). The "starter pkg." only allows DD 5.1; some of the options include the fully licensed Dolby Digital EX 7.1 encoding software, every possible codec for both NTSC, PAL, and SECAM formats, and full standards-compliant HD video. I cannot reveal the name of the software or who authors it, due to the non-disclosure contracts I am bound by. But with this software, when using a PC which only allows for a member of the AMD 64-bit family of CPU's (it will NOT work with Intel CPU's, due to the lack of some standard CPU code calls as well as Intel's lack of true compatibility with the currently available Windows software),


As far as my Studio goes, I assembled all three of the master editing PC's by hand, as well as the server and the ancillary/mass-recording PC myself, using the best possible components on the market (any person could buy the components which make up each of the total of 17 PC's plus the server. NO company sells or could custom-build these system with the components I chose to incorporate).

Please do not take this as "bragging" or "ego talking", I just want the readers of this message to understand that I know what I am doing in the audio and video editing field.

And I just wanted to let people know that while Vegas 6 and DVD-A 3 cannot work miracles, if the right items are used (especially the media recorder), everything CAN work as advertised by Sony Digital.

I do not have any vested or personal interests in any of the products mentioned in this post. Everything mentioned here is just my personal and professional opinions from "everyday use". From simple authoring and burning all the way to the tremendous amount of time and effort which goes into a number of customer projects, I've found that certain PC items work very well with Sony's software, while a few items do not. I personally favor AMD over Intel for the CPU aspect (years of personal/professional trial and error); and while the beta testing I do for the software mentioned is one thing, I have found no problems which cannot be overcome with Vegas 6 and/or DVD-A 3. I've found the Tech Support to be first rate when I need to make the rare telephone call to Madison, and I have never been steered wrong. I've found bugs with Sound Forge 6 & 7 and DVD-A 3. Each one of these has been corrected and the fixed in subsequent releases of these software packages (I have been told that 2 "very minor bugs" will be addressed in the next update of DVD-A 3). And honestly, it's refreshing (at least to me) that any issue or question I've spoken/written to Sony about with the products I use have not been "dismissed", nor have I ever gotten the feeling that I've been given "the runaround" or felt ignored in any way. This is just how I am... the pressures of some of the projects I do can be tremendously stressful, but when I need to speak with Madison, I've always been OBJECTIVE, and not SUBJECTIVE in my communications. Maybe this is why I've received the type of support I expect from a company, maybe it's that Sony just has a team of very knowledgeable people who know how to deal with issues. Granted, not every issue I've raised or bug I've found was easy for Sony to figure out; one time, I actually had to make a mini-DV video to send to them, so they could see exactly the problem I was encountering, as they could not duplicate it in their labs... but when they actually were able to see the exact set of circumstances leading up to the problem, they were able to find the problem with the code, and it was corrected 2 releases later.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope that the info (especially about OEM-related information) will help many people out in the future. And if people need to purchase a different DVD recorder to allow them to make DVD DL projects, you don't necessarily have to go with the BenQ recorder I mentioned. I works perfectly for me. But some folks just cannot afford to pay the price for that model/brand. There are other good manufacturers on the market. But before anyone buys a media recorder for DVD's, please contact the manufacturer FIRST to find out if the model is an OEM or not. Like I've stated earlier, try to stay away from OEM equipment, as it's only going to lead to problems eventually (sometimes at the worst possible time!).

Thank you for your time in reading this post. If anyone would like to contact me, please feel free to do so by sending me an e-mail to:

surgeon_of_sound @ comcast . net

(please do NOT include the spaces... they're just there to keep the "spam robots" away! But DO please include the "underscore" characters)