While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the MRX-500N's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities.

While a patched RPC-1 firmware is available for the NEC ND-3550A, there isn't one for the MRX-500N yet. The drive's region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware. InfoTool also shows that the MRX-500N is an RPC-2 DVD drive. InfoTool had no problems detecting the MRX-500N's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer. This program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. Here is a screen shot from Nero's InfoTool. This means that the MRX-500N is capable of backing up titles protected by SafeDisc 2, including version 2.51. Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that like most other NEC based DVD writers, the MRX-500N is a 'two sheep' burner. Unfortunately, like some of the other NEC based DVD writers we've tested, it wasn't able to recognize our 99 minute CompUSA discs at all.

According to Nero, the drive can also write CD-Text and overburn. This buffer is also backed up by some form of buffer underrun protection. The Nero screenshot also shows that the MRX-500N has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer. Most of the specs below have been taken from Memorex's website and the guide that came with the drive.īy looking at the picture below, you can see that Memorex's new DVD writer is identified as a 'Memorex 16X-DDL-IN'. To the left of this is the digital audio output. Next to the jumper block is the analog audio connector.

By default the drive's jumper comes set to master. Starting from the left of the IDE connection you'll see the jumper switch for master, slave and cable select. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's IDE interface, power connector and analog audio output connector. The rear of the MRX-500N looks very similar to some of the other NEC based DVD writers we've reviewed. Instead of lighting up green like on the ND-3550A, it is bright blue. Along with the large 'Memorex' logo, you can see a few showing off its support for DVD-R/RW, DVD+ReWritable, DVD+R DL and Ultra Speed CD-RW media.īelow the tray you can see the MRX-500N's single LED. As you can see, the MRX-500N also has its share of logos. While both drives are almost physically identical, Memorex has tried to set theirs apart by giving it a black and silver bezel. Looking at the front, it's pretty obvious that the MRX-500N is based on NEC's new 16x DVD±RW, the ND-3550A. For this review we used firmware versions 1.A3 and 1.A4. The drive Memorex sent us for this review was manufactured in November of 2005 and had firmware 1.A3.

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