It squeezed out first-place finishes on our DVD-ripping and DVD+RW packet-writing tests, and the drive transcoded a 30-minute DivX movie to a Video CD image nearly 4 minutes faster than the second-place Memorex drive. The SD-R5272 was the only other 8X rewriter in the roundup to ship with the MP3 encoder and DivX support required to complete our entire performance test suite. Toshiba is working to add these capabilities, but it has no plans to include an image-editing module. But unlike the version bundled with the Memorex drive, it lacks Ahead's new Nero Recode 2 module, which provides advanced features like MPEG-4 encoding and the ability to merge content from multiple DVDs onto a single disc.
The SD-R5272's version of the Nero software suite includes an awesome array of audio and data disc-creation, packet-writing, media player, system-backup, label designer, disc-copying, and DVD-authoring applications. None of these caveats, however, is serious enough to convince us that the drive is anything but a bargain. But its performance test results aren't always the best, its CD-RW speed is limited to 10X, and its version of Nero isn't as comprehensive as the one bundled with the Memorex model. The Toshiba SD-R5272 performs well and ships with a copy of Ahead Software's outstanding Nero 6 digital-media suite. Review: The Toshiba SD-R5272 performs well and ships with a copy of Ahead Software's outstanding Nero 6 digital-media suite.