Panasonic LF-D521

Panasonic tantalised us by calling its new LF-D521 drive a 'multiformat' drive. We had visions of a souped-up version of the Sony DRU-500A, with support for DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-Ram, but we were wrong.

The new drive adds support for DVD-RW to the previous LF-D310 DVD-R/DVD-Ram model, so it isn't quite as earth-shattering as we had hoped.

The three companies backing DVD-Ram are Hitachi, Panasonic and Toshiba. The format is particularly popular in Japan where Panasonic claims it has 73 per cent of the market.

Its main strength is in TV recording devices that work in a similar way to Tivo, as you can read and write to a DVD-Ram disc simultaneously.

That makes it possible to start recording a TV programme and watch the beginning while the end is still being recorded.

The advantage of DVD-Ram is that it is removable, but it can be hard to find another DVD-Ram drive to play the disc on.

That is why you also get DVD-R and DVD-RW support as they are quite widespread, although we feel that the + formats are a better bet for the maximum compatibility with domestic DVD players.

The idea is that you capture movie clips to your DVD-Ram disc, then sort the clips into order and edit them. Once you're ready to author a DVD you use the Software Sonic MyDVD 3.5 package and burn away.

Alternatively, use B's Gold5 Basic to drop data files onto a blank DVD.

The drive and software work well, and the price is fair value too. Although we found the manual to be a terribly confusing mixture of English, French and German, it isn't a significant problem.

Contact: Panasonic 0870 535 7357
www.panasonic.co.uk

Specifications:

• 2x 2x 1x 12x DVD drive
• 12x 8x 32x CD drive
• 2MB data buffer
• Software Sonic MyDVD 3.5, B's Gold5 Basic, B's Clip5, Filesafe, DVD Movie AlbumSE 3, Intervideo WinDVD 4.0