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Well-known in their native U.K. and throughout Europe and Asia, Traxdata Ltd. is one of a growing number of sophisticated companies assembling, selling, and supporting rebranded CD-Recordable bundles. Traxdata's latest offering is the CDR 4120 PRO CD writing solution, which integrates TEAC's second-generation CD-RS recorder with topflight supporting elements. With performance and features at the top of its class, the CDR 4120 PRO offers state-of-the-art 4X writing speed, true 12X CLV read and Digital Audio Extraction performance, flash firmware, I MB buffer, and a SCSI interface, as well as Disc-At-Once (DAO) and packet writing capability. Seldom is any product as perfect as its spec sheet might imply, however. The CD-RS has a few noteworthy shortcomings, among them a lack of Running Optimum Power Control (Running OPC), no support for the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), and no R-W subcode handling ability. Despite these deficiencieswhich won't affect most buyers' use of the product anyway-the CD-R555 has been enthusiastically integrated into many CD duplication and production systems.
Depending upon the geographic location in which it is marketed, Traxdata offers a number of versions of the CDR 4120 PRO, including a Mac bundle as well as internal and external PC configurations with and without a SCSI card. The $479 internal PC version reviewed here is an intelligently stocked package that comes complete with a Traxdata-branded TEAC CDRSSS 4xl2 recorder, an Advansys ABP-930 SCSI card and cable, two blank discs, CeQuadrat's WinOnCD and PacketCD CDRecordable software for Windows 95/NT, plus some label design templates and a marking pen. PAC"ETCD 3.0: DRAGGED-AND-RPP, COMPRESSION-BOOSTED CDR
For day-to-day storage duties, the CDR 4120 PRO package includes the latest version of CeQuadrat's PacketCD incremental packet writing software. Similar to Adaptec's popular DirectCD, PacketCD makes the recorder appear to the operating system as a...