The Ricoh MP5125A-DP drive is actually used by the other DVD+RW supporters, although they rebrand them as their own. AOpen and HP have both taken this route, and use the Ricoh as their base.

The software included with the drive is reasonable, and covers all the basics, such as ripping and burning CDs and DVDs, although it isn’t as extensive as that given with the HP or AOpen drives.

InterVideo WinProducer 2 is the video-editing portion of the suite, but it can’t hold a candle to the likes of Pinnacle’s Studio 7. It has several strange idiosyncrasies during the editing process and, perhaps worst of all, captures straight to MPEG-2 files, instantly losing quality from DV footage. Transitions and effects can’t be previewed in real-time, unlike both Studio 7 and Ulead VideoStudio, which ships with the AOpen. It also lacks the facility to send footage back to tape after editing – a feature of both the other packages.

MedioStream’s neoDVDstandard 2.6 is included for authoring DVDs. This is an earlier version of the same software shipped with the AOpen drive. While not the most fully featured authoring solution, it does the basics well and allows simple editing to be carried out without having to resort to WinProducer 2.

Given its strong performance in burning to rewritable discs, reasonable performance with DVD+R and low price, the Ricoh drive represents excellent value for money overall.