Fall 2004 DVDR Roundup: Dual Layer and 16X DVD+R
by Anand Shimpi & Virginia Lee on November 1, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Write Quality Tests MCC 02RG20
The MCC 02RG20 media is the 8X Mitsubishi DVD-R media with which we benchmarked all of our drives.
We still haven't encountered any errors that will render this media unreadable. Let's take a look at Q-Tool's results for the less problematic, yet plentiful, PI errors.
Though PI errors are not as irreparable as PO errors, the amount read on each of these discs says a lot about how the drives wrote to them. The DRU-710A had the most trouble writing to the -R media out of all of the drives that could. Also, PI errors increased as the write continued to the end of the disc, which we suspect was caused by the media being warped.
The screenshot below shows a scan of the media from the DRU-710A by Q-Tools. Again, the PI errors are in blue and it is obvious that the bulk of them reside in the second half of the disc, increasing as it reaches the end.
Another screenshot shows results from a Q-Tools scan of a 02RG20 disc written by the SOHW-1633S. Though the media did not have as many PI errors as the disc from the Sony drive, the same pattern showed up with errors increasing towards the end of the disc.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
65 Comments
View All Comments
Warder45 - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
I think some are forgeting that testing these things doesn't happen over night. Between other reviews, news, etc and normal working hours it could be quite easy to have a new firmware come out after you've already tested.For the plextor drive it does seem like bestbuy's website has them in stock for $140 with a $30 MIR. So is the extra's of a plextor worth the extra $30 to $40?
Mem - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
I notice with the Lite-On 1633 drive you was for the roundup still had the original firmware,there`s a new firmware "BSOK" update out dated 26th OCT that has "matched more media" support.I happen to own the external version and can say it`s very quiet while burning and also in playback mode,the only noisy thing is the tray when ejecting IMHO,btw I think it`s a great burner very low P1/PO errors and no bad burns so far.
Dennis Travis - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
What is interesting is I just bought a Plextor PX-716a at Best Buy this last week. It works GREAT so far. Will do more testing but so far it's fast and reliable. It is at UDMA 4 by the way. It flys.It came with both a White and Black face and door.
Bozo Galora - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
er, Nov 8 for PREORDERapparently they are still working out bugs
I note in the specs that the drive will run in UltraUDMA mode 4 or 66MB/sec in addition to PIO
Interesting
Bozo Galora - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/716A.htmlooks like Nov 8 for USA
Bozo Galora - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
#25-I have never seen a 16X Plextor review - care to link one?
Latest Plextools out today 2.18
http://www.plextools.com/download/download.asp
Mookie13 - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
Can anybody comment on the noise level of any of these drives (esp. the NEC, BenQ and Pioneer)? I'd like to throw one of these in a sff and use it as a htpc, so a loud drive spinning sound would really bother me.KristopherKubicki - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
Maverick215: Feel free to download the .zip files with all of the disc quality q-tools and nero tests.techfuzz: When we tested the drive 2.16 was the newest available.
As for the BenQ drive, we tested with the newest firmware possible.
Kristopher
Aquila76 - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
From page 9 (Sony Review) <<...dual layer burners are pseudonymous with 16X burners...>>I think the word you're looking for is 'synonymous', not 'pseudonymous'. A pseudonym means 'a fake name', whereas a synonym means 'basically the same thing'. However, in Sony's case, pseudonym may be more accurate.
Belzer - Monday, November 1, 2004 - link
I find the average write speed of 11.88x for the NEC on 8x DVD±R MCC media very hard to believe. It would need to support them at max 16x speed to get this average speed and it does not, unless you've used a hacked firmware.I also doubt that the Pioneer is faster than the BenQ @12x on 8x MCC DVD+R if you compare the actual write time. Other tests have shown the BenQ to be a good 30 seconds faster than the Pioneer at 12x thanks to PCAV write tech (vs. ZCLV).