Spring 2004 DVD Performance Roundup: More DVD Dual 8X

Bitsetting and Calibration

We have not touched very much on bit setting over the last few DVD reviews. For those of you who do not know what it is, let us go over it quickly.

Whenever we play a DVD in a DVD drive (stand alone or PC based), the player queries the disc for what "type" of media it is. Typically, a DVD identifies itself as a "DVD-ROM". Unfrotunately, DVD+R and DVD+RW discs commonly identify themselves as "DVD+R" and "DVD+RW". Whether intentionally or just through lack of foresight, some DVD players do not understand any identifiers other than "DVD-ROM". This commonly affects only much older players and does not particularly affect many DVD players now.

With the problem of compatibility between this miniscule difference in discs, some DVD manufacturers released third party tools to allow the end user to select which kind of DVD booktype the drive should use. This process is also known as bitsetting, since the difference between a "DVD+R" and "DVD-ROM" identifier is literally one bit. Unfortunately, many very common drives (such as the NEC 2500A and the Plextor 708A) do not have official sanctioned firmwares that allow such practice. However, there is an excellent underground community that has worked very hard to modify manufacturers official firmwares for this support. When all goes well, the ability to bitset appears in Nero during the burn process.

Click to enlarge.

There is another important aspect of firmware modification that we have not touched on, and that is write strategy. In very simple terms, the firmware contains a list of hundreds of media types (such as MCC 002), and at what speed/mode the drive should burn that media. This is called a write strategy.

When looking at our burn processes from the burners in our recent roundup, it seems as though our drives are regressing in terms of speed. The Plextor 708A and NuTech DDW-081 would burn 8X speeds on 4X (and sometimes 2X!) media all the time. Sony's DRU-530A and AOpen's DDW8800 appear much more picky with the media at which they will actually burn 8X. Just like the bitsetting community, there is an even larger community of programmers who actively modify write strategies within firmwares to increase speed on common media.

Although we did not install any of these third-party firmwares for our roundup, it should be noted that when you buy a drive, increased speeds and booktype options may exist, but you have to travel to the fringe of tech support to get them. Installing these modified firmwares will certainly void your warranty. Consider these options similar to overclocking, but for your DVD burner (there are multiple hacks to get your NuTech DDW-082 to burn at 10X).