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
NuTech DDW-163
Taiwanese NuTech (Quanta's retail channel) surprised us all a little with their DDW-081/082 drives. They were great for the price and deserved our Editor's Choice Award back when 8X was the best speeds that you could obtain on a DVD recorder.However, things have changed a lot since six months ago when we conducted that roundup. Most contenders in the optical storage sector continued to improve and refine their write descriptors and firmware while NuTech stayed relatively quiet. The DDW-163 never received a full fledged press release and just began to trickle onto the online marketplaces this week.
| NuTech DDW-163 16X DVD-/+RW Drive | |
| Interface | PATA |
| CD Write Speed | 40X, 32X, 24X 16X, 8X, 4X |
| CD Rewrite Speed | 24X, 16X, 10X, 8X, 4X |
| CD Read Speed | 40X MAX |
| DVD-R Write Speed | 8X, 4X, 2X |
| DVD-RW Rewrite Speed | 4X, 2X, 1X |
| DVD+R Write Speed | 16X, 8X 4X, 2.4X |
| DVD+RW Rewrite Speed | 4X, 2.4X |
| DVD+DL Write Speed | 2.4X |
| DVD Read Speed | 16X MAX (ROM) 10X MAX (-/+R, -/+RW) 5X MAX (RAM) |
| Supported Modes | DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / RAW SAO, RAW SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write Multi-Session |
| Supported Formats | DVD+R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD-RW (restricted overwrite) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, UDF |
| Access Time | CD: 125ms DVD: 145ms |
| Buffer | 2MB |
Nothing stands out here as particularly dramatic. Why all the secrecy around the newest NuTech drives? Remember our sneak peak at upcoming OSD devices during Computex 2004, particularly about Ricoh's reemergence back into the DVDR chipset arena? The NuTech DDW-162 drive was one of those slated to use the new Ricoh chipset. But today, we are looking at the DDW-163 instead. It would appear as though that, instead of pursuing a Ricoh design, NuTech scrapped the idea and continued to evolve their DDW-082 with the Nexperia chipset. In fact, even though we saw several of slated burners for the Ricoh chipset at Computex, not one of our burners today employs those chips. Ricoh may still introduce a product based on their core logic, but its getting a little late in the game.
Click to enlarge.
Below, you can see what Infotool had to say about the Philips Nexperia based DDW-163.
Internally, a lot seems to have changed since the NuTech DDW-082/1. The DDW-163 uses the newest Nexperia 7860E core logic and the TZA1047HL analog processor. Like the LG GSA series, the NuTech DDW-162 uses flash memory as well.
Click to enlarge.
NuTech has a very diverse product support team. Their employees are the ones who you see posting in forums and working on hacking their own firmware. Coaxing the Nexperia chipset into working with the DVD-R format on the DDW-082 was certainly not an easy task. Living on the fringe of product support and blurring the lines between customer feedback and company direction are extremely refreshing. By contrast, nearly faceless companies like Pioneer and NEC approach customer influence on more traditional marketing channels.
The Nexperia chipset is somewhat of a late-bloomer in the 16X market. If NuTech can keep their QA up, they can definitely utilize this chipset to its fullest by providing quality firmware updates.
Feel free to download the performance graphs for the DDW-163 here.
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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).