Final Words
What makes a DVDR drive perfect? Well, for one, it has to be able to write to just about any media that we throw at it and then read it back without a hitch. A perfect write should have no PI/PO(DVDR) or C1/C2(CDR) errors on it when read back with PlexTools.So, what makes a DVDR drive acceptable, a great deal, better than the rest? The ideal, best drive out of a group should be able to write to high quality media without any problems, and should be able to read back a disc to which it wrote in the first place. It should have no problems reading a disc unless it reports a successful write incorrectly. This is what we saw in our benchmarks today. There were a few drives like the Toshiba SD-R5372 and LG GSA-4163B that could write a disc "successfully", but not read it back with its own laser.
Half of these drives failed to even see Ritek brand RW media, which cannot be caused by a bad batch of media. Sony's DRU-720A wrote to them perfectly, but even its disc had a good number of PI errors. We were really dissapointed in the NEC ND-3540A's performance when compared to drives like the BenQ DW1640, but hopefully their performance will improve as their BIOS matures.
The only drive we saw that could write to the majority of discs and quickly at that was BenQ's DW1640. It had average performance on most of the benchmarks. but always had a successful read to go with the successful write. The only disc that it could not write to was the MKM A03 8x DVD+RW.
Besides that single issue, the DW1640 has features to aid in successful writes, as well as bitsetting features to allow greater compatibility of the media to which it writes. The bitsetting utility can be downloaded from BenQ's website. Over these 6 DVDR units, we recommend the BenQ DW1640 for its performance and reliability in writing to various types of media. Expect this drive to start showing up on retail store shelves very soon.
Special thanks to BenQ for supplying us with the DW1640.
Special thanks to Sony for supplying us with the DRU-720A.
Special thanks to Marken Communications for supplying us with Verbatim brand test media.
Special thanks to Antarra Communications for supplying us with Ridata brand test media.
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Quanticles - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
Sounds like things need to be standardized better if there are this many failures... any drive should work with any media as long as both the drive and the media are within spec.semo - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
i'm pretty certain that the benq dw1640 is better than the nec 3540a. maybe the 4550a will give the crown back to nec but the drive will cost a lot more since it will have lightscribe and the license for that must be expensive (there are no cheap lightscribe drives yet).the new plextor is a joke. the 740a is a exactly the same as the dw1640. even plextools do not work on the plextor 740a (even though it is a "plextor" drive and they are included in the retail package).
i'm not sure if they've fixed it now but plextools don't work with the plextor 740a because of the above reason.
nserra - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
#27 LoneWolf15If recorder record crap media and read crap media = good recorder
If recorder record crap media and don’t read crap media = bad recorder
If recorder don’t record crap media and don’t read crap media = bad recorder
50 DVD-R 8x Princo crap's same price of 25 DVD of other manufactures
My NEC drive has difficulties reading Princo media, LG not a problem. Writing OK on both writers.
Miggle - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
I have the toshiba SD-R5372V. Its cheap but not a great writer. Pretty slow. But you'll be fine if you use good discs. Just bought the LG yesterday, a bit faster than toshiba drive and lets me overspec writes.Calin - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
"What no PRINCO media, useless review!"Interesting, as I use almost only PRINCO media now (however, I have some small DVD-R made by Memorex and I can't wait to use them for something... too bad I don't know yet what to use them for
Calin - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
xsilver (or #16), my DVD writer (LG 4160, capable of DVDRAM, Dual Layer and so on) can write some media with no problems at 4x (the max rated speed) but gives consistent failures at 2.4x (which is any lower speed). I find out that using the same media but rated at 4x (well, it looks just the same but have certified speeds 1-8x) can burn at 4x and 8x with no problems (I haven't tested that media at 2.4x).Dennis Travis - Wednesday, July 13, 2005 - link
Can't you people read?Samus - Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - link
funny they have no plextor in their review.USAF1 - Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - link
You REALLY should have included a Plextor... ;)PuravSanghani - Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - link
AGAIN, for those of you wondering why we did not include the Plextor PX-716 drive, we simply could not get a unit in time. HOWEVER, we do hope to include a Plextor unit in the next roundup.Regards,
Purav