X-bit labs

AOpen DUW1608/ARR DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner Review (page 13)

Category: Storage

by Vasily Melnik

[ 09/21/2005 | 11:49 PM ]

Performance during Audio Capturing

The non-zero read and write offsets are compensated with the drive’s ability to read the auxiliary areas of the disc, so it is possible to make an accurate copy of an Audio CD on the DUW1608/ARR. The drive has a good access time when working with audio discs and also supports “on the fly” copying at speeds up to 16x.

The drive can return C2 errors, but the caching of audio data isn’t necessary for audio grabbing as it only increases the total copy time.

The AOpen DUW1608/ARR is quite good at actual extraction of audio tracks. Even though it is not the fastest device available, it is quite fast for everyday work. The caching took some time in the Secure Mode, but not too much to be considered a serious drawback. An indisputable advantage of this model is the minimal speed reduction when it works with a scratched Audio CD.

The tested drive is rather average at returning C2 errors and reading a damaged disc. You should disable C2 errors reporting for serious work with audio. It will make the process longer, but you’ll get a more accurate copy in the end.

Sheep Test

You can read the description of this test here . In brief, its point is simple: the ability of the drive to copy discs protected with various versions of Safe Disc is tested. The developers of the popular CloneCD program have the following classification of optical drives, according to this test:

1. No sheep at all. The device cannot make copies of Safe Disc version 2.0 and higher without certain software tricks.
2. One sheep. The drive can copy versions 2.0-2.4.
3. Two sheep – the drive can copy discs protected with Safe Disc version 2.5.
4. Three sheep – the drive can copy all the possible weak sectors .

The AOpen DUW1608/ARR is a three sheep drive in this classification. It read all test files and proved that it is one of the best devices for hardware copying of protected discs.