X-bit labs

AOpen DUW1608/ARR DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner Review (page 8)

Category: Storage

by Vasily Melnik

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

Single-Write (Non-Rewritable) Media

Quality of the DVD-R disc recorded at 4x

The burn session was completed successfully, but the graph above is jagged, indicating that the drive was recalibrating the laser power throughout the process. The quality of the resulting disc is high, with a low rate of PI errors and failures (there are several peaks of up to seven PI failures on the disc, but they are not as long as to affect the overall burn quality).

Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Outer) for the disc recorded at 4x speed

The Beta graph looks almost like a horizontal line, thus confirming the high quality of the disc. The Jitter rate is uniform. The TA Test results also show that the drive can maintain the required pit/land lengths (there are almost no overlaps on the diagram). The Peak Shift parameter is normal, too. So, we’ve got a high-quality disc at the output. What about 8x burn speed?

Quality of the DVD-R disc recorded at 8x

Once again, for some unknown reason, the drive uses a Z-CLV algorithm. Well, this algorithm has no downsides, except that it increases the total time of the burn session. The session went off successfully, so we can now check the quality of the result.

And the resulting disc is similar to what we have seen in the previous case. The PI error rate is low, although higher than at 4x burn speed. The same is true for the PI failure rate. There are still peaks up to 7 PI failures high, but they are not long and don’t affect the readability of the disc.

Beta/Jitter and TA Test (Outer) for the disc recorded at 8x speed

The Beta graph isn’t as perfect as with the disc recorded at 4x. The moments at which the burn speed was increased can be clearly seen – it’s where the Beta value changes suddenly. The uniformity of Jitter has got worse, too, yet it is still acceptable. The TA Test results prove that the device maintains the necessary pit/land lengths well enough at 8x speed: there are no overlaps on the diagram and the Peak Shift value is small.

So, the drive works well with DVD-R media. If you don’t care much about its taking more time than other drives do to burn a disc, then the DUW1608/ARR is blameless. Let’s now see how it processes DVD+R discs.