DVD Burn Quality

Verbatim DataLifePlus (Mitsubishi Chemical and TY) were used for the tests. First let’s see how fast the BenQ drive burns DVD discs. As you remember, the LG GSA-4160B turned to be quite capricious as to the selection of burn speeds, so we should take this fact into account when analyzing the test results.

DVD-R: when writing at 4x, the BenQ took a standard amount of time to do the burning, but at 8x and higher it shows just excellent results. At 8x it is a little slower than the LG GSA-4160B, but at 12x it is already the fastest device with DVD-R discs among the hardware we’ve tested so far. Mark also that the difference between the burn times at 12x and 16x is minimal and fits into 20 seconds. So we only have to compare the quality of the resulting discs to answer the question if 16x speed is really necessary for the DVD-R format.

DVD+R: When working with discs of that type the new model from BenQ also has good results at all the tested speeds. Note that there is no difference at all between 12x and 16x speeds (1 second can’t make a difference). Like in the above-described case we will compare the quality of the resulting discs to see if 16x speed is necessary at all.

DVD+RW: The LG is 30 seconds faster than its competitor at the minimal speeds, but the drives behave identically at 4x.

DVD-RW: Here we can write down a minor advantage of the LG at 4x speed, but overall the drives match each other well.

Now let’s check the quality of the written DVD discs. Write-once media come first.

The quality of the DVD+R disc written at 4x by BenQ DW1620

The BenQ DW1620 is alone in this test since the LG drive refused to burn DVD+Rs at 4x speed. The burn process itself gave me no apprehensions and the quality of the resulting disc is quite high. There’s only one minor defect – an increase of PI errors and failures at the outermost tracks of the disc. It’s hard to explain this fact. The drive uses the CLV burn algorithm, so there was no speed increase there. So I’m inclined to blame the drive’s BLER OPC technology that begins to work exactly at the external tracks. This technology must have chosen the laser power incorrectly, and this led to the surge of errors. Yet this doesn’t reflect on the consequent reading of the disc – the drive performed the reading without any speed slumps. But the developers should see to this problem and improve the BLER OPC algorithms since the level of PI errors and failures should be low at this speed. Anyway, the disc is of a high quality overall.

The LG GSA-4160B acted up in this test refusing to burn the 8x blank at its rated speed, offering only 6x or 12x. So, the BenQ wrote the disc at 8x, and the LG drive at 6x.

The burn process was successful with both drives. Note that the BenQ DW1620 uses the P-CAV algorithm that allows reducing the burn time and increasing the quality of the resulting disc. Lately the more manufacturers implement this burn algorithm in their new products for 8x and higher speeds, abandoning the less advanced Z-CLV. The BenQ’s disc is of a higher quality, with very low PI errors/failures counts, despite the higher burn speed. The difference in the totals of PI errors is small between the two drives (5,123), but the BenQ has only 5,063 PI failures against the LG’s 66,702. Thus, both drives have good results in this test, but the BenQ is clearly better between them. The reading of the burned discs was done without a hitch, of course.