X-bit labs - Print version

We would like to offer you a review of a potential winner in its class: a new DVD+/-R burner from BenQ offering high burning speed and reliable operation. Is this a new performance leader? Let’s find out from our extensive test session!!
UPDATE: we tested BenQ DW1620 drive with new B7T9 firmware. Check out our side-by-side comparison vs. B7P9 firmware version!

UPDATE, February 22, 2005: We tested the BenQ DW1620A DVD±RW/R Drive with the new version of firmware - B7T9, and compared the results with those obtained with the previous firmware version side by side. Check out our update to learn what the advantages of the new firmware version for this solution are!

The subject of our today’s review is one of the most intriguing optical drives that have recently appeared in the market. It is a new drive from BenQ. Many developers of computer hardware at large and of optical disc drives in particular suffer or suffered in the past from the negative attitude of users towards a particular trademark. Sometimes this is a natural reaction to the release of a low-quality product that has disrupted the customers’ trust in the manufacturer, but sometimes it is an echo of the so-called “holy wars” when the customer is disdainful about a brand just because it’s not fashionable or trendy.

These are not very objective criteria to judge the value of a product by, don’t you agree? And even if a company has got its reputation marred by a bad product, that’s long past, and we shouldn’t stick to the past too much. Moreover, brands that used to ignore the customer feedback have long vanished from the market while the remaining companies are seriously working on each reported bug and defect. You can take the history of optical drives from Samsung and LG as an example.

BenQ didn’t escape this fate, either. Early optical disc drives from this manufacturer were, frankly speaking, far from perfect and thus couldn’t earn recognition among the users who turned to other brands instead. But current optical drives from BenQ have greatly improved in terms of read/write quality and have acquired some useful functions for checking out the burn quality. The company shows its care about the user – for example they issued an official firmware update that transformed the DW1600 model into the DW1620. It’s the latter that we’re going to review today.

Around the Internet forums the users’ reaction towards BenQ’s produce ranges from mildly positive to ecstatic. Their reports are confirmed by objective tests, too. By the way, the BenQ DW1620 is improving its speed formula with new firmware versions rather than with new drive models as it is the case with many other manufacturers. This fact helps to save a lot of your money.

Yes, BenQ’s 8xx series drives were dubious as concerned the write quality and didn’t like DVD-R discs (this latter fact is explicable, though; those devices were based on a chipset which had not been originally intended for the “minus” format), but featured an excellent DVD+R burn quality, a good error-correction system and mechanics. The spotted flaws seem to have been corrected in the 16xx series, so we may have a highly promising product that would offer serious competition to the current rulers on the optical Olympus. The functionality of the BenQ DW1620 model can rival that of Plextor’s drives of the latter series (but the Plextors cost twice more money). So, I guess I’ve warmed you up enough for this review and we can now move on to the investigated device proper.

Model Description

We received a retail sample of the drive with all its accessories. Take note of the text on the face side of the package that reads, “Burns 8x media at 12x or higher”. It is kind on the manufacturer’s part to have tested this option for both DVD+R and DVD-R formats and to have published a list of compatible discs at its website. So, besides this optical drive you also get an interface cable (ATA/66), an audio cable, a pack of fasteners, a user manual, a warranty, an installation guide, and a disc with software for burning discs and creating DVD Video copies and with a special utility from BenQ that can change the book type of the recorded media. That’s a standard menu of accessories, in fact. But there are also two blank write-once media for 16x speed here, DVD+R both:

I should confess I haven’t yet seen DVD-R 16x discs for real, so now I’ve got an opportunity to check out the quality of a 16x DVD-R disc burned at its rated speed. The more so, as the drive only agreed to write a DVD-R 8x disc at 12x speed.

The design of the front panel differs in the OEM and retail versions of the DW1620. It is very typical and plain-looking in the first case, whereas the retail variant is quite original and comes in three color schemes (light beige, black and silvery metallic) so you won’t have troubles finding a device that would match the color of your system case (but unfortunately you don’t get interchangeable front panels with the drive). There’s a bare minimum of controls and indicators on the front panel – an eject button, a hole to extract the disc when the drive is powered down, and an activity indicator. This latter indicator is highly informative: it is green when the disc is being read and red during a burn session. The green color also signals that there’s a disc in the drive. This is in fact everything you might want this indicator to show. The eject button is a thin plastic bar rather than a traditional large oval or rectangular shape. The “bar” is quite handy as it has a clear “click” (like the keyboard keys have) and its shape and the protruding front won’t let your finger slip off. This solution looks cute, like the front panel on the whole for that matter. The tray of this drive is made of black plastic. Plextor claims the use of black materials for the tray reduces the jitter and the number of read/write errors, but I’d say that the black tray serves aesthetical more than practical means, especially coupled with the black front panel. The rear panel of the drive is standard; the interface connectors are labeled, but the labels are hard to read on the black plastic. There are no vent holes and no active cooling, but the drive remains quite cool at work anyway, while the dust won’t come easily in.

On the drive’s bottom, there are damping pads for the chips on the outward side of the PCB, and some noise-absorbing foam-rubber inlays.

The drive is based on the new Nexperia PNX7860E chipset from Philips coupled with an analog preprocessor Philips TZA1047HL. Philips itself is going to build its new optical drive models on this chipset. The previous model from BenQ, the DW1600, also employed it, by the way.

Device Functionality

So what does the manufacturer offer in its new device? Today it doesn’t suffice to issue “just an optical drive”; the hardware simply must have an impressive trail of “exclusive features”. It’s not even important that almost all of this exclusiveness can be easily realized in competing devices –thinking out a loud marketing name and keeping secretive about the operational principle of the feature make the trick! Fortunately, the BenQ DW1620 is almost free from such blame. There’re some most remarkable things in this drive, truly deserving our attention.

Over-Speed Burning Technology and Seamless Link can be skipped over without much dwelling upon as they are too obvious (if you are completely not in the know, the former technology allows writing discs at a higher speed than they are rated for, and the latter is a protection system against buffer underrun errors).

Besides measuring C1/C2 and PI errors (the function we already saw in other drives), another interesting function of this model is the possibility of measuring the jitter and performing the FE/TE test (in the last firmware update). I will dwell on each function below.

Using special software like DVD Info Pro or CD Quality Check you can estimate the jitter rate of the written disc. You can choose to display the average value or construct a more accurate diagram based on the instant jitter values in each spot of the disc. This function in fact appeared quite long ago in optical drives, so we’d better focus on another feature of the BenQ DW1620 – the FE/TE Test.

Previously, you could estimate the level of Focus Errors (FE) and Tracking Errors (TE) of a blank disc only with the help of some drive models from Plextor.

What’s the purpose of this test? The user has an opportunity to determine the range of speeds suitable for the given disc. This option is now present in drives from BenQ thanks to the exclusive QScan utility, available for download on the company’s website.

The allowable number of Track Errors is 500 and less, of Focus Errors – 450 and less.

If you get a value that’s out of this range, you are not guaranteed to get a quality disc in the end. You can also quickly evaluate the disc before the burning using the SmartScan mode that determines the entire recommended range of burn speeds for the given disc.

As you see, the new optical drive from BenQ can challenge any competitor in terms of functionality. For example, I haven’t yet seen the Sliding Cone Mechanism in any other device. So we can expect interesting results in our tests. BenQ’s products are close to the latest drives from Plextor, a leader in the field, in the functions for the post- and pre-burn testing of the discs. But let’s be methodical and first examine the specification of the drive as declared by its manufacturer.

Technical Specification

Note the rather low access time declared by the manufacturer and a good selection of speeds for CD-R discs. The device is rather heavy (which is an indirect proof of the reliable mechanics) and it boasts a high mean time between failures.

That’s actually all about I can say describing this drive. Here’s the information reported about it by Nero InfoTool and DVDInfo.

Mount Rainier is still unsupported, but this fact isn’t surprising anymore. As for the inability of the drive to return C2 errors, NERO InfoTool checks this feature out using the standard MMC ReadCD command, which is used by a majority of programs (for example, EAC), but the latest versions of Nero CDSpeed can use the specific commands of the Philips chipset which return information not only about C2, but also about C1 errors, and also about the jitter of the tested disc. So, the drive can return C2 errors, but not in all programs.

Performance in CD WinBench 99

I took a GSA-4160B model from LG as an opponent to the reviewed BenQ, since they are close in their price and technical characteristics. Moreover, the GSA-4160B is one of the best drives we have recently tested in our labs. Of course, we will bring in other 16x models where necessary.

The BenQ has got a higher overall score than the GSA-4160, but its result isn’t impressive at all against other products with the same speed formula (the mentioned LG and the Pioneer DVR-108 were the only devices to get a lower score in this test). This rather low Winmarks score is due to the low speed on the innermost tracks of the disc, while on the outermost tracks the read speed is average. The access time isn’t exceptional, but rather average, too. So, the BenQ DW1620 can’t boast high speed parameters – its results are good, but not champion-like.

Performance during CD-R Burning

I hadn’t expected any serious discrepancies considering the identical speed formulas of the drives. The BenQ and the LG are very close to each other at each speed, although the GSA-4160 is always a little ahead of its competitor.

Now let’s see how the new BenQ reads the disc it has just written at the maximum (40x) speed.

That’s excellent. The graph is straight, without any fluctuations. The drive even exceeds its own specification, reaching almost to 42x instead of the promised 40x at the end of the disc. By the way, the read graph of the LG drive with the same disc had some jaggies which are not present in the picture above.

The drives behave similarly in this test, too. This concerns both the average read speed and the access time. The results are good overall, especially the access time. Yes, these 100 milliseconds aren’t any record (the best samples of optical drives kept within 90 milliseconds), but the slowest of the drives I’ve reviewed had an access time of 130 milliseconds or even more. The new BenQ surpassed its competitors in the disc recognition test, showing a record-breaking time of 9.4 seconds. There’s only one drive, the Sony DRU-530A, that takes less time to perform this task. The burst rate, 17MB/s, is a little bit surprising. I haven’t long seen products that would do worse than 20MB/s in this test. On the other hand, these numbers don’t actually affect the real performance of the drive and are more of purely theoretical interest.

That’s enough for the speed and time it takes to burn a CD, and we can get to the next step, to the CD-R burning quality.

The drives use different write algorithms at their maximum speeds. The BenQ employs the classic CAV algorithm while the LG uses Z-CLV, a less popular algorithm for this particular operation. The LG’s Z-CLV proved to be a little faster and helped the GSA-4160 to do the burning of the disc 13 seconds ahead of the opponent. The fluctuation in the burn graph of the BenQ DW1620 is due to the above-described Walking OPC and BLER OPC technologies. Now let’s see which drive produced the better-quality disc.

The results of the two devices are very close, again. They both have a low BLER and a total lack of second encoder errors. Still, the LG GSA-4160 is just a step ahead of the opponent as it has fewer C1 errors (11,965 again 20,622). In spite of this difference the disc produced by the BenQ is very good, too. The Beta graphs are almost perfectly flat with both drives, while the Jitter is better with the disc written by the LG GSA-4160.

So, although the new BenQ is inferior to the LG GSA-4160 in the quality of burning CD-R discs at the maximum speed, it still produces discs of a very high quality, and it’s among the best optical drives available.

We again see different burn algorithms in action. The BenQ uses the progressive P-CAV mechanism, while the LG again employs Z-CLV (the program erroneously reports ordinary CLV). Again, the burn graph of the BenQ drive shows you Walking OPC and BLER OPC technologies in operation. These two technologies in fact account for the minor time lag between this drive and its opponent: despite using the faster P-CAV algorithm, the BenQ DW1620 took 8 second more than the LG drive. This difference is negligible, though, especially if it brings us an improvement in the quality of the resulting disc which we’re going to check out right now.

And again the two competitors behave much alike. The LG GSA-4160 still has fewer first encoder errors, but the difference between the drives is smaller here (7,962 errors). But the disc written by the BenQ has fewer E22 errors (3 errors against 43 errors of the LG GSA-4160). The Beta/Jitter parameters are normal, too. Like at 40x speed, the Jitter graph of the LG drive is cleaner, although the BenQ has improved in this parameter. So, again, both models produce discs of a very high quality at this speed, and there’s almost no difference between them.

The BenQ uses its WOPC and BLER OPC technologies and thus performs the burning slower than the LG drive. Both discs were read without problems, but let’s check out their quality anyway.

At the minimal burn speed there’s a bigger discrepancy between the discs produced by the two drives. The number of C2 errors is almost the same, but the total of C1 errors is better with the LG (9,996 again BenQ’s 19,992). Evidently the BenQ’s burn strategy for this speed leaves place for improvement. BenQ’s WOPC technology helps to make up for that, though. The spike of C1 errors falls on the beginning of the disc and is going down afterwards. The Beta/Jitter parameters are normal with both drives.

Summarizing the CD-R burn quality results, I want to say that both devices perform very well with media of that type. The LG produced a disc of a slightly better quality at the maximum burn speed, but at 24x the results are almost identical – the LG has fewer C1 errors, but the BenQ almost doesn’t have any C2 errors (the three errors are the disc’s rather than the drive’s fault). At 16x the BenQ looks worse, as the developers must have paid little attention to the reduced burn speeds in the current firmware version. Walking OPC technology quickly compensated for this defect, and the drive produced a disc of an acceptable quality (save for the very beginning). So, we’ve got another DVD-burner that’s good with CD-R discs, and that’s a really satisfying fact.

Performance during CD-RW Media Processing

We proceed from write-once to rewritable media. Let’s see how well the BenQ DW1620 processes them.

Like with the CD-R format, the time difference between writing a 24x and a 32x disc is negligible, and the LG drive wins again (by a narrowest margin of 8 seconds). Overall, the BenQ has one of the best times among the drives we’ve tested so far, and the LG and the BenQ are both among the speediest devices when it comes to processing rewritable CD media. Now let’s check the quality of the burned discs.

It’s like what we saw with the 24x CD-R: the same burn algorithms (the BenQ’s P-CAV and the LG’s Z-CLV), but the BenQ took 3 seconds more than the competitor to burn the disc due to the operating Walking OPC technology, although it uses a more progressive burn algorithm. Both drives had no problems reading the discs. Let’s compare the quality of the discs they produced:

Alas, this time the BenQ’s results are far from perfect. The terrible billow of C1 errors at the beginning of the disc is the direct evidence to that. The total number of first encoder errors is 2.5 times less on the disc from the LG drive than on the BenQ’s disc. I must acknowledge that the BenQ DW1620 improves the result towards the end by dynamically correcting the power of its laser, and the BLER quickly returns to the norm. By the way, the rather numerous C2 errors (168 in total, while the LG has none) are also mostly located in the beginning of the disc. This situation speaks of some flaws in the burn strategy at the max speed. On the other hand, we again see a real proof that WOPC technology does work. Another confirmation of my point that there’re flaws in the burn strategy is the deviation of the Beta parameter at the beginning of the disc, and that’s why the LG drive is better in this factor, too. The uniformity of the Jitter rate is the same with both devices. So, overall, we see that the BenQ is worse than the GSA-4160 at burning CD-RW media at 24x speed, but on the other hand we have made sure Walking OPC really works and considerably improves the quality of the resulting disc even if the burn strategy is initially incorrect.

The reading and writing are exactly like we saw with the 24x CD-RW, so we’ll jump over to the quality tests.

The GSA-4160B isn’t brilliant in this test, but the BenQ DW1620 is even worse than that: there are too many first encoder errors for the disc to pass the test. Although the drive itself reads this disc without problems I wouldn’t warrant other devices are going to read it at all. So, the new BenQ fails this test, but we can’t be too critical about that since the manufacturer doesn’t guarantee the DW1620 to support 32x CD-RW media. Just keep it in mind that high-speed rewritable CDs shouldn’t be used with this drive.

All in all, the BenQ has some serious problems with CD-RW media, but they only concern the burn strategy which can be corrected in future firmware updates. At least, I hope it will be corrected.

Performance during Damaged CD-ROM Disc Reading

Our traditional check of the error-correction mechanism with a badly damaged CD-ROM concludes the “CD-related” part of the review.

The new BenQ did a good job of reading the test disc, handling it in 3 minutes and 41 seconds, while the GSA-4160B took 6 minutes and 13 seconds or almost twice the time to do the same. The LG, however, made only two mistakes against four committed by the BenQ.

I wouldn’t say that the BenQ has a bad error-correction mechanism, though. Yes, it’s worse than that of the competitor, but is good by itself. The speed-up/down mechanism works well, so either the optics or the ECC restoration algorithms fail. And considering that discs like the test one seldom occur in real life I can claim the BenQ DW1620 to have a fast and quite accurate error correction. Users who often use very bad media may want to consider slower, but more accurate models, though, like the GSA-4160B from LG.

Performance during DVD Media Reading

Reading single- and dual-layer molded DVD-ROM discs
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

The BenQ reads the single-layer molded DVD Video disc at a higher speed than the LG drive does because the BenQ doesn’t have any speed limitations when working with such media. This approach leads to a faster copying of the video data from the disc to the hard drive at the expense of some more noise. If you don’t like it, you can use third-party utilities to limit the speed of the DW1620. Both models passed with test quite successfully, but the BenQ dropped its speed once in the second part of the test disc. I don’t call it a serious defect since the drive quickly restored its speed. The drives have identical maximum speeds when working with dual-layer media, so they have similar total read times – without any speed slumps at all.

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 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.

DVD+R disc writing quality
BenQ DW1620, 8x writing speed	LG GSA-4160B, 6x writing speed

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.

The BenQ did the burning a little bit faster using P-CAV against the LG’s Z-CLV at this burn speed. The difference isn’t as big as might have been expected (only 11 seconds) due to the time delays brought about by WOPC and BLER OPC technologies. We have seen already that they can improve the quality of the burned disc considerably or worsen it if the laser power correction is incorrect. What about the current case?

Both devices perform excellently in this test. The LG GSA-4160B has an outstanding result, but the new BenQ is even better than that (3,000 PI errors less, and thrice less PI failures). Of course, the drives had no problems reading the discs of that high quality.

That’s the maximum burn speed for the DVD+R format. The BenQ DW1620 performs solo again, as the LG refused to burn the 8x blank at 16x speed, and I had no 16x blanks at my disposal at the time of my testing it. The burning was completed without problems, but as I mentioned above there’s practically no difference in time it takes to burn a disc at 12x and 16x. What about quality? The disc burned at 16x is good, save for the outermost tracks. When 16x speed was reached, the level of PI errors and failures grew up considerably, and the drive just couldn’t read up this part of the disc. I don’t think anyone needs such “16x”! Of course, the manufacturer will try to correct this defect, but there’s no sense in switching to 16x since the drive produces discs of ideal quality at 12x, taking about the same time to burn a blank. So, until the transition from CAV to P-CAV is made I see no sense in using 16x burn speed.

DVD+R DL disc burning quality
BenQ DW1620, 4x writing speed	LG GSA-4160B, 2,4x writing speed

Again no problems with the burn process proper, so we can get right to the quality of the resulting discs. It’s here that the BenQ is evidently worse in comparison with its competitors. The first layer of the disc produced by the BenQ is written with a very high level of PI errors and failures, while the LG did its job excellently. The support of 4x speed for dual-layer media was introduced by the manufacturer in the version B7P9 firmware and the hastiness of the release must have affected negatively the results of the BenQ in this test. Until the manufacturer makes corrections, the BenQ can’t be considered to produce good dual-layer discs at 4x speed. On the other hand, the disc was read without problems by each of the devices.

Again I met no problems during the burn process. The quality of the resulting disc is excellent. There are few PI errors and failures, and BLER OPC technology works well, without producing a surge of PI errors/failures at the outermost tracks as it was the case with the 4x DVD+R. The straight and clear read graph is a testimony to the high quality of the resulting disc. The problems of the previous (8xx) series of optical drives from BenQ with the quality of -R discs must have been completely solved, mostly thanks to the chipset which was originally oriented at this DVD format. But let’s see what we have at higher speeds.

The two participating drives use different burn algorithms at 8x speed, and the LG drive is a little ahead in speed. That’s because both drives achieve their max speeds almost the same moment, so P-CAV brings no advantages over Z-CLV here, while WOPC and BLER OPC technologies slow the BenQ DW1620 down somewhat. As a result, the LG drive did the burning in 15 seconds faster than its opponent. As for the quality, the BenQ DW1620 has quite a few PI errors and PI failures at the beginning of the disc, and though WOPC corrects the situation quickly enough, the average level of PI errors about 100 can’t be considered low. So, the burn quality of the BenQ is rather average here, fading in contrast to the excellent results of the LG GSA-4160B. The resulting disc was read by both drives without problems. Anyway, 8x DVD-R burning needs improvement, as the BenQ is immaculate with discs of that format at 4x. Let’s try to increase the burn speed more.

The burning was successful (note that the drive uses the progressive P-CAV algorithm at this speed, too), but the quality is far from perfect. There’s a noticeable spike of PI errors and failures at the beginning of the disc. The number of errors is high, although not above the acceptable level. Here we see again the real help from WOPC technology as the level of PI errors and failures goes down immediately, as we already saw above. It seems like the developers relied on Walking OPC without paying much attention to the initial laser calibration before the burn session. Yes, real-time laser correction is good, but it’d be better to start out with good quality, too. This should be corrected in future versions of the drive’s firmware. The disc, however, was read without any speed slow-downs.

I’d like to finish this section of the review by testing the new BenQ at writing DVD-R discs at 16x speed. This is going to be our first test of such speed as no drive could burn 8x DVD-R discs at this speed, offering 12x at best. And until today no manufacturer has supplied DVD-R blanks rated for 16x speed with its products. But as I mentioned at the beginning of the review, the BenQ DW1620 comes with such a disc, so we can evaluate the quality of DVD-Rs burned at 16x.

The burning was performed without problems. Like with DVD+Rs, the CAV algorithm is used – there’s no P-CAV as yet. That’s why there’s a negligible time bonus over the 12x burning. To my regret, the quality of the disc isn’t perfect. WOPC helps here, reducing the level of PI errors and failures to the end of the disc, but it can’t remove them altogether. On the other hand, the disc was then read without troubles.

It’s hard to check out if this is the drive’s or the disc’s fault since 16x DVD-R media are a rarity in the market as yet. We’ll recheck this in the future, but now let’s see what we have with rewritable DVD formats.

The burn process was successful, and the quality of the resulting disc is high, with low levels of PI errors and failures. The results of the BenQ are among the best in this class of devices. Few drives can do as successfully with rewritable media. Of course, the subsequent reading of the disc poised no problems before the drive.

The burning was done without problems, but the disc written by the BenQ DW1620 lacks quality. In spite of the low level of PI Failures, the number of PI error blocks is too high (almost 80 times their number on the disc written by the LG drive). Judging by their distribution, WOPC technology once again wrongly selects the power of the laser. Or rather it couldn’t find the optimal mode, although was trying to do it throughout the entire burn session. Yes, although the written disc is read without problems, I can’t call the results of the BenQ in this test good. That’s sad considering the excellent quality of the DVD+RW at the min speed.

As for the relationships of this model with the DVD-RW format, they are queer. With the version B7P9 firmware the drive successfully wrote and read such discs at both min and max speeds, but none of the drives capable of estimating the number of PI Errors and Failures couldn’t identify these discs afterwards. So, before clearing this all out, we don’t publish the results for the DVD-RW format.

Summing up the performance of the BenQ DW1620 in the DVD-related tests I should confess I can’t call it either bad or good. This drive would be perfect if it were not for the flaws at burning dual-layer media, at burning DVD-R discs at 8x and DVD+RW discs at 4x. The astonishing situation with the DVD-RW format adds more to our discontent. The drive has a high potential, which is regrettably not realized fully as yet. So, I don’t want to make my final verdict before trying a next firmware update.

Audio Capturing

As mentioned above, the drive doesn’t yield C2 pointers to the standard command, so the EAC utility couldn’t identify this feature. But the lack of caching of audio data is a big advantage which considerably reduces the time it takes to grab the tracks.

We decided to adjust our approach to evaluating the results of the ADAE Test. We will examine the absolute read and write offsets for the drives rather than the relative offsets.

Both read and write offsets of the BenQ DW1620 are too high, so this drive isn’t the best choice for working with audio. The rest of the parameters are normal, though. The drive can’t read the Lead-Out, but everything’s all right otherwise.

The new BenQ shows its best in a real extraction of audio tracks. Note that it’s fast both with a normal and with a bad Audio CD.

Hot Update: BenQ DW1620 with New B7T9 Firmware Tested. Side-by-Side Comparison vs. B7P9 Firmware

There’s a common notion among the users of BenQ’s optical drives that this manufacturer takes the problem of firmware updates most seriously and really solves all or almost all noticed defects of a drive model in new versions of its firmware – contrary to many other companies that usually update the firmware just to expand the list of supported media formats or to bring some minor corrections into the drive’s burn strategies or error-correction mechanisms.

Today we have an opportunity to check out in practice how BenQ approaches the problem of firmware updates. We made use of firmware version B7P9 when writing our review of the DW1620 model, but version B7T9 has appeared recently and we will now try to see its effect on the operation of the device in this article. We do so not because of mere curiosity but because the BenQ DW1620, a highly promising optical drive overall, had problems at writing some of the formats. So today we will see if the users can trust the manufacturer – is the new version of the firmware free from the errors we noticed earlier?

We first launch informational utilities to see if the drive’s functionality has changed in any way.

No changes have occurred – the functionality and the speed formula have remained the same. Now we can proceed to the more interesting part of the review. We will try to compare the two versions of the drive’s firmware at writing the media types the older version had problems with.

The CD-RW format comes first. Working with firmware version B7P9 the drive had too many C1 errors at the beginning of the disc (with a CD-RW disc rated for 24x speed) which was an indication of an imperfect operation of the OPC mechanism before the burn process.

Our complaints about the drive’s burning 32x CD-RWs were much more serious as there was a catastrophically high rate of C1 errors. Although the DW1620 itself could read the written disc without problems, we would not have warranted it to be readable in other optical drives. Let’s see if this situation is different with the new version of the firmware.

BenQ DW1620 writing/reading a 24x CD-RW disc
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

The burn process proper is almost the same, but the drive took 12 seconds less to burn the disc with the new firmware. The graph is smoother, indicating that the Walking OPC mechanism corrects the operation of the device less frequently. The read graph is perfect, without any slumps in speed. Let’s now compare the quality of the resulting discs.

We want to applause to the BenQ development team: just compare the totals of C1 errors! Instead of the gigantic number of 228,353 we now have the negligible 12,442 errors, and there are no C2 errors at all. That’s an excellent performance!

The developers must have improved upon the OPC procedure, making it work just as it should. The asymmetry of the resulting disc has become “smoother” at the beginning, and that’s good, too. The jitter rate has improved, except the single spike at the moment the burn speed changes. So we can’t but admit that the disc written by the BenQ DW1620 with the help of the new firmware is of a highest quality – in fact, among the best discs we’ve recently seen.

BenQ DW1620 writing/reading a 32x CD-RW disc at 24x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

There are no changes whatsoever as to the burn process proper. The graphs and the speed are almost identical. The written disc was read without errors.

BenQ DW1620 24x CD-RW disc burning quality at 32x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

Applause repeated: they have solved this problem, too. The total of C1 errors is very small (443,358), considering the type of the medium, while C2 errors are missing altogether. The asymmetry is good, but the jitter rate is too high at the beginning of the disc. This didn’t prevent the resulting disc from being read by each of the ten optical drives we had tested earlier. So again we see a positive effect from the new firmware: the DW1620 now successfully burns 24x as well as not supported officially 32x CD-RW discs. So, we have no complains left about the DW1620’s quality of writing CD-RWs, especially 24x ones. It has no problems with this media format thanks to firmware B7T9.

Before going over to DVD discs let’s see if there are any changes in the error-correction algorithms. Of course, the firmware cannot correct the defects of the drive’s optical system, if there are any, but the ECC mechanism can really be improved upon.

We can’t see any changes here. The total read time and the number of the errors committed is the same. Well, the drive is anyway good in this test, so we have tried it again just of pure curiosity. But let’s deal with DVDs now.

First, let’s burn a DVD+R disc at the maximum, 16x speed. The level of errors would grow up considerably on the outermost tracks of the disc with the previous version of the firmware. Has anything changed?

BenQ DW1620 DVD+R disc burning quality at 16x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

The write graphs are similar, but the drive took 40 seconds less to do the burning with the newer firmware. That’s a nice surprise. As for the quality of the resulting disc, it has improved conspicuously. There’s no spike of errors at the end of the disc, and thus there are fewer PI errors and failures in total (in four times, almost). So, the BenQ DW1620 produces discs of an excellent quality at 16x with the new firmware. We haven’t seen a better result with any other drive.

Of course, the earlier observed problem about the unreadability of the outermost tracks of the resulting disc isn’t present here – the disc is read without errors. The read graph is clear and smooth, without any fluctuations of the speed.

BenQ DW1620 DVD+R DL disc burning quality at 4x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

The quality of the disc’s first layer is still lower, but there are fewer errors (75% less PI errors and 87% less PI failures). That’s an impressive result, isn’t it? Of course, there’s still something left for further improvement, but we can’t but acknowledge the manufacturer’s serious approach to correcting its own faults.

Next goes the competing DVD-R format. In our earlier tests, with the previous version of the firmware, the drive had quite a lot of PI errors at the beginning of the disc written at 8x speed.

BenQ DW1620 DVD-R disc burning quality at 8x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

The read/graph graphs are the same, but what about the quality of the resulting disc? It’s easy to see the difference here. Although the overall distribution of errors (with a spike of them on innermost tracks) has remained the same, the total of PI errors is 40% smaller and the total of PI failures is 98% smaller with the newer firmware. They’ve done their homework well, again! Although the quality of burning DVD-R discs at 8x is good, not excellent, the manufacturer has seriously worked upon this speed in the new firmware. The outcome of this work is evident and we hope they will continue improving the firmware in this aspect. Now we can switch to 12x DVD-R burn speed.

BenQ DW1620 DVD-R disc burning quality at 12x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

Like at 8x speed, the distribution of errors across the surface of the disc has remained almost the same, but the totals of PI errors and PI failures have diminished by 30% and 90%, respectively, with firmware B7T9. Once again we admire the improvements brought by the new firmware, but the quality of the resulting disc is still just “good” rather than “excellent”. Anyway the manufacturer has done some progress with this burn speed over firmware B7P9, so we can hope for further improvements in upcoming versions of the drive’s firmware.

Summarizing the drive’s results at burning write-once DVD media we should admit the new firmware brings considerable changes both to DVD+R and DVD-R formats. The quality of the DVD+R disc was just perfect, but the DVD-R format, in spite of the evident progress, still needs improving upon. The BenQ DW1620 drive produces DVD-R discs of good, but not of excellent quality, but we would really want it to have the best possible results with any media type, considering the potential of the device.

BenQ DW1620 DVD+RW disc burning quality at 4x speed
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

With the previous version of the firmware the drive had a high PI error rate when burning DVD+RWs at 4x speed. Now we enjoy a considerable improvement with the new firmware: the level of PI errors is lower by almost 100%, i.e. in double! We can now say that the BenQ DW1620 produces excellent +R/RW disc at all the burn speeds it supports.

Let’s now check up the quality of the DVD-RW format. With the older firmware, the drive had problems with discs of that type. It burned and read them without problems, but we couldn’t evaluate the burn quality or to read these discs in other optical drives.

Everything is right now. The disc was burned and read without a hitch; it then could pass the quality check and was read by other drives without problems. As for the results of the quality check, they are not quite pleasing. The PI failure rate is within the norm, but the PI error rate isn’t – you can clearly see the moments Walking OPC technology adjusted the laser power and adjusted it wrongly throughout the entire burn session. So the PI error rate grew up in the first half of the disc and diminished just a little (below the maximum) in the second half. All in all, the manufacturer has something to apply itself to: the quality of the DVD-RW disc written by the DW1620 drive is simply bad. What about the higher speed?

But here’s an excellent result! The low PI error/failure rate is a proof of a good quality of the resulting disc. So we again meet a common problem when the manufacturer pays little attention to optimizing the burn strategy at minimal speeds. Their reasoning is logical: low-speed media are leaving the market, and it’s unreasonable to burn high-speed discs at low speeds. Anyway, the problem exists and they might have taken the trouble of solving it.

Summing up the performance of the BenQ DW1620 drive with the new firmware we can’t but acknowledge the good work done by the manufacturer as concerns the quality of writing. The changes over the previous firmware are so impressive that we decided to discuss them in a separate review. In fact, the new firmware solves almost all the defects we observed in our first review, so we strongly recommend it for use by all owners of the BenQ DW1620 drive. In its current shape the drive claims to be among the best devices in its class. There are in fact only two problems left: the burning of dual-layer media and the burning of DVD-RWs at the minimal speed. Maybe the quality of burning DVD-Rs can also be improved upon a little more.

And if the manufacturer keeps its rate in updating the firmware, without compromising the quality of these updates, we will welcome it as one of the best manufacturers of optical drives.

As a small final bonus we offer you the results of a DVD quality check for three devices: BenQ DW1620, Plextor PX-716A, and the near-classic Lite-On SOHW-812S. We won’t give lengthy comments to the results, as this topic will be discussed in more detail in the future. For now you can make your own conclusions. We took discs of two types, DVD+R 16x and DVD+R DL, both manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemical. Here’s what we got:

PI errors/failures for the DVD+R disc burnt by
BenQ DW1620, Lite-On SOHW-812S and Plextor PX-716A at 16x speed

Jitter (and Beta for the Plextor drive) for the DVD+R disc burnt by
BenQ DW1620 and Plextor PX-716A at 16x

PI errors/failures for the DVD+R DL disc burnt by
BenQ DW1620, Lite-On SOHW-812S and Plextor PX-716A at 4x

Jitter (and Beta for the Plextor drive) for the DVD+R DL disc burnt by
BenQ DW1620 and Plextor PX-716A at 4x

The BenQ DW1620’s main advantage is its ability to estimate the PI error/failure rate and the jitter rate in one pass, while the Plextor takes three passes to do the same. On the other hand, the Plextor can evaluate the asymmetry of the written disc and outputs the info about the number of PO errors – none of the other drives we’ve tested can do that.

Lastly we perform a comparative test of focus and tracking errors with the drives from BenQ and Plextor.

FE/TE Test for BenQ DW1620 and Plextor PX-716A drive
with a DVD+R Verbatim 8x (MC)

The results are very similar with high-quality discs, but it’s different with the medium of average quality. The Plextor drive has a lower rate of focus and tracking errors, which may be an indirect confirmation of its having a better tracking/focusing system. Thus, the FE/TE test can be used on low- and average-quality blanks to compare the optical systems of different drives.

We want to make one promise at the end of this review. We will publish small articles like this one from time to time as the manufacturers release new firmware versions for their drives. The problem of re-flashing the firmware or not often stumbles on the simple question “Why to re-flash?” We will be trying to answer this question in our reviews.

Conclusion

The BenQ DW1620 drive pleased me with its ergonomics. I guess many users will like its cute and original design, and its LED indicator is very informative. Its operational noise isn’t annoying – I’d even say it is one of the quietest devices of its class I’ve tested so far (I guess the GSA-4160B is a little bit quieter, but that’s an exception). The disc tray goes in and out quickly and smoothly, but with an annoying thump when the tray hits the case. The BenQ DW1620 is also among the fastest in its class in the disc recognition time.

This overall nice impression is somewhat spoiled by some flaws concerning DVD burn operations which I hope will be corrected in future firmware updates. Another point in favor of the BenQ is its wide functionality. Besides Plextor’s devices of the 712 and 716 series, the BenQ DW1620 is among the most feature-rich optical drives in the market. And it costs much cheaper than its competitors, mind you!

Writing/reading a CD-R disc at 40x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

CD-R disc burning quality at 40x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

Writing/reading a CD-R disc at 24x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

CD-R disc burning quality at 24x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

Writing/reading a CD-R disc at 16x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

CD-R disc burning quality at 16x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

Writing/reading a CD-RW 24x disc
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

CD-RW 24x disc burning quality
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

Writing/reading a CD-RW 32x disc at 24x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

CD-RW 32x disc burning quality at 24x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

DVD+R disc burning quality at 12x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

DVD-R disc burning quality at 8x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

DVD+RW disc burning quality at 4x speed
BenQ DW1620	LG GSA-4160B

BenQ DW1620 reading a damaged CD-ROM disc
B7T9 Firmware	B7P9 firmware

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