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An Exhaustive 16X DVD Burner Roundup
CrzyP writes "AnandTech has put together an extensive roundup on eight, count 'em, eight 16X DVD burners capable of writing to dual-layer media. Some of the big names on the list include Pioneer, NEC, LG, Sony, MSI, and more. They explain in detail the current technologies implemented into the newer drives, like bitsetting and error control as well as run their reading/writing benchmarks on 16X and dual-layer media."
Oh well, maybe BenQ will get their DW1650 (16x DVD±R, 8x DVD±RW, 4x DVD+R DL) out by the end of the year.
How long to go 'till we have media-cracking 52X DVD-burning?
We just ordered a bunch of 4X DVD burners here at work. If we buy it, it's obsolete. I guess that's what you get for using computers.
See what I've been reading.
The decision for me is being swayed towards the NEC just because it has some very nice hacked firmware.
I wonder when the big companies will start catching on that they're not offering enough in their firmware, and sales are being lost due to that.
Newegg seem to have some nice deals on the NEC and Pioneer.
#include <sig.h>
Writable DVD is about the same price as Writable CDR at the moment... it's bottomed out.
Dual layer, however, is still stupid money - it's just not cost effective any more.
according to the review its at the top of the list... the drive is only about 65-70 bucks and it has very hackable firmware, and I personally (since i own one) have never had any coaster from the drive ... btw.. use Riteks
Faster rip speeds (not limited to ripping movies at 2x instead of 16x)
Region free (watch any movie)
Better media compatibility (write at 12x to those pesky Riteks)
Single layer bitsetting (DVD+R and DVD-R appear as DVD-ROMs)
I expect someone to even turn on the DVD-RAM reading capability in the NEC's chipset.
#include <sig.h>
Where are the SATA drives! Finding them to buy is difficult enough, finding decent reviews of them on today's comparison-shopping-infested Web is next to impossible. :(
Here in Canada, CDR's cost about 45 cents apiece for 700 megs.
DVD-Rs cost about 80-130 cents apiece.
- For a CD-R, you're paying 6.5 cents per 100 megs
- For a DVD-R you're paying between 1.8 to 2.9 cents per 100 megs.
Any way you put it, DVD-Rs are WAY cheaper than CD-Rs. Since I got my DVD burner last summer, I've burned around 50 DVD-Rs. The spindle was around 75 dollars, taxes included. For the same capacity, I would've needed more than three 100-disc CDR spindles. Those generally go for 50$ each, taxes included. In all I've saved about 75$ right there. That's half of what I paid for my burner. Another spindle, and it'll have paid for itself...
The cpu/workstation setup is critical to buring reliably at 12x t 16x which I do all the time
4
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I use a dual 2800mp workstation,a tyan 2466-2m mobo, 2 gigs of DDR 2100,, a 128 mb visiontek card ($373 and the bees-knees 2 years ago), a 64 bit MegaRAID SCSI 320 2 ch HBA with 128 mb on board, and 4 seagate 15000 rpm U-320 36 gb drives running raid 5.
I run 2 partions on the raid 5 drive, each with windows 2000.
The 1st partion is for normal everyday use; and has all the normal crap on the drive.
The 2nd partition is for burning dvd's quickly.
Problem is all those programs you install and run sometimes have lots of crap running in the background. The way around that is a very simple OS setup; so that nothing runs except what you need.
In my case I use a program from www.litepc.com to modify the windows 2000 setup, so that I can eliminate lots of junk Bill Gates says has to be installed; like internet Exploder. Suffice it to say that by turning off WFP then uninstalling the parts of the OS you dont want, then re-enabling WFP you get a slim rock solid and very fast OS setup.
I use a pioneer dvr-108, which has been flashed with the latest and greatest firmware from links found at www.cdfreaks.com pioneer device forum
they link to:
http://pioneerdvd.rpc1.org
look for the correct firmware for your dvd device, in my case for the dvr-108 it was the file;
DVR-108 v1.14 - RPC-1 + 12xRip + nx4all
using the flash program DVRFlash 2.0 from this forum
http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=1075
as you'll see they have a lot of other firmware available. Look through the forum, and search for results on your device; then follow the instructions.
A list of media is here:
The following 8X media can be burnt faster than the rated speed
MCC003 \
MCC02RG20 \
RICOHJPNR02 ---- These can be burnt at 12X
RITEKG05 / These were 100 stack for 40.50
TYG02
CMC MAG. E01 \
YUDEN000T02 / These can be burnt at 16X
MCC003 is Verbatim Datalife Plus DVD+R 8X
MCC02RG20 is Verbatim Datalife Plus DVD-R 8X
RICOHJPNR02 is RiTEK eXCELLENCE 8X DVD+R
RITEKG05 is PioDATA 8X MULTISPEED SUPER GRADE A (silver top, no other markings)
TYG02 is JVC DVD-R 8X
CMC MAG. E01 is Shintaro 8X DVD+R
YUDEN000T02 is "That's DVD+R for premium inspection 8X"
Now the HOW-TO:
I have used xcopy Platinum, but until I flashed my DVR 108 to this firmware it was non-functional with a dual layer burner. So I sometimes use this as well.
I have used DVD FAB, but found it didn't work everytime.
I currently use DVD Shrink 3.2 (freeware). However you'll find that if your I/O (ie HDD system is too slow) is slow, DVD Shrink will throttle you down to the rate the data is delivered at. If this happens, uninstall it, then delete the folder, then reinstall. The use of the firmware allows the display in Nero to show from 1x to 16x. Same in DVD Shrink. Normally you dont get these choices, if the media does not support them.
So for me it was a case of having the trial and error. However a combination of the above allows me to burn the ritek g-05 media at 12x or 16x all the time. In dvd shrink, it takes 18 minutes to encode and burn a backup of any 4.5 + gb dvd-video project..ahem..
Since this workstayion will install windows 2000 or xp pro in something like 8 min 25 secs, I'm sure that has a lot to do with the encoding rate, which truly blazes along.
Hope that helps,if you want to burn at 12 to 16x?? Other than that just direct everyone to the forums,
as the truth is out there...
I'm still trying to get my 8X to burn at 4X. I'm at my third stack of media (all from different manufacturers) and all I can do is 2.4X. Only coasters at 4X (except for Maxell media which I ran out of early on).
But why is it that not a single one supports Mt. Reiner?
Its Mt. Ranier, and at the moment its pretty much vapourware. Check this out. (Not authoritative but well put).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I was going to ask why none of these drives have Mt. Reiner.
There is at least one DVD burner that supports it: the Plextor PX-712 although thats only a 12x drive. Its also one of the few drives that support SATA. I've heard that the PX-716 that Anandtech couldn't get in time for their roundup will also have it. Should also have an 8MB buffer instead of the 2MB that all the other drives have, too. The price on Plextor drives is always a bit steep but they have the very best media support and features. Hope that helps.
--HC
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
The price of writable DVD's is much too high for me, I think I'll stick with my cheap-o CD-R's for now :D
58cents/each is too costly for you for a DVD+/-R? If you pay attention you can get this media localy during sales and such. Rather than 38cents/each for CD-R media.
58cents / 4.7gig = 12.3cents/gig
38cents / 650meg * ( 1gig/1024meg) = 59cents/gig
To be fair, let's look at the lowest price 50pack of CDs on this site. $8.00/50 = 16cents each
16cents / 650 * 1gig/1024) = 25.2cents/gig
Under these conditions, DVD-R is cheaper per gig than CD-r.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I have a drive capable of writing DVD:s as well as CD:s. Thing is, I never do anymore. I have never actually tried to write a DVD (the media is pretty expensive), and the only time I've written a CD lately was for Fedora 2 when it appeared, and the Ubuntu install CD. Similarily, I hardly ever read CD:s or DVD:s anymore either.
For backup I have an external USB2 HDD, as well as mirroring essential work data between my available machines at work. For media, well, the external HD is 200Gb, which I have yet to fill after a year - and when I do I'll just get a second one. It's quite a bit cheaper than buying reliable CD blanks anyway.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Lessee...eight...16x...that makes this a review of, what, 128 burners, according to the MPAA?
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
You seem to confuse region codes with CSS...
The one I used in 1990 was a Sony system that I was told cost $25K. That might have included the Compaq 486 that we hooked it up to (can't remember the speed at the moment).
:).
/s" as input and would generate .bat files as output. It sure beat doing it by hand.
The device was actually two boxes, both the size of two old full size CD players (a little taller than a 2U rackmounted server these days, but more square from a depth perspective). One of the boxes was an "encoder" and the other box was the one that actually did the writing (it had the tray).
The software was EXTEMELY archaic. You had all of these "virtual image" commands from the DOS prompt. When you created a directory, you had to say how large it was (in terms of kilobytes, not files). We figured out some basic formulae that worked pretty well for those values.
The user manual to the system was a complete joke. It was the worst translation job I had ever seen. We used to highlite sentences in it and challenge people to decrypt their meaning
I spent quite a bit of time making AWK scripts that would take the output of a "dir
Back then, we also would put signs up outside the lab room asking people not to run and walk softly, etc. We'd turn off all fans etc. in the room for fear of vibration damage. When media was that expensive, coasters really sucked!
I have the NEC 2500A in a bytecc 1394 case as does a good friend of mine. My house mate has the NEC 3500A in the 1394/usb version of the case. It was $40 on newegg. I only burt one coaster out of about 150 DVDs, but I think it was from my laptop messing up.
Thanks for the info, it helped because I was waiting for Mt. Rainier (Easy Write logo) on DVD drives.
I want to use DVD's for backing up. I'm going to use DVD+RW because they'll keep their info intact longer, they've got a phase change recording layer instead of the more unstable dye recording layers of DVD+R. But even then, stability will be even better with Mt. Rainier because it's got redundancy as part of the specification. Extra safety in return for less recording space.
Apart from that, Mt. Rainier has background formatting (start recording immediately) and a standard way of accessing it like a HD/floppy drive. None of that stupid "burning" shit. Just the OS drive access like it's supposed to be.
Anyway, thanks again.
- -- Truth addict for life.
Yes, COPY it to your BRAIN by way of the DMCA violations known as "EYES" and "EARS".
Actually, it's Mt. Rainier.
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
Bleh. When will Toast come out of the dark ages and support even half of the advanced features that burners can do these days?
Image-on-media? Kinda dumb, but no, can't do it. Media compatibility check? Nope. Report on confidence of burn success? Nope. Accurate time estimation? Nope. Statistics on disk readability? Phbt, dream on.
I will say this- Toast used to be the best burning program around, PC or Mac. Now, it's quite clearly been eclipsed. In fact, nothing on the Macintosh platform comes close in terms of support for advanced features on todays' drives.
Please help metamoderate.
To be blunt, Anandtech should stick to reviewing CPUs. In my experience, reviews of optical drives by those who don't specialize in them (such as Anandtech or Tom's) tend to be very poor. They look at the wrong things (put emphasis on things that are not important and not put emphasis on things that are) and their testing methods are not always accurate.
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For example, there are many who feel that the BenQ is actually a very excellent drive. The active OPC produces *better* results (not worse, as the reviewer thinks). Though slightly slower, it has the ability to overspeed media (burn 8x media at 16x, for example) with excellent quality. It also doesn't help that the review used a very outdated firmware for the BenQ review.
And to answer another question that someone had, none of these firmwares have DRM.
A better place for reviews:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/
And a review of this Anandtech review:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p
The installation of (most) Operating sytems is disk based, not so much CPU based. So your encoding rate is likely not tied to well to how fast you can install Windows.
:) ) ...
/path/to/image/image.name
... lots of crap running in the background... detracts from the performance, so why run a graphical environment when one isn't needed? Heck I (or several others here) could whip you up a dialog based text/curses interface in short order to present you with your images and select which to burn. Then you'd just run that as your login shell and be done with it. You'd mount your root (and image) filesystem(s) as read-only and be quite secure and stable. In the event of a power outage or hardware failure the only thing lost would be the disc that was being burned.
... hmmmm ...
At the risk of sounding like a Linux Zealot (not that I am not one of course
If you are going to have a second OS just for burning the image to the disc, you could save yourself a great deal of headache by installing a small Linux partition on there instead.
You could even install X with a minimal window manager such as Blackbox or fluxbox, and only the minimal x-bsed cd/dvd burning tools. Or even smaller, just use the command line tools such as
cdrecord dev=/dev/dvd speed=16
(no that isn't a typo; cdrecord burns dvd as well)
That could (depending on OS chosen) be less hassle then setting up and trimming the fat from a Windows2k install, and take up a lot less space (say sigificantly less than 100MB if you went the text route -- a binary gentoo should do that easily enough) (and possibly time).
Just make a small partition for the Linux install, a small swap partition, and make a large Fat32 partition if you want Linux to modify images, or a large NTFS partition if all it'll do is read the images.
As you say:
Heck, this could even be done on a "live" cdrom. Then you could duplicate this on multiple machines just by booting from cdrom. Or if your motherboard supported it, stick it on a memory card or other persistent solid state memory device and boot from there.
This type of setup is in fact one of the areas Linux quite excels: as a small dedicated purpose machine.
Maybe someone should make bootable cdroms for this
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Don't be fooled. Ritek/Ridata is not a premium brand--they are a good brand. Lots better than something like Prodisc and KHypermedia. But they are not in the same league as Taiyo Yuden, Pioneer, or MKM. I use Riteks, too.
Actually, 1 DVD speed is pretty exactly equals to nine (9) CD speeds in data transfer rate and three (3) CD speeds in linear/rotational speed. IOW - you get 3x data speed from the same rotational speed. So - 16x DVD speed is 48x CD physical speed and we know how CDs start exploding at that (or a tad higher). OTOH - I read that DVDs are physically more robust (2 plastic layers instead of 1 for instance) but I wouldn't trust that. Also - 16x is about 22 megs/second (at max of course). I guess many users still don't have HDDs capable of providing that when translated to file system speed. I find 8x DVDs to be the sweet spot still - fast and _quiet_(!). Awaiting for cheap dual layer media.
Mount ranier (MRW) does *NOTHING* except for automatic bad sector remapping.
That's ALL it does.
Packet writing, background formatting - those are all parts of the basic DVD spec.
Everything MtRainier does is already done for you at the OS level by tools such as DirectCD. And yes, DirectCD is godawful.
The reason MRW is not being pushed is the delay in longhorn. MS promised, basically, to support the DVD format that supported MRW. Then they got cold feet, delayed longhorn twice (so far) and talked about cutting it from the spec.
Since bad sector remapping is hard to do on the fly, and also consumes horrible amounts of memory (which increases the board cost) - and since no customer seems to actually know what it really *is* let alone want it - the feature is quietly being pushed back and back.
When the market wants it, we've got the code for it. But the market won't pay for the extra RAM.
I dont get why DVD-RAM still isnt taking off. Both of the -RW +RW technologies like a CD are limited to 1000 read/writes but the -RAM can be cycled *millions* of times, which means you can use it like a floppy (and reliably).
I also believe that the +rw disks dont need to be closed as the whole disk surface does not need to contain data (a -RW disk needs formatting to the edge). +RW is also superior technology in the way data can be written in multiple sessions/burn recovery/random access/etc. yet it is also in the minority of use.
I havnt looked up lately how DL disks were being implimented and if they decided on the fill the whole disk strategy or put half the data on each layer (i believe the disks *have* to have something on both layers or else the system doesnt work)
What i would love to take off is the mini-RAM disks now being used in DVD camcorders. 8cm disk holds 1gb and fits easily in a pocket, but at $25 (australian) a disk its way too pricey and a serious opportunity lost to portable optical media. I already use the mini CD-RW disks but can only find them in 4x.
Just like trying to find good quality scratch resistant CDs. Sure i can get a CDR for 10c but the foil on top just rubs off (no need to scratch!). I miss the good old Kodak Gold CDR and their 4x goodness.
What I really would like to see is a feature that checks the quality of the recording while burning.
I own a Nec ND2500-A and although this is one of the better DVD-Recorders it once in a while produces coasters - and I only use quality media.
You won't recognize this beforehand, you try to read the DVD's back and recognize that your data is lost due to read errors.
This is _very_ annoying and I still found no solution to this.
So to anyone who uses DVDs for backups: Use a burner that supports readout of PI/PO errors and check every DVD you burned afterwards. At least I have not found a better solution to check if you are burning coasters.
It does a tad more than bad sector remapping.
Yes the DVD spec has all of those features, but nothing *implements* them.
MRW allows you to put in a new disk, and withing a few seconds/minutes you can start putting data on it. None of this messing around with compiling and burning data. Opps i forgot a file, lets do it all again, another 10 minute burn. With MRW you just put the file there and its there. If you didnt want the file, delete it. Simple, and 'it just works(TM)'.
Easywrite and MRW (the same?) is hopefully a standard that will take off. I have 3 computers with 3 different burners that read each others MRW disks (they all run InCD). Another computer with a non MRW drive popped up a helpful webpage with a driver to read the disk and it just worked also.
I played with the early incarnation of UDF with old versions of InCD (V3?) and some other program that was on the GF's notebook. I admit they were crap and just would not work (not to metion having a really long format before you could not use the disk)
And if bad sector managment is so hard, how does old fashioned magnetic media work with it? At least it gives you the ability to use a disk with a defect rather than just not being able to get your data off of it.
And this is the same market that buys stuff from spam, telemarketers, and dodgy-computers-r-us, and expects CDR to delaminate, harddisks to last 12 months, and bugs to normal in their software. Someone has to market it so they will buy it. (why do people still buy coke/pepsi when there are much cheaper colas?)
I'm curious..
What kind of restrictions would DRM place on DVD burning? How can the burning hardware tell whether it's burning copyright material or not?
There are actually very good reasons to limit movie playback to 2x. See, movie playback is intrinsically 1x. Going any faster is a waste. And by going more slowly you can prevent the start-stop behaviour, move more slowly across scratches and do any manner of tricks to ensure better quality of playback.
The main reason manufacturers put a movie speed limit in the firmware is not to frustrate people trying to copy a movie, nor better error correction, but rather to keep the drive quiet while watching one. Reading at 16x makes a horrendous noise, making a movie pretty intolerable, while 2x is pretty silent. What is actually 'locked' AFAICT is the rotational speed - so even with rip lock on, you will go from 2x at the start up to near 4x towards the end of the disc.
I agree that this should be user selectable, however (e.g. without a firmware hack, using something like DriveSpeed).
Yes, sites like CDRLabs, cdfreaks and CDRinfo should have better technical reviews. However, Anand has a shootout of several drives which makes it easy to compare them.