OT: Tom's Hardware review of single-layer DVD burners

riredale wrote on 5/26/2004, 9:34 AM

Came across another article comparing a half-dozen single-layer DVD burners. They especially liked the 12x Plextor (burns a full DVD disk in 6 minutes!) though it was a bit more expensive, and they gave a "best value" award to the Asus drive, which was one of several OEM drives based on the bulletproof Plextor drive.

They also said the Sony 530 burner does a good job, especially when loaded with the latest firmware.

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 5/26/2004, 9:38 AM

I didn't know they were up to 12 speed already.

JJK

johnmeyer wrote on 5/26/2004, 11:20 AM

I didn't know they were up to 12 speed already.

I read the article. The Plextor records at 12x using 8x media. I have no idea whether that is a good idea or not. Here is the quote from the first paragraph of the review:

"Plextor created something of a stir late last year, when they shipped a drive that could burn at 8x speed on certified 4x media. The company returns with the 712A, which can burn at 12x speeds, on certain, certified 8x DVD+R media. The drive is rated at 8x for DVD-R and 4x for DVD-RW/+RW. We tested the ATAPI version of the drive; the company will be shortly shipping a Serial ATA version."

Complete review here: Plextor

jboy wrote on 5/26/2004, 12:28 PM

Hasn't it been sort of established that for DVD player compatability, one should burn at 1X anyway ? All this great hardware doesn't do squat if the output product doesn't play in the set top dvd player of the end user.

jwall wrote on 5/26/2004, 1:42 PM

I've had 100% compatibility of all the DVDs I've burned at 4x.....except one. One client played the DVD through once fine, but when they tried to watch it a second time, it wouldn't work. I realized that DVD was burned with a higher bitrate than what I normally use (8000vs.6500), so burned another (at 4x) at a lower bitrate, and it worked fine.

Jon

farss wrote on 5/26/2004, 3:57 PM

I've had exactly the opposite result, DVD burnt at 1x skipped, burnt at 4x played much better in same player. This makes sense, when disk spins faster it may wobble less meaning the laser can be positioned more accurately.

riredale wrote on 5/26/2004, 5:03 PM

If you mosey around the web sites that test DVD media, it becomes clear pretty fast whether a particular brand works well on a particular burner. The web sites show graphs depicting burn errors and such at different disk radii.

Bottom line: If the burner and disk are designed for it and the test data show excellent results, then there is no reason not to burn at that speed.