by goldzone on Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:17 pm
Tests done so far:
(1) FujiFilm 24x 10pk GlowDisc 80min/700M Slim JCase: *1.32G data files; *Nero reports 24x writing successful; *Actual time taken: 14’30”; *Data verification passed in 4’.
(2) Maxell 24x 10pk CD-R pro 80min/700M JCase (#623401): *1.35G video (1hr24min movie); *Nero reports 24x writing successful; *Actual time taken: 14’30”; *Data verification passed in 4’.
(3) TDK 48x 100pk 80min/700M Spindle (478646): *1.35G video (1hr24min movie); *Nero reports 24x writing successful; *Actual time taken: 8’; *Data verification passed in 3’20”.
Other Notes:
(1) CD-R only, not CD-RW. Future firmware may change this though. 24x is the max speed available.
(2) HD-Burn CD-Rs are only readable by this drive, no other CD or DVD reading devices I have can recognize them. They appear just like blank discs in those devices.
(3) Reading and Writing HD-Burn discs in the drive appear to be very smooth just like normal CD read/write experience. As long as you are using this drive, the whole thing feels very stable.
(4) Reading speed is quite high. That means smoother movie playback. They claim 72x. I’m not sure – I don’t have time to really benchmark it. So my guess of the real deal is, it’s actually regular 36x with double-density data – that sounds highly do-able.
(5) Nero 6 is pretty good for HD-Burn. It actually supports HD-Burn-Rom, HD-Burn-Video, HD-Burn-Copy etc. – as if it’s some kind of DVD. Issues: a) Nero reports “24x Successful” doesn’t always mean the same amount of time. It seems like that the higher the speed mark on the media is, the shorter time it takes to write the same amount of data (please check out the media list at Sanyo – they are pretty much all above 42x); b) Nero’s behavior is different when doing HD-Burn: it shows in one second “100% done”, then wait a few seconds to, I guess, find out if the media is acceptable or not, then it starts the normal lead-in.
(6) The drive comes with a Nero 5 OEM. I didn’t use. So don’t ask me about it. I know a few latest version of CopyToDVD supports HD-Burn as well – I have it installed. This is just FYI so that you have a backup plan in case Nero lets you down.
(7) “HD-Burn Video” discs are handled by Windows just like DVDs. The video discs I burned in my tests above are prepared using DVDShrink 2.3 with 50% compression (with some re-authoring to keep the movie short). I never tried this low % before and surprisingly the playback quality was really good – I think better than the SVCDs I had. I’m seriously considering keeping some not-so-great movies in this format.
( 8 ) It seems the drive can deal with a wide range of media brands. I don’t have very cheap CD-Rs to test, because the 100pk TDK spindle I got from Costco is very cheap already. The story should be way better than the 8x DVD+R media hunting exercise going on right now here.
(9) I know many people don’t think HD-Burn is useful if it can’t be read by other non-HDB devices. But by cutting the already-cheap CD-R price in half, it’s pretty good for: a) casual back up; b) putting one SVCD-quality movie on one disc; c) storage for not-so-useful-but-do-not-want-to-trash files; d) store personal DV files such as a 10-minute home-made movie which won’t take a full DVD – I always keep the original MiniDV cassettes, so if the disc is gone it’s OK.
Since OptoRite is claiming that the drive does support overburn, my next mission is to see how overburn goes. Since I don’t have 90min and 90min+ media, this is gonna take some time. The beauty of overburn is, to me, many DVD players/readers can read them.
