C't test results. burners.

by **dolphinius_rex** on Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:41 pm

I'm deffinately interested!!

I hope they included regular Taiyo Yuden, Watershield Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, Verbatim Glossy, and Hub Printable RiData in their tests

by **MediumRare** on Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:46 am

dolphinius_rex wrote:I hope they included regular Taiyo Yuden, Watershield Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, Verbatim Glossy, and Hub Printable RiData in their tests

I guess they do- there are a lot of brands you may never see in North America, but also Primera HighGloss White (TY Watershield). I'll see what I can do on Wed. evening (my time). Tuesdays have other priorities.

G

by **dolphinius_rex** on Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:24 am

MediumRare wrote:
dolphinius_rex wrote:I hope they included regular Taiyo Yuden, Watershield Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, Verbatim Glossy, and Hub Printable RiData in their tests

I guess they do- there are a lot of brands you may never see in North America, but also Primera HighGloss White (TY Watershield). I'll see what I can do on Wed. evening (my time). Tuesdays have other priorities.

G

Well no worries on that, I've never been one to only care about North American media anyways :wink:

And I'm GREATLY looking forward to it thanks

by **Scour** on Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:07 pm

I (still) don´t use printable media, but maybe in future. And I think in the next months the tested media is still avaible, so I´m interested

by **MediumRare** on Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:23 pm

MediumRare wrote:This isn't exactly burners- but the latest isssue of c't (No. 6/2007) has a test of Inkjet printable DVD's. What they test is the printing properties: things like smear resistance, fading, colour fidelity and printable area, not the media burning quality.

They checked 20 media types with 3 printers (Canon iP5200R, Epson R265 and HP Photosmart D5160).

Personally, I use primarily printable media, but base my choices on the burning properties, not on what they tested here. If there's strong interest, I'll try and post a summary later this week though.

I'm more than a week late, but here's the summary.

The test contained 20 media types in combination with 3 printers and their bundled printing software. The media tested is available in Germany either in shops or by mail order. Prices per disc for SL media range from 54 cents (Platimum) to 1.50 Euros (TDK).

The test did not look at burning quality (PI/PIF, jitter etc.) nor did they consider other printing programs such as Nero Cover Designer, which I use with my Canon i865. For quality tests, they refer to issues 9/2004 and 14/2005.

Most single-ink Canon printers sold in Europe can print a CD/DVD, the Pixma iP5200R is representative. The Epson R265 one of 2 suitable printers from that company. It is not representative for other Epsons because of the multitude of ink types that Epson has used. The Photosmart D5160 is HP's first DVD printer- and that shows: results are marginal.

2 test prints were made for each printer/media combination: one with a mixture of colour and B&W prints and various text/colour combinations, a second one with colour bars for smear and fading tests.

They checked smear resistance with yellow highlighter after 5 min. and again after 1 day. Fading was tested with simulated 6 months "under glass".

A visual inspection checked the uniformity of the coating.

Because the tables would otherwise be too long (and Firefox doesn't produce horizontal scroll bars), I'm splitting them in 2 parts:
- information on the media (type, speed, MID, etc)
- printable area and test results

As usual, c't gives grades ++ to -- (think A-F).
Information

Code: Select all: Vendor Name Type/Speed Manuf. / MID Fujifilm Printable DVD-R up to 8x DVD-R Prodisc 8x PRODISCF01 Imation DVD+R White InkJet printable DVD+R Moser Baer India (Advanced Bright White Surface) 16x MBIPG101 R05 001 (01) Intenso DVD+R Printable DVD+R Optodisc 16x OPTODISC R16 000 (00) Maxell DVD+R InkJet Printable DVD+R Maxell 16x Maxell 003 000 (00) Memorex Printable DVD+R DVD+R CMC 16x CMC MAG M01 000 (00) Philips DVD+R InkJet Printable DVD+R Infomedia 16x INFOME R30 000 (00) Platinum DVD+R Printable DVD+R CMC 16x CMC MAG M01 000 (00) Primeon DVD+R White-Ink DVD+R Moser Baer India Fullsize Printable Surface 16x MBIPG101 R05 001 (01) Primera DVD-R HighGloss White DVD-R Taiyo Yuden (Water-Shield) 16x TYG03 Primera DVD-R TuffCoat Aquagard DVD-R Fujifilm 8x FUJIFILM03 Ricoh Ultra Speed DVD-R DVD-R CMC Wide Printable 16x CMCMAG.AM3 Ricoh DVD+R DL Extra Wide DVD+RDL Ricoh Photo Printable 8x RICOHJPN D01 (06J) Ridata InkJet White DVD 8x DVD-R Ritek (Ritek) 8x RITEKG05 Seiko DVD-R InkJet Printable DVD-R CMC Precision (Longlife Protective Coating) 8x CMCMAG.AE1 Sony DVD-R Ink-jet Printable DVD-R Sony 16x SONY16D1 Taiyo Yuden DVD+R InkJet Printable 16x DVD-R Tayo Yuden 16x YUDEN000 T03 000 (00) TDK DVD+R Photo InkJet Printable DVD+R TDK Extra Fine Matt 16x TDK 003 000 (00) Traxdata DVD+R 16x White DVD+R Ritek hub printable 16x RITEK R05 001 (01) Verbatim Photo Printable DVD+R DVD+R Mitsubishi Chemicals 16x MCC004 000 (00) Verbatim Glossy Printable DVD-R DVD-R Mitsubishi Chemicals 16x MCC03RG20

Test results

Code: Select all: Vendor Print area Print quality Smearing [mm] Homog Fading Canon Epson HP Canon Epson HP Fujifilm 23-118 O O - O - O -- - Imation 23-118 ++ - O O O - -- - Intenso 23-117 - O + - O + -- - Maxell 20-118 * -- O - O -- + -- - Memorex 20-118 * - - - O - O -- -- Philips 19-117 * -- + O + O ++ O O Platinum 21-118 O O - O -- O -- - Primeon 21-118 O O + O O ++ O + Primera HG 22-119 O + + ++ O ++ ++ ++ Primera TC 22-119 + O O ++ O ++ ++ ++ Ricoh - 21-118 ++ O O O - + - - Ricoh +DL 17-119 O + O + O + - - Ridata 22-118 + + O + O + - - Seiko 15-118 O O - - - - -- -- Sony 23-117 * O O - O - - - - Taiyo Yuden 23-118 O - - O - - -- -- TDK 22-116 * O O - O -- - -- - Traxdata 22-118 O O + + O + - - Verbatim + 20-118 * O - O O - - -- - Verbatim - 20-118 O + O + - -- -- --

* negative branding (letters) in inner print region (Maxell: outer)

Remarks:

Primera Watershield takes its name too seriously and sports a 1 mm ink repelant ring on the outer part of the printable area.
In all, the Primera media gave best printing results. Philips, Ricoh DL, Ridata and Traxdata were good.
The combination Epson + Primera gave the best results of all tested.
Epson + Philips was also good; media from Ricoh, Ridata and Traxdata weren't as smear resistant.
Canon's photo quality isn't quite as good Epson. The Primera were best, Intenso, Primeon, Traxdata and Ridata were also good.
HP prints are slow, fuzzy and mottled. Best results with Primera and Primeon

Personally, this test won't have much influence on what I buy: my main concern is the burning properties of the media. I use primarily Verbatim media (which didn't do too well here) and am completely happy with how my Canon i865 handles them. If I want to print pictures, I use photo paper. :wink:

In any case, on-disc printed labels look worlds better than with a Sharpie or Lightscribe (and are way faster than Lightscribe too !)

G

by **Scour** on Sat May 12, 2007 5:50 pm

I read that the newest c´t have tested some DVD-writers, I hope MediumRare work on it

by **MediumRare** on Mon May 14, 2007 12:53 am

Scour wrote:I read that the newest c´t have tested some DVD-writers, I hope MediumRare work on it

Scour- why don't you buy the c't- it has lots more information in it than these summaries. This particular issue has a DVD with tons of programs for audio/visual and internet applications and a special VDR Linux edition based on Debian Etch.

If you were at K&M on Satrueday, you could probably have picked it up at the nearby Hauptbahnhof (they often have it on Saturdays).

Apart from that- my summary is about 3/4 done (we were out yesterday). I'll get it finished this evening.

G

by **Francksoy** on Mon May 14, 2007 8:32 am

MediumRare wrote:Apart from that- my summary is about 3/4 done (we were out yesterday). I'll get it finished this evening.
G

Greeaaaaaat!

And this time I get the opportunity to thank you IN ADVANCE! =D>

by **Scour** on Mon May 14, 2007 11:55 am

If I come soon to a shop I will pick it up

Where I live thers no one shop, so I have to drive to the next city

by **MediumRare** on Mon May 14, 2007 2:44 pm

After more than a year

, Heise has finally published another test of 7 DVD-Burners (4 SATA and 3 IDE) in the latest issue of c't No. 11/2007 on sale today in Europe (they have published short looks at individual drives, but this is the first comparative article in a long tine).

As usual, this post is only a summary of the test- primarily re. writing quality. There are many more detailed results in the magazine (graphs, reading performance, error correction and handling of copy protection on audio CDs).

Specifically, this article includes a long discussion on LG's SecurDisc (skeptical), basics on DVD-RAM (nothing new for regulars here) and the new "Live" file system in MS Vista that seems to be implementing some features long planned for Mount Rainier/Fuji.

This time round, the number of media types tested was greatly reduced- no DVD+R or DVD-RW types were tested!! The media chosen are those that "did best" in previous tests. However, they did include detailed results from AudioDev for Taiyo Yuden CDR's this time,

All DVDs were tested with the Audiodev CATS-DVD-PRO (no mention of the in-house Almedio AEC-1000 from previous tests).

The first table contains model and firmware and the c't grade for various categories. The quality and speed ratings for DVDs are combined in a single grade.

Code: Select all: DVD Burns CD Reading Noise Model + Firmware R / RW / DL Burns CD / DVD CD / DVD Asus 1.10 0 / - / 0 + 0 / 0 + / 0 DRW-1814BLT LG 1.00 - / --/ -- 0 + / 0 - / 0 GSA-H55N LiteOn 9L05 --/ 0 / -- -- + / ++ 0 / + LH-20A1S OptiArc 1-01 - / 0 / + -- 0 / - - / -- AD-7371S Pioneer 1.15 --/ - / 0 + 0 / ++ 0 / ++ DVR-112 Plextor 1.00 + / --/ -- -- 0 / 0 0 / -- PX-800 Samsung SB01 - / --/ 0 0 + / + 0 / + SH-S183L

The next table contains the actual and recommended burning speed for these drives and selected media. The recommended speed is based on details of the CATS scans. The second line shows the c't quality index and grade (# means POFs occurred or E22/E32 in the case of CD-Rs).

The results for DVD+RW are based on a 10 part burning cascade (in steps from writing the inner part 10x to once only for the outer part). The phase-change material used for RWs often needs to be "conditioned" and attains its final properties after several writing cycles. A burning cascade makes this process evident on a single (fresh) disc. A recommended "speed" of e.g. 3ini means "write completely 3x before regular use". In those cases where a NO = "don't use" is noted, the error rate actually increased with repeated rewriting. c't suspects that the laser power is too high in these cases.

Code: Select all: DVD-R 16x DVD-R 16x DVD+RW 8x DVD+RDL 8x CD-R 48x Taiyo Yuden Sony Verbatim Verbatim Taiyo Yuden TYG03 SONY16D1 MKM A03 MKM 003 TYG03 Model (000) (000) Asus 16 / 8 16 / 16 8 / 3ini 8 / 8 48 / 48 DRW-1814BLT -41 / -- 62 / + 16 / - 26 / 0 67 / + LG 20 / 12 12 / 8 8 / NO 8 / 6 48 / 16 GSA-H55N 17 / - -528 / --# -70 / -- -292 / --# 31 / 0 LiteOn 20 / 12 20 / 12 8 / 4ini 8 / 4 48 / 24 LH-20A1S -17 / -- -273 / --# 33 / 0 -155 / --# -29 / -- OptiArc 18 / 8 18 / 12 8 / 6 8 / 8 48 / 16 AD-7371S 42 / 0 4 / - 26 / 0 59 / + -388 / --# Pioneer 18 / 16 16 / 12 8 / 2ini 10 / 10 40 / 40 DVR-112 -3 / -- -19 / -- 16 / - 32 / 0 61 / + Plextor 18 / 18 18 / 8 8 / NO 8 / 8 48 / 16 PX-800 63 / + 46 / 0 -338 / --# -10 / -- -1701 / --# Samsung 18 / 16 186/ 12 8 / NO 4 / 4 48 / 16 SH-S183L 28 / 0 -197 / --# -28 / -- 43 / 0 27 / 0

It's hard to draw general conclusions from these tests, although some things stand out:

The best DVD combinations are Asus + Sony and Plextor + TY
These drives do a lot better with DL discs than in the past
Asus and LiteOn do best with the +RWs,
LG and LiteOn have problems at high speeds and would be better off at lower speeds
Asus and Pioneer do best with CD's.
The BLER scan for the Plextor drive with Plextor (TY) media was the worst I've ever seen
LiteOn is no. 1 for audio grabbing and reads all protected discs tested
Pioneer and Samsung were excellent DVD readers

Unlike their other tests in past 2 years, c't has AudioDev scans available for CDR's as well, so the results may not be directly comparable. They list jitter, I3 (intensity of the shortest marks) and beta values as well as BLER and E22 / E32 maxima and base some of their speed recommendations on these. LG and Samsung have rel. low BLER values but the other signal parameters are outside limits though and may cause problems. The LiteOn burn OTOH had good properites where the burn speed was < 24x.

All told, the Asus drive was probably the best of the batch.

Personally, I would have preferred to see more media types in the test, especially some +R types (at the very least MCC 004).

G

by **Ian** on Mon May 14, 2007 3:21 pm

MediumRare wrote:All told, the Asus drive was probably the best of the batch.

It's too bad they didn't test the drive with DVD-R DL media.

by **Scour** on Mon May 14, 2007 5:23 pm

Very nice, MediumRare =D>

Ian, DVD-R DL isn´t very popular in Germany, because it´s much more expensive than +R DL

by **Muchin** on Thu May 31, 2007 12:04 am

MediumRare wrote:Unlike their other tests in past 2 years, c't has AudioDev scans available for CDR's as well, so the results may not be directly comparable. They list jitter, I3 (intensity of the shortest marks) and beta values as well as BLER and E22 / E32 maxima and base some of their speed recommendations on these.

Hi, MediumRare

Would you take the extra labour of making some sort of summary of those data? I am particularly interested in the jitter, as it is the most useful indicator of the level of soundness of the writing strategy.

by **MediumRare** on Thu May 31, 2007 7:05 am

I'll see what I can do. But you'll have to wait until the weekend- I just don't have much time right now.

G

by **Muchin** on Thu May 31, 2007 3:42 pm

Thank you for a quick reply. Your kindness will be much appreciated even if somewhat longer waiting is needed.

by **MediumRare** on Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:35 am

Sorry for the delay- my online computer died over the weekend :evil:

and I've just crufted up a replacement (and I was on a business trip...).

Here are the results for the CDRs:

Code: Select all: Speed / recom. Jitter (ms) I3 (%) / Index / Grade BLER /E22/ E32 max. / avg. Beta vari. (%) Model Asus 48 / 48 DRW-1814BLT 67 / + 21 / 0/ 0 39 / 21.4 32 / 13.3 LG 48 / 16 GSA-H55N 31 / 0 21 / 0/ 0 50 / 24.3 29 / 9.5 LiteOn 48 / 24 LH-20A1S -29 / -- 253 / 0/ 0 36 / 23.1 34 / 12.1 OptiArc 48 / 16 AD-7371S -388 / --# 987 / 67/ 78 47 / 29.9 28 / 21.7 Pioneer 40 / 40 DVR-112 61 / + 34 / 0/ 0 31 / 20.3 33 / 10.8 Plextor 48 / 16 PX-800 -1701 / --# 6138 / 58/ 305 49 / 28.4 33 / 11.9 Samsung 48 / 16 SH-S183L 27 / 0 23 / 0/ 0 52 / 29.3 23 / 21.7

I've repeated the values from the main summary in the first column. As mentioned earlier, c't just tested one Plextor branded TY disc. Rates and counts are maxima (not averages). c't publishes curves for PI Sum 8 (DVD) and BLER (CD), but not for other measurements.

The limit for BLER (C1) is 220, E32 (reported as C2 or CU by consumer drives) indicate a read error and should not occur at all. Jitter mesaures the deviation of the length of the markings from the ideal values and should be below 35 ms.

I3 gives the amplitude of the signal from the shortest marks (3 lands/pits) and should be large (not under 30%); Beta is related to the variation of these marks (??) and should be as constant as possible- variations not greater than 20%.

G

by **Muchin** on Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:41 pm

Many thanks for your favor, especially since it was not convenient for you to do it away on the trip.

Pioneer DVR-112 has yield nearly perfect writing quality with the TY disc, so has CDRInfo reported with the Clover Systems. The BLER max given by LiteOn LH-20A1S is much higher than that determined by CDRInfo for 20A1P. One may assume that the difference is due to variability of dye consistency in individual disc if only one disc was tested by both parties, though it may also be interpreted otherwise.

by **MediumRare** on Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:22 pm

Do you have a link to the the CDRInfo test results? Are they in the burner tests or in a special article? I don't frequent that site much...

Muchin wrote:One may assume that the difference is due to variability of dye consistency in individual disc if only one disc was tested by both parties, though it may also be interpreted otherwise.

You're probably right there. I don't think it's meaningful to draw general conclusions from tests of a single disc, especially when comparing tests with different systems on different discs.

I'd prefer to see c't do test more than one disc, but they only have limited resources for these tests (I mailed the author on a previous occasion). They have even reduced the variety of DVD's in their latest comparisons.

G

by **DrageMester** on Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:18 pm

MediumRare wrote:You're probably right there. I don't think it's meaningful to draw general conclusions from tests of a single disc, especially when comparing tests with different systems on different discs.

With the variability between individual drives of the same model these days, drawing conclusions from burns on a single drive may also be questionable.

by **Muchin** on Fri Jun 08, 2007 12:57 am

MediumRare wrote:Do you have a link to the the CDRInfo test results? Are they in the burner tests or in a special article? I don't frequent that site much...

They are in the reviews of the drives. The specific pages are:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews ... 3&PageId=6

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews ... 5&PageId=7

by **Muchin** on Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:30 pm

MediumRare wrote:I don't think it's meaningful to draw general conclusions from tests of a single disc, especially when comparing tests with different systems on different discs.

Except when the tests were carried out with CATS or other Pulstec-based devices and the results are excellent in each case.

I'd prefer to see c't do test more than one disc, but they only have limited resources for these tests (I mailed the author on a previous occasion). They have even reduced the variety of DVD's in their latest comparisons.

G

That's unfortunate. Test data based on professional machines are so scarce, and C1/C2/PI/PO error test results given by most consumer drives are too optimistic IMO at least .

by **MediumRare** on Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:58 pm

The previous issue of c't (No. 2/2008 ) had a test of printable DVD's- essentially a repeat of last year's test. This time they looked at the printing properties of 19 media types and 6 printers: 2 each from Canon (MP610 and iP6700D), Epson (RX685 and R1800) and HP (C5280 and D5160).

As previously, they looked at the printing quality, homogeneity, smear resistance and fading- the latter with a simulated 1 year's exposure to UV.

No word on the burning quality. [-X

The best results were obtained with Aquagard Printables from Primera (DVD-R: CMC MAG.AM3) and Imation (DVD+R: CMC MAG M01 000), followed by TY HighGloss Watershields (TYG03, also sold by Primera). Same as last time, Verbatim did not do well. No change on the printer side either: Epson was best, Canon in between, the HPs need more work.

Unless there's a great cry of outrage, I won't post any more details because this is information that I find rather useless. The fading test in particular really gets my goat. :evil:

If I leave a DVD lying in the sun for a year, the last thing that interests me is if the colour on the label has faded! :roll:

I've been rather busy and didn't get to posting this earlier (partially, too, because of lack of motivation). The current issue (No. 3/2008) has a test of 6 DVD burners with rather surprising results. Scour won't like it. I'll get that up tomorrow.

G

by **MediumRare** on Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:25 am

The current issue of c't No. 3/2008 on sale now in Europe has a test of 6 DVD-Burners (5 SATA and 1 IDE). These are the successors to the models looked at in the previous test, except that Plextor is absent in this round and they also had a look at the external version (SE-204S) of the Samsung drive.

The number of media types tested was further reduced- Sony was dropped, but the TY DVD-Rs were tested at 2 speeds. Instead of DVD+R DL from Verbatim, they looked at DVD-R DL from Taiyo Yuden. All media was tested by AudioDev.

The first table contains model and firmware and the c't grade for various categories. The quality and speed ratings for DVDs are combined in a single grade.

Code: Select all: DVD Burns CD Reading Noise Model + Firmware R / RW / DL Burns CD / DVD CD / DVD Asus 1.00 - / --/ -- + + / + + / - DRW-2014L1T LG EL00 - / - / -- 0 0 / ++ 0 / ++ GH20NS10 LiteOn BL05 ++/ --/ 0 ++ ++/ + - / + LH-20A1L OptiArc 1.01 + / --/ 0 -- 0 / 0 0 / -- AD-7200S Pioneer 1.06 0 / --/ 0 0 + / ++ 0 / + DVR-115 D Samsung TS00 + / --/ + -- ++/ 0 0 / + SH-S203

The next table contains the actual and recommended burning speed for these drives and selected media. The recommended speed is based on details of the CATS scans. The second line shows the c't quality index and grade (# means POFs occurred for DVDs or E22/E32 for CD-R).

The results for DVD+RW are again based on a 10 part burning cascade. In addition to a recommended speed, an entry of e.g. 3i means "write completely 3x before regular use". In most cases where a NO = "don't use" is noted, the error rate actually increased with repeated rewriting. c't suspects that the laser power is too high in these cases.

Code: Select all: DVD-R 16x DVD-R 16x DVD+RW 8x DVD-R DL 8x CD-R 48x Taiyo Yuden Taiyo Yuden Verbatim Taiyo Yuden Taiyo Yuden 20x sel. 8x Model Asus 20 / 8 8 / 8 8 / 4 5i 8 / 3 32 / 32 DRW-2014L1T -122 / --# 43 / 0 -100 / -- -81 / --+ 63 / + LG 20 / 4 8 / 4 8 / 4 3i 8 / 4 32 / 32 GH20NS10 -83 / --# 33 / 0 23 / - -118 / --# 47 / 0 LiteOn 20 / 16 8 / 16 8 / NO 8 / 4 32 / 32 LH-20A1L 67 / + 84 / ++ -66 / -- 43 / 0 82 / ++ OptiArc 18 / 18 8 / 18 8 / NO 8 / 6 32 / NO AD-7200S 62 / + 80 / ++ -132 / -- 43 / 0 -46 / --# Pioneer 11 / 8 8 / 8 8 / NO 8 / 6 40 / 24 DVR-115 D -65 / --# 87 / ++ -318 / --# 48 / 0 32 / 0 Samsung 20 / 20 8 / 20 8 / NO 8 / 8 40 / 24 SH-S203 62 / + 62 / + -70 / -- 56 / + -8 / --

For Muchin: here are the detailed results for the CDs (see this post for limits and some information on the items listed).

Code: Select all: Speed / recom. Jitter (ms) I3 (%) / Index / Grade BLER /E22/ E32 max. / avg. Beta vari. (%) Model Asus 32 / 32 DRW-2014L1T 63 / + 11 / 0/ 0 45.5 / 25.2 32.1 / 6.4 LG 32 / 32 GH20NS10 47 / 0 21 / 0/ 0 32.1 / 24.9 34.4 / 13.6 LiteOn 32 / 32 LH-20A1L 82 / ++ 253 / 0/ 0 32.9 / 22.1 38.5 / 7.8 OptiArc 32 / NO AD-7200S -46 / --# 987 / 67/ 78 50.7 / 25.0 36.4 / 4.6 Pioneer 40 / 24 DVR-115 D 32 / 0 34 / 0/ 0 32.8 / 25.2 35.6 / 13.4 Samsung 40 / 24 SH-S203 -8 / -- 23 / 0/ 0 49.2 / 32.2 31.5 / 6.4

Some comments:

All drives do relatively well with the TY DVD-R, even when overspeeding (exception: Pioneer)
The LiteOn is best overall- Is this a fluke? Except for the DVD+RW, it writes all media well and has the lowest jitter values, and it remains no. 1 for audio grabbing and reads all protected discs tested.
The LG (with Renesas chipset) is the fastest drive- but it's too fast, which shows in the quality. It's the only drive that digests the +RW media without hiccups.
The Optiarc does a good job with DVDs but is terrible with CDRs.
The Asus drive is a better reader than its predecessor, but a poorer writer.
The Pioneer has problems with higher data rates. A firmware update may fix that.
The Samsung drive is good with DVDs, too fast with CDR's and has problems reading DVD-RAM.

I have rather mixed feelings about these tests and the general direction c't seems to be taking:
- The variety of media has been reduced further- no plus media other than the rewritables. In fact, they've chosen types that are difficult if not impossible to find in B&M stores here! This makes comparisons with previous tests difficult- they should at least have kept MCC004, just about everybody's favourite 16x +R.
- Previously, they published a mechanical quality index based on the physical properties of the unburned disc for new media types. No sign of that for the new DVD-R DL from TY.
- MIDs are not shown for the media.
- CDRs are burned at 2 speeds (32x, 40x). With the exception of Pioneer, these are less than the drive's maximum. No explanation is given for the choice of burning speed.

On the other hand, testing the TY DVD-R (TYG03 ??) at full speed and 8x gives a welcome indication of what these drives can achieve if you don't push them.

G

by **Ian** on Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:37 am

You gotta wonder if they're getting sponsored by Taiyo Yuden. I'm surprised that they dropped Verbatim's DVD+R and DVD+R DL media from their tests, as they are the most popular brand in both cases. And why bother with DVD-R DL? No one uses it.. and TY DVD-R DL is next to impossible to find, which makes me think that TY is helping them out here.

by **MediumRare** on Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:16 am

Ian wrote:You gotta wonder if they're getting sponsored by Taiyo Yuden.

That thought crossed my mind too. However, they have too much of a reputation to lose to go that route.

I think they're just reducing costs. Instead of a proper dedicated test for the (new) DVD-R DL, they use them in the burner test. I hope they'll go back to MCC next time.

The reason for dropping Sony was that they've started to package MBI here in addition to their own stuff. The TY media (apparently) has consistent high quality, so they use that as a reference.

G

C't test results. burners.

CDR results from latest c't test

another test of printing properties of DVD's

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