Verbatim 48x12x50 (Aopen) First Look

[aviationwiz]

PICTURES TAKEN DOWN.



This is my first look at Verbatim's 48x12x50 CD-RW Drive that is made by Aopen. First I will show you some CD Speed (1.02) tests on CD-R Speed:


As you can see those disks did not quite reach the 48x mark, however it did get very close to the 48x mark. They are Phillips 40x that are manufactured by CMC.


My personal favorite of what I had with me performed not quite as well as the CMC disks. They did get very close. It might also just be a one time thing. These disks are Fuji 40x disks. They are manufactured by Tayio Yuden.


Now I will show you an actual burning screen to give you a better idea of how long it takes to burn a CD with Lead In/Lead Out times included.


That was a cd burned to the rim with data. I set the speed to 48x with JustLink ON. The disk I used was a Phillips 40x disk manufactured by CMC. The time is about 8 seconds less than on my LTR-48125W.


Here are some speed tests. The following is the disk I burned above:


The disk did not even get close to the advertised 50x speed. As you can see this drive is not very good for reading.


That disk was a Windows XP Reinstall disk that came with my Dell PC. Once again this drive is not very fast at reading disks.


Once again this drive is not very fast for reading. This was a backup copy of the game Operation Flashpoint. It was on a Fuji 40x disk manufactured by Tayio Yuden. The disk was burned on an LTR-48125W.


That was the Nero CD that came with the drive. Once again the drive does not read very fast.


As you can see this drive will write fast and read slow. I do not have any rewritable CD's to try out. The drive is very loud and the LED is always a yellowish-green, whether you are reading or writing.


That is all for now. I am going to post information on the writing quality soon.

[Spazmogen]

Well done! It's a great start to the thread.

[aviationwiz]

Thanks,

I got the idea from your First Look at the LTR-52246S.

[cfitz]

That is a little disappointing. It looks like it reads pressed CDs even more slowly than CD-Rs.

Is it a quiet drive?

cfitz

[aviationwiz]

No I will add that. The drive is loud.

[aviationwiz]

This disk which I filled to the rim with data burned a little slower than the other disk. Making the LTR-48125W look like the fastest drive in the world.

Now many people ask about the quality of the burns. As I would expect from any CD-RW Drive the writing is superb. Look below:


The Writing Quality is superb, ZERO errors with a cd burned at 48x.

[aviationwiz]

Or with Fuji 40x Manufactured by Tayio Yuden:


If your in the market for a high quality burner and you do not care about how loud it is or how slow at reading it is then get this burner. This drive also has less burning speeds than the LTR-48125 and is a little more picky about media. What I mean by picky about media is that old Memorex 40x TY disks will only burn at 24x.

[aviationwiz]

All the disks I burn, have perfect quality at 48x. Now this is a great quality burner. I have burned FOUR more disks with WinOnCD and this burner and they are all 100% Error-Free. PERFECT BURNS.

[aviationwiz]

Here's a look at Audio CD quality. The following is the same disk burned at 48x.


As you can see there is a small damaged area totaling 0.15% of the disk.



There are 164 errors here, that as we all know is not good.


Notice that the drive speed slows down A LOT when it comes to the 20 min. mark which is where the errors are. Also note that the seek times and CPU Usage percentages are much higher for this disk.

That helps us show that audio cd's should NOT be burned at 48x on this drive.

[cfitz]

Hey aviationwiz, why is the transfer rate stuck at 8x during the CD quality check of the audio disc? Did you run the test after the transfer rate test where the drive adjusted the read speed downward after the errors?

cfitz

[aviationwiz]

I did the CD Quality Check before I did the Transfer Rate Test. It must be because there were many errors and it was having a hard time reading the disk, it had to slow down the speed.

[Spazmogen]

I've had similar problems with that software. I find that if I eject the disc between tests, then the tests are fine. Otherwise, mine reads the 1st 1/3 of the disc @ 12x then speeds up normally after that. Why it does that, I have no idea.

[cfitz]

That is along the lines I was thinking. But I don't believe it is a software issue.

I know that if a drive has a problem reading a disc, it will slow down to accomodate. And as long as you leave the disc in place, the drive remembers that it has had trouble and continues to keep the speed down. But if you take the disc out and put it back, the drive thinks it is a new disc and starts out by assuming the best and attempting to read the disc at full speed.

Conversely, if the drive encounters no errors while reading a disc, it will ramp up the speed to take advantage of the good quality disc.

cfitz

[MCKComputerWorks]

Post removed

[glock20rocks]

48x12x50 my butt...looks more like 48x12x48...if you're lucky.
Anyone remember when drives where rated at the speed the could ACTUALLY read at?

[cfitz]

48x12x50 my butt...looks more like 48x12x48...if you're lucky.
Anyone remember when drives where rated at the speed the could ACTUALLY read at?

Much as the hard disc drive manufacturers did with their capacity numbers, the optical drive manufacturers are using special measuring units specifically tailored for the demanding optical drive technology enviornment. For instance, the 50x is quoted using the new 7.68 bit "byte"...

cfitz

[jase]

Well Aopen make no secret of the fact that the drive is a 48/12/40 out of the box, and that the eject button has to be held down for 6-8 seconds before it'll allow 50x. My experience is that it'll reach around 49.5x without too much hassle. A bit of an ambitious claim the 50x then, but not too far off.

As for the 48x audio writing, seems like a dodgy disc and/or a one-off glitch there. Often when things like that happen, there is NOT an error on the disc, it's just that the pits have not been written well enough for the drive to read them at fast speed -- that's not the same thing, C1/2 errors are supposed to be an absolute measure.

FWIW I've been writing audio discs on crap media at 48x with no problems. As for the system lockups, I've noticed problems as well, it seems to be caused by current draw, a beefier power supply seems to sort it all out.

[cfitz]

C1/2 errors are supposed to be an absolute measure.

I have to respectfully disagree with that statement. The errors are a function of the disc, the drive in which it was written, the speed at which it was written, the drive in which it is being read, the speed at which it is being read and a host of other tertiary variables. You'll never get the exact same C1/C2 error measurements twice. That isn't to downplay their worth, but just to point out that they aren't fundamental absolutes.

FWIW I've been writing audio discs on crap media at 48x with no problems.

Depending on how "golden" (or, in my case, leaden) your ears are, an audio disc can have a large amount of errors and still sound acceptable due to the error masking that CD players perform.

cfitz

[glock20rocks]

cfitz, don't get me started on the hard drive manufacturers...I've been pissed at them since the days when a 40MG hard drive was considered huge and excessive. And now the stupid DVD+/-RW people are doing it. 4.7GB my
butt...

[jase]

C1/2 errors are supposed to be an absolute measure.

I have to respectfully disagree with that statement. The errors are a function of the disc, the drive in which it was written, the speed at which it was written, the drive in which it is being read, the speed at which it is being read and a host of other tertiary variables. You'll never get the exact same C1/C2 error measurements twice. That isn't to downplay their worth, but just to point out that they aren't fundamental absolutes.

In which case the multitude of disc reviews that say things along the lines of "the C1 error count for xxx disc is" are totally false. I was under the impression that C1/2 errors were an absolute (though very difficult to read, which is why the recorded C1/2 error rates vary so widely -- much of these are not a function of the actual physical data on the disc at all).

FWIW I've been writing audio discs on crap media at 48x with no problems.

Depending on how "golden" (or, in my case, leaden) your ears are, an audio disc can have a large amount of errors and still sound acceptable due to the error masking that CD players perform.

cfitz

OK, let me rephrase that. I've been writing such discs, reading them back with WSES/CD-Doctor with very low error rates. I also have a very high grade CD player which, ironically, only masks errors very discreetly to maximise sound quality, to the point where a bad disc will have glitches which would not be in evidence on a lesser player. No such problems with discs produced on the Aopen -- and I have to say the same discs do cause problems when written on LiteOn equipment.

[cfitz]

cfitz, don't get me started on the hard drive manufacturers...

Looks like its too late... I've already got you started.

Run with it, glock20rocks! I smell a new post for the Rants and Raves forum coming on...

cfitz