LG BP40NS20 Portable 6x Blu-ray Disc ReWriter

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the DVD writing performance of LG's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW and 8x DVD+RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x, the BP40NS20 uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that LG's new drive starts writing at about 3.42x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The BP40NS20 also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases, the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

When writing to M-DISCs at 4x, the BP40NS20 uses P-CAV. The drive starts writing at 3.38x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the 0.3GB mark.

For the most part, the BP40NS20 performed as expected in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as some of the internal DVD writers we've looked at recently, it turned in some respectable times with DVD±R and DVD±RW media. Unfortunately, burning an M-DISC did not go as smoothly. We ran numerous tests and, in most cases, the BP40NS20 returned a "Tracking Servo Failure" error when it reached the 3.5GB mark.

To check the media compatibility of the BP40NS20, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Using CD Speed we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner), PIF (Parity Inner Fail) and Jitter rates. For these tests I used a Lite-On iHAS424 and read the discs at 8x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? When testing with the iHAS424, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter. 

The BP40NS20's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were fairly good for the most part.

Here, too, I ran into some issues with Milleniata's M-DISC media. While the writing quality was fairly good for the most part, there was a sizable PIF spike at the 3.5GB mark which prevented the disc from being read back.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 9.4.26.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the BP40NS20, I used DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The BP40NS20 performed as expected when writing to DVD+R DL media. In our tests, the drive took 27:08 to write 8001MB of data to Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The BP40NS20's writing quality was pretty good with the DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits and there weren't any readability problems.

To test the BP40NS20's packet writing performance I used InstantBurn 5. Verbatim 6x DVD-RW, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.