DW1620: Not So Great results

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers BenQ / Philips Writer
#1

I do DVD Production for a hobby. A project I have spent the last several months working on is nearing completion and I may have to burn off a couple thousand DVD’s rather than have them mastered to DVD-ROM. There are multiple DVD’s in this project, so having the discs manufactured is not cost effective. I needed to find a drive that has very good writing ability…which led me on a couple week search for a drive to burn off all of these DVD’s. I narrowed the choices down to the NEC 3500, Pioneer 108, and BenQ DW 1620. Writing quality was my only need ( but the auto bitsetting is nice ;-). This drive will only be used for writing. After reading CD Freaks review of the 1620 and the write quality to Prodisc DVD+R’ R03’s @12X, I decided to order the BenQ and a couple hundred Prodisc R03 DVD’s. I should mention I am a long time Toshiba drive lover and have owned a 5002 and 5112 drive, and currently own a SD-R 5272. However, the 5272 is 8X, so I was looking for a faster drive to use on this project. If the BenQ ends up working out, I plan on ordering several of them to farm out the burning to.

Now my problem:
The burn quality results from the 1620 are not what I was expecting. I know I am not using the best media, but from what I’ve read, the Prodisc R03 discs were supposed to yield great results. So is there a problem with the drive, or was I expecting to much from the drive?

System Specs:
XP Pro SP2
KT266A mobo w/Highpoint RAID 2 WD JB’s on RAID 0 (for Video Capture output)
WD 40BB on IDE as Master (OS drive only)
WD 250JB on IDE1 as Slave (Data drive only)
BenQ DW1620 on IDE2 as Master (only drive on channel)
512 MB DDR
All DVD’s burned with latest DVD Decrypter

The drive arrived with G7H9 FW. I burned a Ritek R03 8x DVD+R @12X
Bad Results:

So I followed the method to flash to B7M9 and tried the same image file on a Prodisc R03 @12X (ordered from RIMA). I watched this DVD on my Mintek 1600 and had no playback issues, but the Mintek is like a Toshiba drive… it will read ANYTHING…

So I figure I’ll try some Prodisc DVD-r 4X (actually MCC01RG20) that my Toshiba drive loves and writes flawless to. Here are the BenQ results:

So I tried a Prodisc R03 @8X:

Here is the same disc read with the Toshiba:

So now I figure I’ll try some Ritek R03’s @8x:

and lastly, a Ritek R03 burned by the Toshiba SD-R5272 @8X scanned by the BenQ:

got to love that hump where the Toshiba changes speed :slight_smile:

And couriously, the BenQ will only support 4x writing on a TY01 disc where the Toshiba will write @ 8X… go figure. The fact that the BenQ could not finish the transfer tests on several of the DVD’s concerns me. I’m unsure if the drive I received is just a bad reader or perhaps both bad at reading and writing. I don’t have access to a LiteON burner for KProbe scans, but I do have a LiteON 163D DVD-ROM drive that can be locked to 4x read speed if KProbe scans are needed. Any feedback on the scans and what the problem might be would be appreciated. It looks like as long as I stay at 8X with the Prodisc DVD+R media I should be within the limits of a readable DVD, but like I said the read errors concern me.

#2

Other users have reported 8x -12x available burnings speeds for TY01 (4x +) with B7M9. Are they labeled Taiyo Yuden? Your the first person to report not very good results with DW1620 and Prodisc R03 (sometimes we get a bit of a hump at the end when doing 12x). Although the PIFs look good on your 12x burn. Seems like inconsistent results. Maybe you don’t have a good drive? Also try it as set to Master and not sharing on that IDE just to see if your results get more consistent. Do the BenQ disks play on the Mintek? Are you using a 80pin cable?

#3

They are Fuji’s made in Japan and DVD Decrypter reports the Media Code as:
Manufacturer ID: TYG01

I don’t mind so much the 8X on the Prodisc’s, but was hoping for 12X. I planned on using the Prodisc R03’s for this project since they are fairly good quality for the price. Like you said, the inconsistent results worry me.

#4

Here’s what I’m talking about Prodisc @12x.


#5

Could you try using DVDInfoPro 3.41 or latest and putting a Fuji TY01 in and hit the Media button and see what write descriptors you get with it?

#6

The BenQ is set as Master on IDE2 and is the only drive on the channel on a 80 pin cable. DMA on that channel is running at DMA Mode 2. I haven’t had time to watch all of the DVD’s I’ve burned off today. I did scan through the 1st one (Ritek R03) and it did not skip at any point…
here is the info on the Fuji disc:

                        Media Information

Region information N/A not a DVD-VIDEO
Media code/Manufacturer ID TYG01
Format Capacity Blank Disc
Free Blocks 412352512
Free Capacity 4.38GB(4.71GB)
Book Type DVD-R
Media Type DVD-R
Manufacturer Rated Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
Available Write Descriptor CLV 4.0x 5540KBps
Write Strategy Speed 4.0x 5540KBps
2x Speed OPC beta 08
2x Speed OPC power 0F
2x Write Strategy field 1 11 87 78 80
2x Write Strategy field 2 88 80 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta 05
4x Speed OPC power 16
4x Write Strategy field 1 0D 0F 0B 0B
4x Write Strategy field 2 97 08 0F 0B
4x Write Strategy field 3 00 00 00 00
4x Speed OPC beta multi-pulse 05
4x Speed OPC power multi-pulse 1B
4x Write Strategy field 4 13 A8 89 65
4x Write Strategy field 5 B6 89 88 80 00 00
4x Write Strategy field 6 00 00 D0 00 00
Data area starting sector 30000h
Linear Density 0.267um/bit
Track Density 0.74um/track
Number of Layers 1

                       Complete Media Code

00000000 00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 86 0D 13 .l…@…R…
00000010 66 78 80 00 03 54 59 47 30 31 00 00 04 00 00 00 fx…TYG01…
00000020 00 00 00 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 06 08 0F 11 …

#7

OK your talking about TY 4x “-”, I thought you were talking about +. BenQ always do better with +, not that they don’t do - well too.

#8

I’ve had verying results with prodisc.r03 at 12x. Soem cheap bulkpaq prodisc.r03 works less good. But my eProformance works excellent.

TY 4x +R works at 12x, not the -R.

Ritek.R03 have been excellent for me though - written about 50 of these at 12x of various brands and all is perfect so far…

#9

U might wanna chek the ide cable quality

#10

this is how my MSI DR16-B ( Benq 1620 oem) burned a PRODISCR03 8x@12x

the results r not bad at all.

#11

T01 writing at 12X

#12

Prodisc R03 written at 12X

#13

You are using the VIA chipsets…!

#14

Been using this mobo with 4 DVD writers and have never had this much trouble.

Here is a scan with a new 80 pin cable on a Ritek R03 @12x. Scanned with my LiteON DVD-ROM and it failed. I have the booktype set to -ROM for +R media, however the BenQ detects the disc as +R after burned and the LiteON detects it as -ROM.

8a.jpg632x930 80.3 KB

#15

here is the LiteOn scan


#16

I watched the last couple of chapters of the above disc on my standalone and no playback issues. However, with the scans I’m seeing, I don’t fell confident to mail out several hundred DVDs that scan the way these do.

#17

So burn the PRODISCR03 discs at 8x. The difference in time between 8x and 12x is not really very large, and the difference in quality is fairly large.

#18

Or you could try sending the drive back for another one and see if it is just a bad drive. Your other option is to get the ND3500 and a bunch of sony 08D1 discs and burn them @ 16x.

#19

I don’t burn hundreds of DVDs, but from what I’ve picked up if I had to burn hundreds of DVDs, with high confidence every burn is a good burn at 8x, I’d maybe go with Ricohjpnr01, TY01 and then TY02 all + and all should burn at 8x with “M” and TY01 and 02 are reported to work at 12x. I ordered them in the way I see scans that seem to have the most consist quality burns.

#20

I’ve tried a few more burns and nothing has improved. On the last burn using a Ritek R03 @8X, after writing the leadin DVD Decrypter stopped writing at 1% with an error. So I installed the BenQ in my other system that has an NForce 2 mobo with M$ IDE drivers. Tried burning a Prodisc R03 @8X and the same thing happened with the error after writing the leadin. Giving it one last shot, I burned a Prodisc and made it all the way through, but still get read errors with the drive not being able to finish reading the disc (I think this is more a problem with CD Speed).
Given the troubles with recent write errors on two different brands of discs, and the inconsistent results… should I keep the drive or exchange it?