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1. Package - Installation

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 1

Taiwanese manufacturer, AOpen, has expanded its product line to include motherboards, graphics cards, sound cards and other PC peripherals. With optical storage devices, Aopen has released the new DRW8800, commercially labeled as Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual.

- AOpen DRW4410 features

The drive supports DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD-RW, DVD, CD while offering good compatibility with recording software. Aopen features the Just Link technology developed by Ricoh to prevent buffer under-run errors. During the writing process, the drive calculates the optimum laser power, adjusting it in real-time to compensate for a dirty disc.

- Specifications

Interface	IDE/ATAPI
Buffer Size	2 MB
Disc Diameter	12cm,8cm
Write Speed	DVD-R	8X ZCLV
	DVD-RW	4X CLV
	DVD+R	8X ZCLV
	DVD+RW	4X CLV
	CD-R	32 X ZCLV
	CD-RW	16x ZCVL
Read Speed	DVD+R	8x
	DVD+RW	8x
	DVD-R	8x
	DVD-RW	8X
	DVD-ROM	12x
	DVD-VIDEO	5x
	CD-ROM /CD-R	40x
	CD-RW	32x
Average Access Time	DVD	140ms
	CD	120ms
Supported formats	CD	DVD
	CD-Audio CD-DA CD-ROM CD-ROM XA CD-R CD-RW CD-I Photo-CD Video CD CD Extra CD Text	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD-R DVD-RW DVD-ROM DVD-Video
Writing modes	CD	DVD
	Disc at Once Packet Writing Sesion at Once Track at Once	Disc at Once DVD-Video Incremental(DVD-R/-RW) Multi-Border(DVD-R/-RW) Multi-sesion(DVD+R/+RW) Random write(DVD+R/+RW) Restricted overwrite(DVD-RW) Sequential write(DVD+R/+RW)
Dimensions	Width 148mm Height 46mm Depth 190mm
Mass ( Weight )	Less than 1.02kg

According to InfoTool, the drive uses 2MB buffer memory. On the read features, the only unavailable read format is the DVD-RAM format while with the write features it does not support DVD-RAM and Mount Rainier. PacketWriting and all other writable/rewritable formats are supported. Under the modes tab, RAW DAO 96 writing (CD) is also supported.

Aopen uses the RPC II region control, allowing a user to change the drive's region at most 5 times(3 shown above). For our tests, we set the region code to 2 (Europe).

- Retail package

The retail package includes a quick installation quide, mounting screws, an analog cable and the Aopen DRW8800/AAN. The software is provided on two CDs. The first includes Nero Express 6 and PowerDVD 5.0 for writing and playback tasks. The second includes Sonic MyDVD and Arcsoft ShowBiz for video authoring.

 

 

- The drive

The drive's front panel is pretty much standard, with all logos on the loading tray. The CD-RW logo , the +RW and -RW logos and the Aopen logo (colored black). Also on the front panel are the eject button, the activity led indicator, the emergency hole while there are no volume control and headphone jack.

On the rear panel there are the analogue and digital audio outputs (SPDIF), the IDE connector and the power input.

Removing the screws and opening the drive's cover voids the drive's warranty. For reference reasons, we post the following pictures.

- Installation

The Aopen drive was connected to our test PC and was identified as "AOPEN 8X8 DVD Dual AAN" under WinXP. All tests were done with firmware v.1.4A

The following pages include test results for Aopen's drive in comparison with two other dual DVD burners, the Teac DV-W58G-A and Memorex True-8x.

 

 

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2. Data CD Reading Tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 2

Data CD Reading Tests

In order to test the reading performance of the Aopen DRW8800 we used the latest version of NeroCDSpeed and the appropriate type of media according to the test.

- Pressed CD results (Click for CDSpeed results)

To check the reading performance of Aopen with pressed CD media, we used NeroCDSpeed and a data pressed disc.

All three tested drives support 40x maximum reading speed. The reading strategy of the Aopen for the pressed disc, is CAV. The drive gave back the fastest end and average speeds at 41.99x and 31.63x respectively.

The reported seek times for the Aopen are slightly higher than the acceptable level. The above graph shows that Aopen was faster than the other two drives on Full seek time. With the random and 1/3 seeks, the Aopen was faster than Memorex but slower than Teac.

- CD-R Media results (Click for CDSpeed results)

To check the reading performance of Aopen with CDR media, we used NeroCDSpeed and a clone of the previous tested pressed media.

Just as with the pressed disc all drives managed to reach the supported 40x maximum reading speed. Aopen read the CD-R media under CAV reading strategy, with a reported end speed of 41.63x

On the CD-R test disc, the Aopen drive gave back faster seek times than the other two drives for 1/3 and Full seek modes, at 120ms and 177ms respectively. On the Random seek Teac gave back the fastest access time.

- ReWritable Media (Click for CDSpeed results)

To check the reading performance of Aopen with US-RW media, we used NeroCDSpeed and a USRW disc from Mitsubishi Chemicals.

According to Aopen's specifications, the drive supports 32x reading speed with RW media. After the end of NeroCDSpeed reading test, the software reported 39.26x end reading speed for the tested device. As shown on the above graph, the end speed of Aopen is higher than the other two drives. However the average reading speed for all drives is at the same level.

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3. CD Error Correction Tests

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Error Correction Tests

In the following tests we check the drive's behavior when reading scratched / defective audio discs. The test discs used were the ABEX series from ALMEDIO.

- ABEX TCD-721R

 

 

 

Errors total	Num: 3072530
Errors (Loudness) dB(A)	Num: 132124	Avg: -74.1 dB(A)	Max:-21.9 dB(A)
Error Muting Samples	Num: 9303	Avg: 1.1 Samples	Max: 89 Samples
Skips Samples	Num: 14	Avg: 6.4 Samples	Max: 12 Samples
Total Test Result	65.7 points (out of 100.0 maximum)

The software reported that the error correction abilities of the drive are within the acceptable levels. The overall performance awarded was 65.7 points out of 100. The 721R test disc is difficult to read with most drives, and the Aopen writer logged 3072530 reading errors during the read process and 14 of them were skipped.

- ABEX TCD-726

 

 

 

Errors total	Num: 7787
Errors (Loudness) dB(A)	Num: 12100	Avg: -84.3 dB(A)	Max: -15.2 dB(A)
Error Muting Samples	Num: 101	Avg: 12.1 Samples	Max: 467 Samples
Skips Samples	Num: 2	Avg: 6.0 Samples	Max: 6 Samples
Total Test Result	74.1 points (out of 100.0 maximum)

The 726 Abex test disc is less severe than the 721R and therefore the score for the drive is better with a total score of 74.1 points. The test finished with only 7787 errors but once again there was muting with skipped samples.

- CD-Check Audio Test Disc

 

The CD-Check Test Disc is a very useful tool for evaluating the Sound Reproduction / Error correction capabilities of a CD player. The disc offers a signal combination with disc error patterns to rate the drive's reading music abilities and reproduce it completely. Five tracks on the disc contain a progressively difficult sequence. These tracks are referred to as Check Level-1 through Check Level-5.

 

 

The tracks are reproduced (played) through a software multimedia player (i.e. Winamp, PowerDVD, Windows Media Player). Each level is considered as passed, if the tone coming out from the speakers is smooth, continuous without interruptions, skipping or looping. The higher the Check Level passed, the more reliable the sound reproduction of the drive.

Error Level	1	2	3	4	5
Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual	5/5	5/5	5/5	0/5	0/5

Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual successfully passed only the first three levels of the CD-Check Audio test. Most drives manage to pass up to 4th level but once again Aopen proved poor on the CD error correction part.

- Summary

Test Disc	Reading Speed	Score
ABEX TCD-721R	Max	65.7
ABEX TCD-726		74.1
Average Score		69.9

The average score for the Aopen 8x8 Dual DVD is only 69.9 points out of 100.0 This score, coupled with the poor overall performance of the drive with the CD error correction tests shows a weak point of the AOpen writer.

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4. DVD reading tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 4

DVD reading tests

- Single Layer DVD-ROM (Click for CDSpeed results)

To check the reading performance of the Aopen drive with single layer DVD-ROM, we used NeroCDSpeed and the 820A test disc from Abex.

The single layer DVD reading test gave similar average reading speeds for all writers. The 11.91x reported end speed for the Aopen drive is acceptable although it was the slowest among the three. The disc was read under CAV mode with an average speed of 8.9x

The seek times of the Aopen drive are slighlty higher than the acceptable level. The drive returned faster seek times than Memorex but proved to be slower than Teac in all modes.

- Dual Layer PTP DVD-ROM (Click for CDSpeed results)

The two layers of a PTP DVD-ROM disc are read sequentially, with the drive starting the read process from the inner tracks on the disc, where lies the beginning of each layer and progressing outwards towards to the outer tracks for each layer. The tools for this test are Nero CDSpeed and the Abex 840 test disc.

Although previously NeroCDSpeed reported similar reading speeds for all devices with the single layer DVD-ROM reading test, the dual layer disc reading results are quite different. The Aopen drive returned results slower than the other drives, with the Memorex and Teac drives having identical speeds.

The seek times of the Aopen and Memorex drives are increased in comparison to Teac. Aopen finished the Full seek after 236ms and that result is 67ms slower than Teac but 69ms faster than Memorex.

- Dual Layer OTP DVD-ROM

The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously. The difference here is the reading strategy of the second layer on the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks inwards towards the inner tracks of the disc.

 

 

The reading performance of the AOpen drive during the reading process of the dual layer OTP disc was smooth and accurate. The drive read the disc under CAV with an end speed of 7.20x and an average speed of 5.40x. The reported seek times however are slightly high.

- DVD Ripping Tests

We measured the DVD-Video ripping speed for the Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual using the latest version of DVD Decrypter. The DVD Video title is the "Matrix" pressed DVD-Video.

The graph above shows that Aopen and Memorex drives finished the ripping process with about the same average speed but the Teac drive provided double the speed.

- DVD Recordable / Rewritable reading Tests

The chart below shows the Nero CDSpeed average reading speed results with the following media by MC:

• 8x DVD+R
• 4x DVD+RW

• 8x DVD-R
• 4x DVD-RW

Just as with the other two tested drives, the Aopen drive returned similar average reading speed independently of the tested DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW media. The average reading speed of the Aopen drive however, with all tested media is slower in comparison with the other two writers. The Aopen drive read all media under CAV reading strategy.

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5. DVD Error Correction Tests

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DVD Error Correction Tests

In the following tests we examined the DVD reading capabilities of the Aopen drive with scratched / defective DVD media. For the tests we used CDVD Benchmark and Nero CDSpeed. The reference test media come from ALMEDIO.

- Single Layer media

ABEX TDR-821

This is a single sided, single layer DVD-ROM with a 4.7GB capacity, and its surface has an artificial scratch of dimensions varying from 0.4 to 3.0 mm. The following transfer rate picture comes from the CDVD Benchmark v1.21 transfer rate test.

 

 

 

 

The screenshot from CDVD Benchmark shows that Aopen finished the DVD error correction test wihout reporting any reading errors. The yellow spots inidcate that the drive had to change speed often, especially at the begining of the defective area. The succesfull completion of the test with a final reading speed of 14x, indicates good and fast overall performance.

ABEX TDR-825

This is also a single sided, single layer DVD-ROM with 4.7GB capacity. The data structure of the disc is exactly the same as that of the TDR-821, with the difference that there are no scratches on the surface and instead defective areas ranging in dimensions from 0.5 to 1.1 mm. There are also fingerprints with height between 65 and 75 micrometers.

 

 

Aopen proves so far to be a very good reader with defective DVD media The test finished without reading errors and the reported end speed was 12x CAV.

- Dual Layer media

ABEX TDR-841

This is an 8.5GB dual layer, single sided DVD-ROM disc with artificial scratches of dimensions ranging from 0.4 to 3.0mm, on both layers.

 

 

 

 

Most drives have difficulties during the reading process with the 841 Abex test disc but the reading performance of Aopen was unusual. CDVD Benchmark reported read errors on both layers while from 1.3Gb to 2Gb no reading mesurements are reported.

ABEX TDR-845

This disc is a single sided, dual layer DVD-ROM disc with capacity of 8.5GB. The only difference between the TDR-845 and the TDR-841 is that the first includes both defective areas and fingerprints. The dimensions of the defective areas range from 0.5 to 1.1 mm and the fingerprints have height sized from 65 to 75 microns (micrometres).

 

 

 

The reading performance of the Aopen drive with the 845 ABex test disc on the error correction process is almost perfect. The Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual drive managed to bypass the defective areas on both layers without even needing to slow down in speed. However the above screenshot shows that the drive changed reading speed often during the switch operation for layer 0 to layer 1.

ABEX TDV-541

The TDV-541 is a single sided, dual layer DVD-VIDEO disc, with a capacity of 8.5GB.The disc is based on the TDV-540 series which is designed for inspection and adjustment of DVD-VIDEO players. The disc checks the layer switch operation from layer 0 to layer 1 and also includes test pictures and test signals for DVD sound files. The current TDV-541 also checks the error correcting capabilities of the drive and includes scratches sized from 0.4 to 3.0 mm.

Unfortunately the drive failed to read the 541 test disc. NeroCDSpeed reported unrecovered read error before the layer switch process.

ABEX TDV-545

The TDV-545 disc is based on the TDV-540 series. It is a single sided, dual layer Video/S-2 disc with a capacity of 8.5GB. The TDV-545 includes artificial black dots on the disc's surface, sized from 0.4 to 1.0 mm. It also has 65 - 75 micrometre high fingerprints.

 

 

 

The error corection performance of the Aopen drive with the 545 DVD-ROM disc was very good. The drive reached 4.59x reading speed while the reported average speed was 3.44x. The disc was read smoothly under CAV without deviations to the reading velocity.

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6. Protected Disc Tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 6

- Reading Tests

To create an image of the various protected titles onto a hard disk, we used Alcohol 120% v1.4.8.1222 and the appropriate settings, depending on the protection type of the inserted discs. Below are summarized the capabilities of the Aopen drive, according to CloneCD software. The summary below shows that the drive supports writing of CD+G under RAW DAO:

The game titles we used to test the reading speed for each protection scheme are given in the table below:

Game Title	Protection Scheme
PSX "NBA Jam Extreme"	Lybcrypt
Serious Sam The Second Encounter v1.07	SafeDisc v.2.60.052
VRally II	SecuROM v.2

PSX Pressed Media

SafeDisc v.2

SecuROM v.2

Except form the PSX ripping, where the Aopen drive was the fastest, in the other two cases it had average performance.

- Writing Tests

The Aopen drive supports the DAO-RAW writing mode. For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles with different SafeDisc versions and with the latest software patches installed. After making the image files of the various titles to the hard disk, we burned them (maximum speed) with Alcohol 120%. Two different discs were created for each title; one with the "Bypass EFM error" enabled and one more with the function disabled.

The table below shows the results of the attempted backups and whether they working (game installed / played normally), or not.

Drive	Game Title	SD2 Build	Settings
			Bypass EFM error On	Bypass EFM error Off
Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual	Max Payne	v2.51.020	Yes	No
	Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07	v.2.60.052	No	No
	The Sims Unleashed	v.2.8	No	No
	The Sims Superstar	v2.9	No	No
	Fifa 2004	v3.10	No	No

The Aopen drive made only one playable copy among all tested games. The drive is definitely not a good solution for backing up protected games. The only game that was playable was Max Payne that has the oldest Safedisc protection scheme of all tested games. Moreover, the compatibility of the valid copy was restricted since the Aopen was the only device on which the game could play.

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7. DAE Tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 7

DAE Tests

- Pressed and CDR AudioCD results

To test the DAE reading performance of Aopen we used NeroCDSpeed and a pressed audio disc. To check the performance on audio cdr media we made a clone of the pressed disc.

CDSpeed reported that the disc was read under CAV with average reading speed 25.67x. The reported seek times were good.

 

 

 

 

We ripped the contents of both Pressed and CD-R Audio disc to our hard disk, using the CDDAE software. Aopen gave the lowest average ripping speed of the comparison with both pressed and CDR media.

- Advanced DAE Quality

NeroCDSpeed Advanced DAE quality test awardede the Aopen drive with aquality score of 100 (perfect). The returned the slowest reading speed among the three drives while CDSpeed reported that the device is too slow for "On The Fly" copying at 16x but it can be safety be used as a reader, at slower speeds. On the advanced features, the drive does not read Leadin/Leadout informations but reads Subchannel Data and CD Text.

- Support of 90/99mins AudioCDs

The drive didn't manage to rip or play the contents of the 99min disc. However the 90min disc played and ripped successfully.

- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCDs

For the test procedure we used two audio discs with different audio protection schemes. We tested for both recognition and ripping to the hard disk. The software used was Exact Audio Copy.

* Pressed Audio disc protected by Sony Key2Audio (Celine Dion - New Day Has Come)

* Pressed Audio disc protected by Cactus Data Shield 200 (Natalie Imbruglia - White Lilies Island)

	Key2Audio	CDS200
	EAC
Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual	OK	OK
Teac DV-W58G-A	OK	OK
Memorex True-8x	OK	Recognize the disc but cannot rip or play the contents

The Aopen 8x8 was able to playback and rip the contents of both protected audio discs.

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8. CD Recording Tests

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CD Recording Tests

- CD-R Writing Tests

To test the writing speed and writing method of the drive we used a blank 80min CD-R disc from TY and NeroCDSpeed to emulate the writing process.

The screenshot from NeroCDSpeed is representative of P-CAV writing. The drive changed the writing speed 4 times in order to reach the maximum writing speed of 32x. The writing process started at 15.99x and achieved writing at 32x after about 40min mark on the disc's surface. After that point the speed was stabilized and the test finished at 32.08x, resulting in an average speed of 27.32x.

 

 

- Recording Times

We created an 80min data compilation with Nero Burning Rom and recorded it on a 700MB disc.

The above graph shows that the Teac drive was the fastest writing device and that was expected since it supports 40x maximum writing speed. Aopen was second with maxumum avaliable writing speed 32x and Memorex was third with maximum speed at 24x.

On the above graph we have summarized the writing speeds for the Aopen drive at all avaliable recording speeds.

We used various media from different manufacturers to test the writing speed and media compatibility of the Aopen. The results are summarized on the graph above. All tested discs returned almost the same time, showing a general compatability with a wide variety of manufacturers media.

- CD-RW Writing Tests

To test the writing speed and writing method of the drive we used a blank 74min CD-RW disc from MC and NeroCDSpeed to emulate the writing process.

The disc was writen with an end speed of 17.84x while the average reported speed was 16.02x. The RW media was written uder CLV

 

 

 

 

Below we provide a comparison of the three drives where we used Nero Burning Rom software to burn a 651MB data compilation onto 24x US-RW media from MC.

Aopen needed about 3:09 minutes for the writing test while the quick erase finished after 30sec.

- Packet Writing Tests

For the packet writing test we used the InCD packet writing software from Nero and a Mitsubishi Chemicals 24x US-RW media. The tested file is a 403 MB file (412.822 KB) and we used the drag and drop method with Windows Explorer to write the file from our hard disk onto RW media.

Operation	Duration	Average speed
Read	2:32 min	19.9 X
Write	3:30 min	14.4 X

The reading and the writing process under packet writing, gave back almost the same results. The average reading speed is 19.9x while the average writing speed is 14.4x.

- Other features

Overburning	Up to 90 min
CD text reading/writing	Yes

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9. Writing quality - 3T Jitter Tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 9

Writing Quality Tests - 3T Jitter Tests

Aopen 8x8 supports 32x maximum writing speed for CD-R media. To test the writing quality of the Aopen, we used media from different manufacturers and burned them at the maximum allowed speed. The Pit and Land Jitter of all written media are illustrated in the graphs below.

- 3T Pit results

The jitter levels are low for all media except the AM brand, which means good writing quality.

The above graph shows that the average Pit values of all written media, except AM, is below the 35ns Red Book limit. All discs were written at 32x under P-CAV and the values are very good.

- 3T Land results

As with the Pit jitter level, so too with Land jitter, the writng quality is again good for all tetsted discs, except the AM. The graph below confirms this.

Recording Speed	Average 3T Pit Jitter (ns)	Average 3T Land Jitter (ns)	> 35ns	Max 3T jitter values (ns)
TY 48X	30.68	29.93	No	33 Pit, 33 Land
SmartBuy 52X	28.49	28.76	No	31 Pit, 31 Land
Platinum 48X	30.68	31.00	No	34 Pit, 34 Land
AM 48X	36.46	34.95	Yes	39 Pit, 43 Land
Primedisc 48X	30.24	27.12	No	33 Pit, 32 Land
MAM 48X	30.68	29.95	No	33 Pit, 33 Land

The above table shows that all media produced quality writing. The maximum 3T jitter of all discs are lower than the 35ns Red Book limitation except the AM disc. Aopen proves to be a quality writer with CD-R media.

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10. C1 / C2 Error Measurements

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 11

Writing Quality Tests - C1 / C2 Error Measurements

The C1 / C2 error rate was measured for the recorded discs, burned during the previous writing tests (jitter). The software used was UMDoctor Pro II and the reader is the Optorite DD0203 drive.

• Taiyo Yuden 48x recorded at 16x
  

• Taiyo Yuden 48x recorded at 20x

• Taiyo Yuden 48x recorded at 24x

• Taiyo Yuden 48x recorded at 32x

• Smartbuy 52x recorded at 32x
  
  

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11. DVD Recording Tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 11

DVD Recording Tests

- Writing Performance

The Aopen DRW8800 supports both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW writing. The drive uses the same writing speed and strategy for the writable format at 8x under Z-CLV. For the rewritable discs the maximum writting speed of 4x is supported while the writing strategy is CLV for both formats.

4x DVD-R

Nero CDSpeed confirmed the 8x maximum writing speed. The disc was written under P-CAV mode and as is shown in the screenshot below, the drive needed to inrease speed twice. Aopen accelerated speed from 4x to 6x after 750mb, while the second speed-up step was at 2.3Gb. The test ended at 8.67x and despite the fact that the writting process started at 4.13x the reported average speed was 6.80x, a result that is quite acceptable.

 

 

8x DVD+R

The writing simulation of the +R media is similar to the previous tested -R disc, with Z-CLV writing strategy and two speed steps at 750Mb and 2.3Gb respectively. The end speed at 8.36x is slighlty increased in comparison with that reported for -R media while NeroCDSpeed returned similar average writing speeds for both writable media.

 

 

4x DVD+RW

With DVD+RW format, Aopen 8x8 supports 4x recording under CLV writing method. NeroCDSpeed reported smooth and linear writing process with end speed at 4.14x and average speed 4.13x

 

 

 

4x DVD-RW

Just like the +RW disc, the -RW disc was written under CLV strategy with average recording speed 4.14x

 

 

 

 

- Burning Tests

The following graphs show the maximum writing speeds of the three devices with all available DVD writable and rewritable media.

There is no major difference between the plus and the minus formats on writing times for Aopen. The dirve needed a litlle more than nine minutes to complete the burning task of writable media while the rewritable discs burning task finished after about 14 minutes.

• Kagaku 8x DVD+R

• Verbatim 8x DVD-R

• Maxell 4x DVD+RW

• Kagaku 4x DVD-RW

Media	Code	Speed
Mitshubishi Kagaku 8x DVD+R	MCC003	8x
That's 8x DVD+R	YUDEN000 T02	8x
Philips 8x DVD+R	Philips C08	8x
CMC 8x DVD+R	CMC MAG E01	8x
That's 8x DVD-R	TYG02	8x
MCC 4x DVD-R	MCC01RG20	8x
Verbatim 8x DVD-R	MCC02RG20	8x
TY 4x DVD-R	TYG01	8x
CMC 8x DVD-R	CMC MAG AE1	4x
Maxell 4x DVD+RW	Philips 041	4x
Mitshubishi Kagaku 4x DVD-RW	MCC 01RW4x	4x

The table above presents writing speeds for the drive for various media formats. Most of the tested media were succesfully burned at 8x writing speed. On both formats, certified media for 4x writting were burned succesfully at 8x by the Aopen writter. The drive used the same writing method and speed for both writable formats and therefore the process ended after equal times, about 9:20 minutes.
On the rewritbable media Aopen was about 10sec faster on the +RW disc while both, +RW and -RW formats were written under CLV mode.

- Packet Writing Tests

For this test we copied a 403 MB file (412.822 KB) from Hard Disk (on the same PC as the recorder) in to formatted RW media, through Windows explorer (drag and drop).

DVD-RW	Duration	Average speed
Read	1:58 min	2.5X
Write	2:30 min	2.2X

DVD+RW	Duration	Average speed
Read	1.32 min	3.3X
Write	1.23 min	3.7X

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12. KProbe PI/PO quality tests

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 12

KProbe PI/PO quality results

The following screenshots show the PI/PO scans for various DVD-/+R and DVD-/+RW media, recorded with Aopen dual 8x8 at the maximum permitted speed.

The software used for the measurements was KProbe v1.1.28, the ECC was set to 8 and the reader was LiteOn LDW-811s. The specific methodology is very dependent on the drive used as a reader, while the reliability of the PI/PO provided output is also not technically confirmed. Hence, we cannot safely come up with conclusive results, although we do make a comparison of the drive behavior when using various DVD recordable/rewritable media.

The recordable discs we used, came from Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, CMC, MAM, Maxell , MC and Ritek. Further details about each disc type are presented at the bottom of this page.

• Kagaku DVD+R 8x (Recorded at 8x)
  

• Thats 8x DVD+R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• Philips 8x DVD+R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• That's 8x DVD-R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• MCC 4x DVD-R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• Verbatim 8x DVD-R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• TY 4x DVD-R (Recorded at 8x)
  

• Maxell 4x DVD+RW (Recorded at 4x)
  
  

• Kagaku 4x DVD-RW (Recorded at 4x)
  

Media	Code
Philips 8X DVD+R	Phlips C08
MITSUBISHI KAGAKU 8X DVD+R	MCC003
That's 8x DVD+R	YUDENT002
TY 4x DVD-R	TG01
MCC 4x DVD-R	MCC01RG20
That's 8x DVD-R	TYG02
Verbatim 8X DVD-R	MCC02RG20
MKM DVD+RW 4X	MKM A02
Mitsubishi Kagaku 4X DVD-RW	MCC 01RW4X

Kprobe awards the Aopen drive with quality results. From the screenshots above we can see that all media used for the quality measurement, returned good PI/PO levels. However the values are slightly increased at the end of each disc but still acceptable for both DVD+R and DVD-R formats, even from media that are certified for slower speed writing.

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13. Conclusion

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Aopen DRW8800/AAN - Page 13

Conclusion

Pros	Cons
8x DVD+R/-R writing 4x DVD+RW/-RW writing CD-R Overburning up to 90min Quality CD-R writing Quality DVD writing Wide CD compatibility Wide DVD media compatibility Can playback/rip Key2Audio and CDS200 discs	CD/DVD error correction Cannot create working backups of protected games

Our Aopen 8x8 package was the European retail version. The drive came bundled with software for cd/dvd writing and authoring. However we would like to see included in the package a couple of blank media.

In the CD reading tests the drive had good performance and confirmed the manufacturer's specifications. Also the seek times were at acceptable levels. As far as error correction is concerned for this type of media, we can easily say that it is not one of the strong characteristics of this drive. The performance was poor and we would like it to be better.

With DVD media, the Aopen drive was restricted to around 6x with DVD±RW media while it proved to have acceptable behavior with DVD-ROM discs. The reported seek times were high and we would like them to be much lower. As for the ripping speed we have seen better. An imprtant issue at this point is the performance of the drive with defective media, where the ABEX TDR-841 proved to be a problem for the drive while the playback with ABEX TDV-541 failed. Of course those two test discs are difficult, however other drives read them without problems.

The drive also failed in making working backups of protected games. Only one of our test games with an old version of SafeDisc protection was backed up successfully and this with the contribution of the burning software and its "Bypass EFM error" setting enabled. The ripping speed for all the games we tested was good and very good with PSX.

The drive also managed to playback and rip both of our protected Audio CDs and our 90min test disc. The 99min was not supported neither for rip nor for playback. The DAE quality score was excellent while the speed in the same test acceptable. In AudioCD reading the drive had good speed and also good seek times.

The maximum 32x recording for CD is good, while the 16x for US-RW is acceptable. The CD quality measurement tests prove that the drive is very good in this area with very good media compatibility. The jitter levels were low just as the C1 levels were while no C2 errors were reported. The performance with the AM 48X media was an exception but cannot detract from the overall writing quality of the drive.

For DVD recording the drive supports 8x for both DVD-R and DVD+R formats and 4x for RW. The recording quality here is also very good with the PI/PO levels being within the limits. The compatibility of the drive is also high with DVD media, since the drive managed to burn at 8x media certified for 4x for both formats.

Conluding we can say that this burner is appropriate for the user who wants quality recordings and doesn't care about backing up games or playing scratched media. The retail price at around $110 is good.

 

 

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