The AOpen DUW1608/ARR is a fast CD/DVD reader, reporting high reading speeds. Video ripping was also fast and with no problems or delays. Great DVD error correction capabilities were observed but only average CD error correction. Nero CD/DVD Speed reported average Audio Extraction speed but gave the drive a perfect score of 100. Regarding protected Audio CDs, the burner faced problems reading Key2Audio and CDS200 protected discs. Moreover, protected games were not a strong point of this AOpen drive, since it managed to make working backups of SafeDisk protected games up to v.2.8.

The drive offers up to 48X CD writing speed, the highest current speed offered by burners on the market currently.

The AOpen DUW1608/ARR features 16X P-CAV writing speed for DVD+R media. It took 7:11mins to burn a full Single Layer disc, which is a time that needs improvement. Quality at such a high speed is a real headache for burners and the AOpen gave mixed results, but more on the good quality burns side. There is definitely some room for further improvements here, especially at the 12X writing speed for DVD+R media. We hope to see future firmware releases resolve problems that occurred with certain media written at different speeds. For DVD-R media, burning quality was good, but bear in mind that many burners out there at the moment support up to 16X writing speeds.

A big advantage of this drive is the Booktype setting support with the original firmware. With Double Layer media, we observed good writing performance with the one and only speed the AOpen burner offers (2.4X).

- The Good

• Good DVD error correction
• High CD reading speed
• High DVD reading speed
• Supports booktype setting changes for DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL.
• Very good DVD burning quality

- The Bad

• Average CD error correction
• Doesn't accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs
• Doesn't support CD/DVD overburning
• Does not accurately backup certain protected audio discs (Key2audio, CDS200 special disc "Aiko Katsukino")

- Like to be fixed

• DVD writing quality needs improvement with DVD+R media at 12X
• High C1/C2 errors with specific media at 48X
• No Region free utilities

Retail Package
Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features