DVD+R DL - Page 1

- DVD+R DL BookType Setting

The DW1600A is capable of writing Double Layer discs, nearly doubling the capacity that can be stored on one disc. BenQ was one of the first companies to add DL support in DVD+R recorders. For our tests we used the media sent by LiteON for our tests, based on Mitsubishi Chemicals with the following information, as reported from DVDInfoPro software:

BenQ Book Type Management v.8.2 program ensures media backward compatibility with older DVD players. This program allows us to freely choose a DVD+RW, DVD+R or DVD+R DL disc to be written as DVD-ROM book type, the most recognized disc format for DVD players.

After pressing the "Set to DVD-ROM Type" a warning message informed us that the BookType setting can be changed before burning:

Unfortunately, we cannot change the BookType setting for already burned media with the BenQ DW1600A DL. As BenQ said, the BookType setting highly improves the compatibility with DVD players. Due to the limited amount of DVD+R DL media, we didn't have the chance for now, to test how the Booktype setting affects compatibility.

There is also an easier way to change the Booktype setting, within Nero 6.0 right before the writing process begins.

- Writing Tests

We burned a DVD+R DL disc with DVD-Video content. The source disc was "Gladiator Movie - Special Edition" disc1 with a total size of 6.86GB. First we transferred the movie to the hard disc with DVD Decrypter as ISO format (single file). Afterwards, we used CopyToDVD v3.0.0.16. The friendly wizard prompts us to choose from among the main tasks:

For our test, we used the "Movie & Pictures" option, and then the "Write DVD Video".

The software prompts us to select Video_TS/ISO image folder. We chose the "GLADIATOR.ISO" image and we selected the BenQ DW1600A DL burner.

After pressing "OK", the burning procedure started, without any unexpected delays (such as 50secs delay with the LiteON 832S). It should be noted that the Booktype setting was not changed, to test if it will be changed automatically by the software:

The writing process was finished after 40:16 minutes. The average speed was 2.24X as reported from CopyToDVD software. The recorded disc was in DVD-ROM format, with the booktype setting having been changed automatically by the software.

For comparison reasons, we post some burning results from other DL writers, which all burned the same content ("Gladiator Movie - Special Edition" disc1), using CopyToDVD software:

The best recording performance comes from the NEC 2510A, while the BenQ DW1600A DL came last with 40:16mins.