Duet CD-R2-U2 CD-RW/DVD COMBO

Review Pages

1. Introduction - Package
2. Data CD Reading Tests
3. CD-R Error Correction Tests
4. DVD Reading tests
5. DVD Error Correction Tests
6. CloneCD Reading Tests
7. DAE Tests
8. Recording Tests
9. Writing Quality Tests
10. HS-RW Writing Tests
11. Conclusion

Duet CD-R2-U2 slim CD-RW/DVD combo - Page 8

CDR Tests

We tested the drive using the latest version of Nero/CloneCD. The Duet LSC-24081 supports the 24x (Z-CLV) maximum writing speed.

The writing strategy is divided in 5 Zones, starting from 8x in the first minutes of the disc, accelerating to 12x@11min, up to 16x@21min, shifting to 20x@42min, and finally to 24x@67min until the end of the process. Due to the large number of steps for reach the 24x speed, the average writing speed is kept below 17x (16.27x). This is expected to result in high recording times.

- Recording Tests

We created a 80min data compilation disc under Nero Burning Rom (burning 700MB of data). As you can see, the drive needed 407 seconds to finish the task, and the duration is large in comparison to a 24x recorder. The explanation for this can be found in the CDSpeed graph above, where you can see the Z-CLV implementation of the drive. The INcoder TS-24C-C1 was faster, but the burned data was 79min, since the drive does not support overburning.

The following picture comes from Nero after a successful burning at 24x:

Writing at 16x also gave long writing times. Below is a screenshot of Nero writing at 16x:

The Duet drive is slower than INcoder TS24C-C1 in all the available writing speeds:

- Other features

Overburning	Up to 99min
CD text reading/writing	Yes

- CloneCD Writing Tests

The CloneCD software reports that the drive supports the DAO-RAW feature. For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles (based on different SafeDisc 2 versions) with the latest software patches installed. We used the drive as both a reader/writer at the maximum attainable reading/recording speeds. Two discs were burned for each game (Amplify Weak Sectors On/Off). The results are posted in the table below:

Game Title	Tested Drive	SD2 Build	Settings
			Amplify Weak Sectors On	Amplify Weak Sectors Off
Max Payne v1.05	Creative 52X CD-ROM	v.2.50.020	OK
	TEAC 40X CD-ROM
	BTC DV316 DVD-ROM
Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07	Creative 52X CD-ROM	v.2.60.052	No
	TEAC 40X CD-ROM
	BTC DV316 DVD-ROM
The Sims - Unleashed	Creative 52X CD-ROM	v2.80.010
	TEAC 40X CD-ROM
	BTC DV316 DVD-ROM

The Duet LSC-24081 cannot handle all the versions of the SafeDisc 2 protections. It created working backups of SD v2.50.0.20 that played in all the drives we tried them. The backups worked with or without the "Amplify Weak Sectors" feature. However, the latest Safe Disc versions were hard to be overpassed.