For our CD transfer rate tests, we used the Nero CD-Speed utility and a set of Pressed CDs. The drive can read CD media at a maximum speed of 32X. For reference, we present a comparison of the LG BD-RE GGW-H10N drive with the Pioneer BD-ROM BDC 202, Lite-On BD B LH-2B1S and Plextor BD-R PX-B900A drives (the Plextor drive is not used in all of the comparisons).

Pressed CD

US RW CD

The following CD Speed graph shows the reading performance with US-RW media. For all the CDSpeed graphs, you can click on the image to see the full CDspeed snapshot.

- AudioCD

In the CD Speed Advanced DAE quality test, the drive's average speed was 24.12X with a quality score of 100.

A typical DAE task with an 80min non-protected Audio CD produced 23.6X average ripping speed.

- 90/99 mins Audio disc

The 90min audio CD reading returned a read error, while the 99min audio CD produced some speed ups and downs at the end of the reading process, but finished successfully, as you can see in the screenshots above.

- DVD Format

Now let's have a look at how the drive's performance with DVD media. This time, a set of SL and DL DVD media was used. The drive is capable of reading at 8X maximum speed with single layer and at 4X with dual layer media.

DVD-ROM SL media -

PTP DVD-ROM -

The two layers of a PTP DVD-ROM disc are read sequentially with the drive starting reading from the inner part of the disc, which is the beginning of each layer, progressing towards its outer range.

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 of 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 and progresses towards the inner part of the disc.

- DVD-R /-RW

- DVD+R /+RW

- DVD+R DL

-DVD-R DL

-HD DVD-ROM media ("The Bourne Supremacy" film )

This is a dual-layer HD DVD-ROM (30GB capacity) which contains the "Bourne Supremacy" film. The disc is not written to its full capacity so the reading session only reads up to about 21,5GB of data. The disc was read at 2.4X CAV, in compliance with the drive's specifications. The interesting part here is that the drive's seek times do not differ significantly compared to those we got with a DVD-ROM 9 OTP.

-BD-ROM media ("Open Season" film)

The BD-ROM (containing the "Open Season" film) disc was read at 4X, CAV. The drive also supports reading of dual-layer BD-ROMs at 3.2X CAV.

During testing, we initially faced an issue when reading the specific disc.The speed dropped sharply at the end of the reading session, as you can see in the CDSpeed graph below.

This drop in the speed could be attributed to local defects or dust, although they are not visible with the naked eye. The disc was cleaned with a special liquid spray and was tested again. The result was the very good reading, as seen in the CDSpeed reading graph further up.

We should mention here, that Blu-Ray media is extremely sensitive to dust. Although this was a main concern of the Blu-Ray Disc Association from the beginning, and companies like TDK addressed this issue by adding protection layers on the Blu-Ray discs, the actual testing done at CDRinfo indicates that the playability of a BD disc is heavily dependant on the disc surface of the disc. This issue will be addressed in an upcoming article.

- DVD Ripping speed

Average - 8,154 KB/S (5.9x)
Maximum - 11,314 KB/s (8.2x)