NEC ND-3500A Recorder - Page 27

Firmware Hacks - Page 1

There are a lot hacked firmware versions available all over the internet. The main interest is in expanding the supported media list and increasing the compatibility of Double Layer media. Most firmware can be found at "The Dangerous Brothers" website, and new, more advanced firmware is starting to appear in our forum. Of course, this firmware should be used at your own risk, since these are unofficial firmware that will void the warranty.

The biggest problem with Double Layer media is that the NEC ND-3500A firmware does not support Traxdata DL media. Users trying to solve this problem, are mainly using OEM device firmware to support this type of media. Known OEM ND-3500A drives are the TDK 1616N and the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9.

• TDK 1616N firmwares

The following table indicates the writing strategies of TDK's firmware.

Firmware version 2.78 is the latest version available. Version 2.C7 was intended to support only the Singapore local media market. However, these two version have a major difference.

As already discussed, DVD+RW media is written as DVD-ROM by default, while DVD+R media is written as DVD+R. With version 2.C7, booktype setting for DVD+R media is set to DVD-ROM by default. Unfortunately, there is no way to change that, but this ensures higher compatibility with stand-alone DVD Players. On the other hand, this does not apply for the 2.78 firmware version.

There are several firmware available that are based on this limited TDK 2.C7 firmware version, and the only thing that is changed is that the ND-3500A will not be renamed to TDK 1616N. We tested this firmware and we got the following information from NeroInfoTool.

We then tried to burn CMC Magnetics +R media to check the default booktype setting for this media type. As you can see below, latest DVDInfoPro and Nero CD/DVD Speed reported DVD-ROM booktype setting.

One other advantage with this firmware is that it supports Traxdata DL media at 4X writing speed. We used CopyToDVD to record our usual Double Layer recording project, the "GLADIATOR" movie first DVD disc. Recording was completed in 22:51mins, exactly the same time that the TDK 1616N reported.

For the transfer rate tests, we used the LiteON SOHD-167T with patched firmware being able to read DVD5 up to 16X CAV and DVD9 up to 10X CAV. As shown above, the disc could be read successfully, but reading speed was decreased near the end of the first layer. This indicate higher POE error values, requiring the drive to lower its speed to correct them.

Using Plextools, we observed a rather good scan, but a little worse than Verbatim's media quality scan. However, PIE errors were far lower than the 280 limit, and no uncorrectable errors were reported.