- Writing Performance

There are no big surprises with the DVD-R and DVD+R writing speeds, since from old (ND-3500A), NEC was the first to support 16x CAV writing speed, and since then, all NEC models have supported this speed. You can see the full range of supported speeds on the first page of this review. Nero Burning Rom's reported speeds are shown below.

By using Nero CD-DVD Speed with DVD-R and DVD+R media, we are able to see the 16X CAV recording technology in action for -R and +R media. You can clearly see that WOPC is activated.

• DVD+R media @ 16X CAV

• DVD-R media @ 16X CAV

The ND-3530A supports 8x DVD+RW writing speed, while DVD-RW media can be burned at 6X. Below, you can see the writing speed graph, as reported by Nero CD-DVD Speed.

• DVD+RW media @ 8X Z-CLV

• DVD-RW media @ 6X Z-CLV

- Burning Tests

Full Media Support list will be discussed later on in this review.

• DVD-R media

By using overspeed burning technology, the ND-3530A managed to burn a wide range of media at higher speeds than the disc's certified speed. However, it took almost 9:40 minutes to burn a disc at 8x while there are other burners available on the market that can achieve much faster writing times at this speed. Another drawback is that Traxdata 16x certified media can only be recorded at 12x. Best times came with TDK 8x media (recorded at 16x).

With -RW 6X media, it took 10:27mins to complete a successful burn, a rather good time compared to other burners that can write such media at 6x.

• DVD+R media

Again, using the overspeed burning feature, the burner can burn at higher speeds than the media indicated speed although CMC Magnetics 16x media could only be recorded at 12x. Best times came with Verbatim 16x media. What most users might not know is that there are two different Ricoh 8x media on the market (ID: RICOHJPN R02 Rev 3 & 4). Although both of them were burned at the same speed (12x), it is interesting to see the writing quality for both revisions.

Writing times reported with 8x DVD+RW media were even better than Write-Once 8x media. It took only 7:26mins to perform recording. Very good performance by NEC in this case.

- Comparison with other drives

All three drives can burn DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x, but as you can see, the Plextor burner was slightly slower in both cases.

Comparing these three drives against DVD+RW media writing times, the NEC burner is the fastest of all, actually achieving 8x writing speed. The Plextor burner, again, was the slowest. However, it should be noted that this performance for the Plextor drive is obtained with the firmware that CDRinfo used when the Plextor review was posted. It was the latest firmware available for the PX-716A at the time of that review.

- DVD Overburning Tests

Using Nero CD-DVD Speed, we tested if the NEC ND-3530A can overburn using DVD+R and DVD-R media. Unfortunately, the drive does not support overburning.

- DVD+MRW Tests

The NEC ND-3530A does not support the Mount Rainier feature.