NEC ND-6500A

Review Pages

NEC ND-6500A - Page 11

DVD Recording Tests

- Writing Performance

The NEC ND-6500A can burn DVD+R and DVD-R media at a maximum speed of 8X, and can Re-Write DVD+RW and DVD-RW media at 4X. Ahead's Nero Burning Rom reported speeds are shown below.

Using Nero CD-DVD Speed with DVD-R and DVD+R media, we are able to see the 8X ZCLV recording strategy being used by the recorder for -R and +R media.

DVD+R media @ 8X ZCLV

DVD-R media @ 8X ZCLV

- Burning Tests

DVD-R media

The ND-6500A uses a rather strange DVD-R writing strategy, with the final Z-CLV "step" achieved towards the end of the writing process. This final "step" is not at 8X but at 5.44X. This means that the burner is writing at 4.5X most of the time, and changes to 5.44X near the end of the disc. With this writing strategy, the burner needs more time than other 8X burners to complete a successful burn, which is why the reported burning times are more than 13 minutes. On the other hand, it should be noted that burning quality is the prime consideration with such a burner and not burning speed. Best performance came with TDK DVD-R media (13:35mins).

DVD+R media

Again, burning times were slower than with other 8X burners. This happens because the burner cannot in reality use 8X writing speed. The maximum speed allowed with all the media we tested was 6.22X. Best results came with Taiyo Yuden 8X media (10:34mins).

- DVD Overburning Tests

Using Nero CD-DVD Speed, we tested if the NEC ND-6500A can overburn using DVD+R and DVD-R media. The drive does not support overburning, giving the following errors with all inserted media.