Below you can see the writing strategy of the drive when writing DVD+R and DVD-R media. For the specific tests, we used Plextor 16x DVD+R (YUDEN000 T3) and Verbatim 16x DVD-R (MCC 03RG20) media.

The drive burned the DVD+R disc at 18x using the CAV strategy. The average writing speed was 13.15x, and this resulted in an overall writing time of 5:40 minutes, for a full disc (4.38 GB) data compilation.

Note that the specific writing time was achieved with selected MIDs only. The drive will burn the majority of your 16x DVD+Rs at 16x or even 18x, according to our tests.

In the CDSpeed screen-shot below, you can see the writing strategy with DVD-R media:

Again the CAV strategy was used for the Verbatim DVD-R disc.

The average writing speed was 13.19x this time, resulting in a full disc burn in 5:49 minutes, according to Nero CDSpeed.

With both DVD+R and DVD-R media, you may notice the instantaneous drops during the writing process, which show up as downward spikes in the CDSpeed graphs. This is normal and shows NEC's “active optimized power control" (ACTOPC) feature at work.

The feature ensures consistent writing quality across different types of media and for media with variable sensitivity, i.e. the medium becomes less sensitive as the head progreeses from inner to outer tracks.

Active OPC constantly monitors the sensitivity of the media and adjusts the laser strength to achieve the best possible results. It does this by analysing the reflection from the media's surface.

In the following pages, you can have a good look at the quality measurements for the various DVD recordable media we used in this test.