TDK 1616N Recorder - Page 11

DVD Recording Tests

- Writing Performance

The TDK 1616N supports DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW writing. The maximum supported speed for DVD±R is 16X CAV and 4X CLV for DVD±RW media. You can see the full range of supported speeds on the first page of this review. Nero Burning Rom reported speeds are shown below.

By using Nero CD-DVD Speed with DVD-R and DVD+R media, we are able to see the 8X ZCLV, 12X ZCLV, 13X CAV and 16X CAV recording technology being used by the recorder for -R and +R media.

• DVD+R media @ 8X ZCLV

• DVD+R media @ 12X ZCLV

• DVD+R media @ 13X CAV

• DVD+R media @ 16X CAV

• DVD-R media @ 16X CAV

The drive's writing performance was similar for both the -R and +R formats. The drive returned an average speed of 11.86X, starting the writing process at 6.69X and ending with 16.02X.

Below is a table with several 12X and 16X recorders, listing their average writing speeds as measured by Nero CDDVDSpeed and showing that the TDK 1616N is the fastest 16X recorder. It even surpassed the BenQ DW1620A:

- Supported media list/Burning Tests

• DVD-R media

There are only a few -R media that can be recorded at 16X. The TDK 8X media was recorded at the 16X speed but the drive could not pass the 13.5X limit, giving similar recording performance to that of TY 8X media recorded at 12X. On the other hand, Maxell 16X media had the best performance of all.

• DVD+R media

Best performance was reported with TY 8X media recorded at 16X. It should be noted that BeALL and BenQ 8X media cannot be written at 8X where only 4X is supported for these discs. For 16X media, CMC Magnetics and Philips media could only be recorded at 8X, while Traxdata 8X and 16X media (Ritek based) supported only 4X(!).

- Burning Tests

We burned 4315MB of data on various DVD±R, DVD±RW media. We used the maximum allowed writing speed for each disc.

• DVD-R media

Recording times seem to be the same for most DVD-R media, with the exception of Promedia 8X media which was only 2 seconds slower. The drive completed a successful burn at 8X in 9:29mins.

• DVD+R media

With DVD+R media, best recording times came with Memorex 8X at 9:13mins. It should be noted that TraxData 4X media was recorded at 6X in 10:21mins.

- DVD Overburning Tests

Using Nero CD-DVD Speed, we tested if the TDK 1616N can overburn using DVD+R and DVD-R media. The drive does not support overburning, giving the following error with all inserted media.

• DVD-R media

• DVD+R media

- DVD+MRW Tests

Unfortunately, the TDK 1616N does not support the Mount Rainier feature.