Teac DV-W58G - Page 13

Conclusion

In the CD reading tests, the drive returned very good results, with low seek times and accurate reading even at the maximum speed of 40x. The reading accuracy of the drive was also very good, which means that it can safely be used for playback and ripping of old and ligtly scratched media.

With DVD media, the drive had low seek times and accurate reading under the supported CAV mode. In the DVD ripping process with DVD Decrypter, Teac had the fastest speed compared to the other two drives used in the comparison. In addition, the error correction tests with defective DVD media posted near perfect results, where the drive managed to pass all the tests without read errors.

The drive also proved to be a good recorder for protected games. For our tests we used games with the latest protection schemes, like Safedisc 3.10 where the drive managed to create a valid backup, with Amplify Weak Sectors (Clone CD) enabled.

The DAE speed of the drive was high, although it does not support Key2Audio protected discs.

In the recording tests, the drive confirmed the supported 40x writing for CD-R format. The writing strategy is CAV and all media we tested was written at the maximum available speed. The only exception was MAM media, which was recorded at 24x. Despite the writing speed compatibility, written discs reported increased Pit and Land jitter values with some discs such as Taiyo Yuden, TDK and Creation. In addition, the C1/C2 error measurements revealed high C1 levels, while in two others, C2 errors were reported.

For DVD+R media the drive used the 6-8x Z-CLV writing strategy, making it faster than other DVD burners, offering a three-step Z-CLV implementation (4x-6x-8x). This means that the writing time is about 8:20 min for DVD+R. On the other hand, DVD-R was burnt in 14:30 minutes. The quality of the DVD written media was checked with KProbe which reported high PIPO values with some brands. However, with Taiyo Yuden and Mitsubishi Chemicals DVD+R media, the drive made quality recordings.

Weighing up all the pros and cons, and despite the fact that overall performance could be better, the reasonable price of the Teac DV-W58G at around $130 on the market, could be a good enough incentive for buying it.