Ricoh MP9200A CD-RW - Printer Friendly version

- Introduction:
Ricoh has been one of the few manufacturers that actually support "combo" CD-RW drives. The previous MP9120A model was a big step in the combo market, since it was the first 12x recorder with DVD reading features and anti-coaster technology (JustLink). However the drive had many problems (with CDR media and DVD playback) that caused some doubts among users about the readability of the combo drives. Do we really need a combo drive nowadays? Ricoh's engineers worked hard and on June of 2001, a new ultra high speed "combo" recorder was announced. Does Ricoh redefine the word "combo" with the new MP9200 series? Is the new model improved over the previous combo drives? Can it fulfill our CD recording and DVD playback needs? Let's find out...

The new combo recorder supports 20x writing, 10x re-writing, 40x reading and 12x DVD reading speeds, making it the fastest combo recorder ever. The MP9200A utilizes the two new techniques that were introduced by the MP7200A series: "Zone-CLV" recording mode and "JustSpeed" quality control mechanism. Actually the new model offers an improved re-designed "JustSpeed" function. The drive supports 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x (CLV) and 20x (Z-CLV) writing speeds, 4x, 8x and 10x (CLV) re-writing speeds.

1) The drive uses the 2 LD-1 lens for pickup, and enables CD-RW and DVD-ROM in one drive.
2) 20x CD-R writing (ZCLV), 10x CD-RW rewriting, 40x reading (CD-R/CD-RW/CD-ROM), and 12x reading (DVD-ROM) speeds.
3) High-speed writing is handled by the newly developed high power pick-up module.
4) Digital LSI controls the pulse width with precision 1.5 times that of the traditional
mechanism, thus allowing for stable writing at high-speed.
5) Incorporation of a high-speed rotation type spindle motor gives stable and precise rotation during high-speed writing.
6) The additional adoption of a high-precision stepping motor for the seeking mechanism enables high precision and high speed access times (100 msec.), while reducing the noise level.

- Embedded technologies

The Ricoh MP9200A is the second recorder that supports "Just Speed" technology, after the 7200 series. There is a main difference in the way "JustSpeed" works in comparison to the previous 7200A series:

"...In previous model (MP7200A), when "Just Speed" is OFF and a low quality medium is used, since the drive writes at the selected speed, a write error is likely to be caused especially in high speed writing. However, if "Just Speed" is available, even if a low quality medium is used, the drive automatically selects the appropriate writing speed and avoids occurrence of any write errors.

“The "MP9200A" is also equipped with a new feature that avoids occurrence of write errors even if "Just Speed" is OFF. When "Just Speed" is OFF and a high writing speed (X16 or X20) is selected, "MP9200A" refers to the disc information and decides whether it can or cannot write at the selected speed according to the vendor code, then the drive starts the recording process. This feature can provide the users with information concerning the writing condition before the start of the burn..."

It's nice to see that manufacturers keep improving their technology in order to help users avoid writing problems!

(Constant Linear Velocity) is the recording technology that Ricoh uses in order to achieve higher recording speeds (20x). The same technique is implemented by Sanyo's CRD-BP5/1500P models (24/10/40), but in a different manner. CD recorders using the Zone CLV recording method divide the CD surface into zones from the inner to the outer parts of the CD. The recording speed varies from zone to zone, but it is always constant within each zone's boundaries.

The writing strategy of Ricoh MP9200 is based mainly on the "JustSpeed" function. When the "JustSpeed" function is turned "on" in the CDR software (default) the drive decides the most appropriate writing speed according to the result of medium calibration and writes at that speed.

Unlike the MP7200, the MP9200 will begin writing the Lead in at 16x, and depending on the three criteria,

1) ATIP check
2) OPC to determine whether writing at 20x is of acceptable quality
3) Servo tracking check on the outer diameter of the media

The drive will set the T2 position where the speed will be increased from 16x to 20x. The speed change points (T1 & T2) are not fixed when "JustSpeed" is activated. They move and adjust themselves to the state of the media. With the JustSpeed disabled the T1' and T2' speed change points are locked to fixed positions, which are slight different for each media.

The drive we tested was a prototype drive ,before mass production, with final hardware and firmware revision (1.00). The same drive will be shipped in the retail packages that will be sold in the European/Japanese/Asian/rest of the world markets. As you may know, Ricoh has stopped selling drives in the USA but OEM drives based on the Ricoh MP9200 will surely hit the market. We also got 10 pieces of Ricoh's 74min (1x-24x) media, which were attached to the drive, for our burning tests

The front of the drive is generic and doesn't include the "Ricoh" logo. It only has the "JustLink", "High-Speed" and "DVD ROM" logos printed on it. There is also only one led, the eject button and the headphone input jack/volume selector. Notice that even Ricoh's logo is missing, it will appear on the retail drives:

The top of the drive is missing the usual yellow colored label with the drive's code name/manufacture date/FCC specs. etc. Actually nothing is there since this drive is a prototype! On the back of the drive there are the usual connectors (IDE interface, power), the jumpers for setting the drive as Master/Slave/Cable Select, the SPDIF output connector and 3 jumpers which are not used (factory reserved):

The Ricoh MP7200A was installed as Master in the secondary IDE BUS. The drive worked in UDMA-2 mode and after boot up, it identified itself as the "Ricoh DVD/CD-RW MP9200". We unchecked the Auto Insert notification, checked DMA and rebooted.

The drive was a 2001 model (not sure which month exactly), with an initial firmware revision of v0.60. Before the drive arrived at our test labs, we had already gotten the latest firmware update (v1.00), which was the one we used to perform all the reading/recording tests.

We used the latest version of Nero Burning ROM (5.5.2.4), InCD (2.13), CloneCD (3.0.2.3) and Padus DJ (3.00.780) for the recording tests. As we can see from Nero's features screenshot we can select if "JustLink" and/or "JustSpeed" will be enabled or not by default. Also note that the drive is RPC2, which means that you can change its DVD region only 4 times. The DVD Region Info software gives the needed information:

- Test Machine
WinMe OS
Soyo 7VCA
Celeron II 566 over clocked to 850 MHz
128MB SDRAM PC 133
WD 18GB UDMA 66
Quantum Fireball EX 6.4 GB UDMA 33
DAWI 2975 - PCI (ULTRA) SCSI Host Adapter
ATI AIW 128
Ricoh MP7200A firmware v1.10
Ricoh MP9200 firmware v1.00
Yamaha 2200E firmware v1.0C
Sanyo CRD-BP1500P firmware vHg.35

2. Data Tests

- SCSI Mechanic v3.0x: This was used to compare the Ricoh's I/O performance against other various CDR-W drives (see charts). We used a pressed CD containing PlexTools v1.08 for all of the tests.
- CD Speed 99 v0.83b also used to check the drive performance with pressed CDs. For that test, we used PlexTools v1.08 pressed CD.

The Ricoh MP9200 showed that in most cases it is slightly slower than the 7200 series. The drive gave the second best "Average Random I/O" result among the 4 tested drives. In the "Average Sequential I/O" test it won the third place with 4437kb/s and it seems that its firmware needs some tweaking to reach the full capabilities of the 7200 series. Finally the drive's "Average Same Sector I/O" results were the worst in the whole category, a fact that confirmed our previous claims.

Using CD Speed 0.83, we confirmed that the MP9200 model seems slower than the older 7200 one. The drive reaches around 30.53X average reading speed, while the MP7200 easily can reach 31.13X. The competition from the Sanyo drive is strong since it comes second with 30.55X and Yamaha 2200E is the last one with 29.48X.

In the "Seek Times" test results, the Ricoh MP9200A gets the first place with under 90ms random seek time, complying with the drive's specifications. The MP7200 follows with 93ms and the competition has way larger access times.

The Ricoh MP9200 showed unpleasant performance with CDR media. The drive keeps slowing down after 55minutes for no apparent reason, and drops down to 20.01X, giving a total of 28.32X average reading speed.

3. RW reading tests

For the RW tests, we used TDK's HS-RW media. The Ricoh MP9200A gave the second best average reading test result (30.51x) among the 4 tested drives, since its speed was reduced to 32.22x at the end of the 74min:

- Procedure:
We used CloneCD (v3.0.2.3) and 5 original CDs - Euro 2000 (SafeDisc 1), No One Lives For Ever (SafeDisc 2), Rally Masters (LaserLock 1), Desperados (LaserLock 2) and V-Rally 2 Expert (SecuROM 2) - in order to test the reading time of Ricoh MP9200. We also tested the reading performance with backups of the original CDs, since the reading speed varies between original and backup media. For comparison reasons we added the results of the already tested Ricoh MP72000A, Sanyo CRD-BP1500P and Yamaha 2200E. The following picture shows the Ricoh's MP9200 reading/writing capabilities:

The Ricoh MP9200A showed a very bad performance with SafeDisc 1 protected CDs. The drive skips bad sectors very slowly, compared to the MP7200 series... The Yamaha 2200E is the king of this test in both original and backup CDs.

With SafeDisc 2 protected CDs, Ricoh MP9200 continues its bad performance as mentioned earlier.

The Ricoh MP9200 continues its bad performance during the LaserLock protected CDs test. As you can see, the drive has the slowest reading performance, with both original and backup CDs.

It is to no surprise that the drive continues to have bad performance with LaserLock 2 CDs. During this test it actually managed to outperform the Sanyo BP1500P with both original and backup CDs. Again the Ricoh MP7200 has a much better reading performance.

The Ricoh MP9200 does support reading SubChannel data from data/audio tracks, at least with the original CD. We did face some problems with the backup CD, which worked on the MP7200, 2200E and BP1500P without any problems. The drive seemed to always stop reading at 60% of the disc and then hung. We did notice the same effect in the Ricoh MP9120A with firmware v1.30, so we assume that it must a bug, located on either the latest CloneCD or the drives.

4. DAE Tests

We used CD DAE 99 v0.21 beta and EAC v0.9 prebeta 9 software in order to check the DAE performance of the Ricoh MP9200A with various AudioCDs (both pressed and CDR). The posted DAE results are the average of both applications, but the CPU usage only taken from CD DAE 99, since EAC occupies the system a lot more. As a last note, we used the "BURST" reading mode of EAC. We made a full CD Rip starting from the first to the last track of the CD. The Average DAE reported speed along with the CPU Usage displayed in the test graphs.

- DAE features
We used EAC v0.9 prebeta 9 to examine the drive's features. As the program reported, the drive doesn't do data "Caching" and supports "Accurate Stream" and "C2 Error info". The specifications state that the drive can reach up to 40x DAE (max) with both pressed and CDR media.

- Pressed AudioCD results: (click here to see the CD Speed 99 graph)
The DAE ripping speed of MP9200 is not so good as Ricoh's MP7200A. The drive reaches 32x max DAE ripping speed, but not close to 40x. That gives a rather average ripping DAE speed, compared to the competition:

- CDR AudioCD Results: (click here to see the CD Speed 99 graph)
The Ricoh MP9200A continues to perform average with CDR Audio CDs. The drive does slowdown in the outer tracks of the test disc and gives only 26.3X average ripping speed:

The Ricoh MP9200A completed the CD Speed 99 "Advanced DAE test" successfully, and the results were very good.

The average reading speed was 27.46X and Nero CD Speed reports that it can read "CD-Text" enabled AudioCDs , which is false, and "SubChannel Data". Last the drive got 100 quality score (max) , since it produced zero sync/data errors.

Despite the fact that CD Speed 99 Advanced DAE test stretches drive's mechanism to the max, we decided to do real life tests with a scratched disc. The disc was dirty, and with some light scratches, enough in order cause problems to most of the tested drives. We used CD DAE 99 software to rip the whole disc (756539616 sectors) and the results are interesting:

	Average Speed (X)	Errors	Errors Of Total Disc (%)
Ricoh MP7200A	8.3	505040044	66,76
Yamaha 2200E	5.7	1041038	0.14
Sanyo CRD-BP1500P	16.4	28103	almost 0
Ricoh MP9200A	8.0	537645437	71,07

As the tests showed, the Ricoh MP9200 cannot return accurate data when trying to rip a bad CDR Audio disc. Almost 70% of the read data were false, and that is something that should be taken into account by Ricoh engineers. The MP7200A seems to perform slightly better with the same disc (66.76% errors) and both Yamaha and Sanyo produce the lower errors.

As we can see from the above graphs, the Ricoh MP9200A stops reading at 88minutes using 90min CDs. However it did pass that limits since it read a 99min CD up to 98mins (and then produced an error message).

5. CDR Tests - Page 1

The Ricoh MP9200A is the second *retail* CDR-W drive that supports 20x Zone-CLV writing speed, after Ricoh's MP7200A. We used Nero CD Speed 0.83 build-in writing test in order to test the drive's writing performance:

As CD Speed 99 showed, the drive starts writing at 16x (CLV) and after 2-4minutes it jumps off to 20x (CLV) and continues to write at this speed until the end of the burn. The average writing speed is around 19.70x (very close to 20x), since the jump from 16x-->20x writing speed is done during a very short time interval (below the first 10minutes)... If you can remember, the MP7200A works in a different way and achieves a lower recording time. Actually the above speed is with "JustSpeed" off, since Nero CD Speed doesn't support that feature yet.

In the case of the MP9200, JustSpeed works totally different. when "Just Speed" is activated for the MP7200 model, the drive automatically adjusts the writing speed for having the best quality results and doesn't allow writing at maximum speed with non 20x/24x certified media. This did not happen with the MP9200 series. Even when you use low quality media, Nero always gives you the option to write at maximum speed (20x), but after a while it lowers the writing speed automatically:

What if we de-activate "Just-Speed"? The software will ignore the drive's suggestions and will give you full writing speed control (and the desired 20x writing speed), even with un-certified 20x/24x media. However, when the recording begins Nero will give you a warning message that "recording quality may be affected not using JustSpeed option" and it doesn't lower the recording speed. :

Last of all, let's see a picture of Nero with "JustSpeed" and "JustLink" turned "on". The task completes without any warning messages but notice that the time is around 13secs higher than the one with "JustSpeed" off:

We tested the Ricoh MP7200A with Nero v5.5.2.4, CloneCD v3.0.2.3 and Padus DJ v3.00.780 software.

We used many different media from: Verbatim 16x, Mitsui 16x & 24x, Prodisc 16x, Ricoh 8x & 24x, TDK D-View 12x, Princo 16x, Maxell 16x, Taiyo Yuden 24x and Verbatim/TDK 74min HS-RW media.

- CD-R Tests:
We created "DataCD" job with data slight higher than 74mins (74:03:65). We burned the same job with all 4 CDR-W drives:

As you can see, the Ricoh MP9200A took the lowest recording time among the 4 tested drives. The time difference with MP7200 is 4 secs, which can be explained due to the different functioning of the "JustSpeed" technology. The Sanyo BP1500P needs 318secs and the Yamaha 2200E is the slowest of the 4 since it uses 16x CAV writing technology.

Let's see how the drives behave during 20x writing speed. The MP9200 is again faster than MP7200, with 3 secs time difference. The CPU Usage seems to be the same (15%). The Yamaha 2200E falls behind since it uses 20x CAV writing technology. Note that the posted numbers are the lower we got from our media tests. Complete tests can be found here...

- 80min CDs:
As with the previous test, we created a DataCD (80:01:47) and used the same media for all burns:

In this test, Ricoh MP9200A gave the exact same burning time with Sanyo BP1500P. The Ricoh MP7200A is one sec faster and Yamaha 2200E falls behind with 11secs time difference.

At 20x writing speed we have the same results like the ones in our last test. The MP9200 seems slightly faster than the MP7200 (2secs) and Yamaha 2200E needs 24 more seconds to complete the test.

6. CDR Tests - Page 2

Let's see how the 20x Z-CLV writing technology compares against 24x Z-CLV and 20x P-CAV:

As we described earlier, the MP9200 hits the 20x writing speed faster (4min) than the MP7200 (10min). Despite that fact, our burning time differences were very low (2-3secs).

Here is something interesting...The MP9200 now reaches 8901rpm in order to achieve 20x writing speed in 4mins. Of course, that produces noise and extra load to the drive's mechanism. Notice that even Sanyo BP1500P doesn't reach such a high rpm when entering the 24x writing speed.

CDR-W drives	Average Writing Speed (X) with 80min CD
Yamaha CRW2200	18.44
Ricoh MP7200	19.50
Ricoh MP9200	19.70
Sanyo BP1500P	22.58

As the following chart shows, the differences between various recording technologies and the times they need to complete a full burn are low but they do exist. The Sanyo BP1500P drive is 22secs faster than Ricoh 9200A (25 from 7200) and 40secs than Yamaha 2200E (with 74min CDs). If we look at the 80min CD project, the time differences are much higher - 19 secs from Ricoh 9200 (21 from 7200) and 43secs than Yamaha 2200E:

- Overburning Tests:
We used 90min CDs (from Medea International) and 99min CDs (from Disc4You) in order to check the drive's ability to overburn. The drive denied to write more tha 89minutes with both media. The previous MP7200 series could write up to 98minutes without any problem!

- CD-Text Results:
We used 90min CDs (by Medea International) and 99min CDs (by Disc4You) in order to check the drive's ability to overburn. The drive denied to burn more than 89minutes with both media. The previous MP7200 series could write up to 98minutes without any problem!

- CloneCD Tests:
CloneCD v3.0.2.3 reported that the drive did support the DAO-RAW writing feature, and not "JustLink". The author of CloneCD was kind enough to send us a newer version (3.0.3.5) which included both JustLink and JustSpeed functions (you have to tick "Perform Laser Power Calibration")... From our tests results DAO-RAW writing works without any problem for SafeDisc 1, LaserLock 1/2 and SecuROM 2 protections. Also the "JustSpeed" function seems working very good from our tests.

- SD2 Support
For the SD2 test we used the "No One Lives For Ever" CD title. We used the Ricoh MP9200 both as reader/writer. The produced backup didn't play using the same drive or any drive we tested. Therefore the MP9200 combo drive cannot produce SD2 working backups.

- 8cm mini CDs
The Ricoh MP9200 supports only reading of 8cm CDs as the specifications state.

- Buffer Underrun tests
The Ricoh MP9200A supports the "JustLink" anti-coaster technology for making buffer Underrun error-free CDs. The gap length of JustLink is 2-5micro meters, which may seem big, since the second generation of the "BURN-Proof" technology has 0-gap length. The drive worked fine even under heavy pressure by our side (100% CPU Usage).

7. RW Writing Tests

We used Nero 5.5.2.4 for writing CDs in maximum RW writing speed for all the tested drives in 10x HS-RW media. All drive support fully the HS-RW writing standard:

The Ricoh MP9200A gave back the same recording/erase time with the MP7200A. Both drives need 485secs to complete the test, while the Yamaha 2200E seems to perform much better with 476secs. The Sanyo BP1500P needs much more time (492) to finish the task and falls behind as last.

We used Ahead InCD v2.13 for all Packet Writing tests. We used Ricoh HS RW media and we formatted it. The formatting of the media takes around 10min. After formatting, we tested all four drives for their packet writing performance.

The formatted disc had 530mbs of free space. We copied a 403 MB file (403.147 kbs) from a Hard Disk (on the same PC as the writers) to the formatted RW media-using explorer (we dragged and dropped) we completed the test twice to eliminate possible time measurement faults and user errors:

The results show that all manufactures have really improved Packet Writing performance in the newest models. The MP9200A gives a slightly lower packet writing speed (7.16x) against MP7200A (7.18x) and Yamaha 2200E leads the race with 7.34x!

During the reading process, MP9200A achieves second place behind MP7200A, again with a low performance gap. The Yamaha 2200E follows on third place and Sanyo BP1500P needs to improve its capabilities to reach the competition packet reading performance.

8. DVD Tests

We used Nero DVD Speed v0.52 to run DVD tests (DMA enabled on all drives). All tests were performed at least 3 times with the same DVD title (we took the worst results). The DVD Speed author suggests avoiding the use of dual layer DVDs since performance might be lower than the actual one. For that purpose we used a single-layered DVD title, taken from PC Magazine.

For comparison reasons with actual DVD-ROM drives, we used the results from our previous Ricoh MP9120 (8x DVD), CyberDrive DM126D (12x DVD) and Pioneer DVD-105S (16x DVD) tests.

The Ricoh MP9200A is really a great performer in the Nero DVD Speed test. The drive managed to reach an 11836 average reading speed, which outperforms both Ricoh 9120 and CyberDrive DM126D. The Pioneer DVD-105S is the absolute winner, since it reached around 15Mb/s!

For the seek times, the Ricoh 9200 seems to have the biggest among the 4 tested drives. The previous model, Ricoh MP9120, reaches 100ms and real DVD-ROMs have much lower seek times (less than 90ms).

We measured the DVD Ripping speed using Matrix DVD and DVD Decoder v0.2. The Ricoh MP9200 performed quite well but could not threaten CyberDrive and Pioneer drives:

We tested the Ricoh MP9200A with many DVDs and our overall impression was very good. The drive seems to work much better than the MP9120A and didn't produce any problems during playback. When playing DVD movies, the average CPU Usage was 45% using PowerDVD v3.0 Build 0421. We noticed no problems during DVD playback, no matter what tricks we tried! The older MP9210A had numerous DVD playback problems, which seem to have been solved in the newer MP9200 series...

9. Conclusion

Positive (+)

Negative (-)

- Supports 20x (Z-CLV) writing speed
- Fastest combo (DVD/CDR-W) around!!
- "Just-Link" anti-coaster technology
- Improved "Just-Speed" quality protection system
- Very good data reading performance with CDs/HS-RW media
- Good DAE ripping performance (with CDR media)
- Very good reading/writing packet writing performance!
- Very Good access times
- Great DVD playback/reading performance!
- Supports HS-RW standard (10x re-write)
- Supports DAO-RAW
- Supports reading of SubChannel data
- Supports CD-Text (only writing)
- Supports Overburning (up to 89mins only)
- Supports Ultra-DMA 33

- DAE ripping speed needs improvement
- Very Bad DAE quality with dusted/scratched CDR media
- Doesn't read CD-TEXT enabled audio CDs
- Bad CloneCD overall reading performance
- Failed to backup SD2 protected CDs
- Problems reading SubChannel data from CDR media(?)
- Doesn't support overburning up to 99minutes

Ricoh continues a long time tradition of shipping the fastest combo recorders. In the past the MP9060 and MP9120 models had become quite popular, but they had a few problems that puzzled some users, making them reluctant from investing in combo models. The MP9200 sets a very good example of how combo drives should be designed and manufactured... True support of both CD and DVD formats without any problems.

The drive supports 20x Z-CLV writing speed, 10x re-writing, 40x reading and 12x DVD reading speed. The drive's overall performance with CDR media is very good and it is actually a bit faster than the MP7200, due to improvements of the "JustSpeed" feature. Its DVD playback performance is superb, eliminating all worries we had from the previous MP9210A model. Also its DVD ripping speed is very good which will make DivX ;-) encoding users happy.

There are some problems concerning mostly the DAE and the reading performance with protected CDs. Also the drive doesn't seem to support 99min CDs, something that the MP7200A is able to do. As you might have expected the drive failed to produce SD2 working backups.

The drive should ship on the Japan market at 7th of July (this Saturday) at an estimated price of 280$. No information is yet announced about the shipping date in Europe/Rest of the world but we would say add at least one month :-)

1. Ricoh ships the first 20x combo DVD/CDR-W recorder!