1. Introduction
Mitsumi CR-485FTE -
Page 1
Mitsumi
is the first manufacturer that decided to support the 54x CAV writing speed.
In a time frame where all the optical storage manufacturers announced their
52x writers, Mitsumi made a step forward by demonstrating the Mitsumi
CR-485FTE at CeBIT, Hanover 2003.
The specifications of the drive are impressive and include 32X Ultra High
Speed Reading and 54X CAV reading.
- Features
Mitsumi
CR-485FTE features the ExacLink buffer underun protection, patented by Oak
Technologies.
As
most Mitsumi CD-RW writers, the CR-485FTE also supports the Aegis Write™ Shield.
This is a technology is developed by Mitsumi for optimizing and improving
the writing quality on a disc. In particular, this feature checks the quality
of the inserted media and automatically sets an upper writing speed
limit, to maintain a high writing
quality.
In addition, it automatically optimizes the Optical Power Calibration (OPC)
method and chooses the perfect writing strategy based on a comprehensive
data base. During writing, the Aegis Write monitors the process and automatically
optimizes it by setting the most appropriate speed. The laser
power is also adjusted accordingly, in order to offer the best
possible results.
Mitsumi CR485FTE also features the SSW(PAT) (Super Speed Write(PAT)) technology,
which allows burning blank CD-RW's at high speeds.
- Specifications
As we already mentioned, the Mitsumi CR-485FTE drive offers 54x CAV CD-R
writing, 32x P-CAV US-RW rewriting and 54x CAV reading. The drive has a 2MB
buffer
which, combined with
the ExacLink technology, helps a user to avoid buffer underun problems.
The following pictures show all the supported writing / reading speeds by
this recorder:
The supported recording methods are the Track at Once (TAO), Disc at Once
(DAO), Raw DAO 96, multisession and packet writing. The support of recording
in the RAW mode with 96 out of 98 writable subchannel data, makes this drive
a good prospective protection copier.
The Mitsumi CR-485FTE is able to read CD-R/RW, Video CD, CD, CD-text and
is Mount Rainier compliant. Notice that the drive is not able to retrieve C2
error information, or at least not by using any of the known
to us MMC (Multimedia Command Set).
Below you can see the CAV writing strategy of the Mitsumi CR-485FTE, when
using 80min blank CD-R media:
The drive starts writing rather fast, at 24.69x and accelerates up to 54.07x,
giving an impressive average writing speed of 41.22x. The 54x CAV speed is
achieved at the address
80:00:00 (exact end of disc).
- The package
The
retail package includes the Mitsumi CD-RW drive, a multilingual quick start manual,
and an application software CD-ROM.
This CD-ROM includes Nero Burning Rom as the main CD recording/authoring
software and InCD for random access rewrite on CD-RW media (UDF packet writing
) and
reading /writing under the Mount Rainier format.
In addition, it includes some arcade games for your spare time
and the MP3 JukeBox software, along with manuals and drivers for many Mitsumi
products.
Last, in the retail package you can find the usual
internal audio cable, an IDE cable and mounting screws.
The front panel of the drive looks rather simple. On the disc loading
tray you can see
the "HSRW" logos.
The eject button is placed below the tray, on the right side of the front panel,
as usual.
The indication LED lights up orange, when a CD is loaded in the
drive. It blinks green, as long as the CD is being read. If there is no CD
in the drive, the LED does not light up, even if the device has been switched
on. The LED lights up red during writing. In case an unsuitable CD has been
inserted in the drive, or a hardware or other error has occurred, the LED
starts to blink.
The drive has also a headphone socket where headphones or mini loudspeakers
can be connected here to play audio CD's. A volume control button, for
adjusting the volume for audio CD's, is also available.
On the rear of the drive you have the usual IDE interface, power connection
and analogue audio output connectors.
Let's have a look at the internal of the drive. Please avoid opening
your Mitsumi, since it will make the drive's warranty invalid. After removing
the screws at the bottom we can see the drive's internal design. The basic
chipset is developed by OAK Technologies.
- Installation
The Mitsumi drive was identified as "MITSUMI CR-48XFTE" under
WinXP. The drive was installed to the secondary IDE channel of our test PC
as a "Master"and worked in Ultra DMA, Mode 2, transfer mode.
The model came with firmware version 4.0c installed, but the tests were
done with a newer 7.0c version we flashed ourselves.
In order to have a better picture of the drive's performance, in the following
pages we include the benchmark results
of both Optorite CW5201
and Plextor Premium, both obtained during our latest hardware review.
2. Data CD Reading Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE - Page
2
Data CD Tests
- Pressed CD results
(74min and 80min CDSpeed
graphs )
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE showed a very unstable behavior when it came
to reading pressed or CD-R discs. The drive even read the disc (CAV) without
reaching the maximum 54x speed (see the 74min CDSpeed graph), or it lowered
the reading speed by the end of the disc. However, we managed to get the
results illustrated
in the chart by using an 80min CD-R disc. In this case, the Mitsumi CR-48XFTE
performed very well and reached the 55.12x in the outer tracks of the CD,
resulting to
an impressive average speed of 41.48x.
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE gave some of the best seek times we have ever experienced from
a CDRW drive. The drive gave a 58msec result for the Random stroke, 69msec
for
the
1/3
and 183msec for the Full seek test.
- CDR Media results
(74min and 80min CDSpeed
graphs)
As in the case of pressed media, Mitsumi CR-48XFTE lowered
the reading speed by the end of the disc, as you can see on the 80min
CDSpeed graph link above. The drive finished reading at an average speed of
37.45x. However, reading of the 74min test disc offered better results, with
the drive being able to reach the 53.4x maximum speed.
Again, Mitsumi CR-48XFTE offered very low seek times, as low
as 118msec for the case of full seek mode.
- RW media
CDSpeed graph
For the RW reading tests we used
Mitsubishi Chemicals 24x US-RW and 32x US-RW media (Mitsubishi Chemicals
97m34s25f, 74:43:00). However, the drive was not able to recognize the 32x
US-RW media. Consequently, we had to run the tests by using the 24x discs
only.
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE did not read the disc at the maximum 54x speed.
The drive started reading at 18.2x and finished the task at 41.15x, resulting
to an average speed of 31.16x. In the same test, the Premium drive was faster
(SpeedRead enabled), while Optorite CW5201 performed in a way similar to
the Mitsumi drive.
3. Error Correction Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE -
Page 3
CD Error Correction
Tests
This part of our review is devoted to all those of our readers interested
in finding tough reader, able to read dirty, scratched of other physically
damaged media. In the following tests we examined the error correcting capabilities
of the Mitsumi drive, when reading an artificially damaged CD-R. For
the test we used the Almedio ABEX pressed discs.
- ABEX TCD-721R
Errors total
|
Num: 11720934
|
Errors (Loudness) dB(A)
|
Num: 122568
|
Avg: -55.7 dB(A)
|
Max: -7.3 dB(A)
|
Error Muting Samples
|
Num: 29647
|
Avg: 1.9 Samples
|
Max: 3147 Samples
|
Skips Samples
|
Num: 61
|
Avg: 405.7 Samples
|
Max: 1764 Samples
|
Total Test Result
|
53.1 points (of 100.0 maximum)
|
As we have mentioned before, it is normal to get read errors in this test,
since the ABEX disc is artificially scratched. The average level of the reported
errors is -55.7dB(A), which is an average rate. On the other hand many samples
were muted and some other were skipped, resulting to an average score of 53.1
points out of 100. The performance can not be considered as a high one.
- ABEX TCD-726
Errors total
|
Num: 24
|
Errors (Loudness) dB(A)
|
Num: 10
|
Avg: -39.3 dB(A)
|
Max: -20.0 dB(A)
|
Error Muting Samples
|
Num: 0
|
Avg: 0.0 Samples
|
Max: 0 Samples
|
Skips Samples
|
Num: 0
|
Avg: 0.0 Samples
|
Max: 0 Samples
|
Total Test Result
|
94.0 points (of 100.0 maximum)
|
The total amount of errors is smaller in the case of the TCD-726 disc. The
scratches on the disc are not as deep and wide as in the TCD-721 case, and
the rest defects and fingerprints seem not to produce many errors while reading.
Although
the
average level of the errors was -39.3(A), the performance is high, since the
total number reported is only 10. The score for this test is very good. (94
points).
- Conclusion
Test Disc
|
Reading Speed
|
Score
|
ABEX TCD-721R
|
|
53.1
|
ABEX TCD-726
|
|
94
|
Average Score
|
73.55
|
The Mitsumi CR48XFTE gets a good score of 73.55 points
out of 100 at our CD
error correction tests. The drive can be a reliable reader with heavily defected
discs, as we saw in the ABEX-726 test, but fails to adequately correct
severe errors coming out from wide scratches.
CDSpeed Advanced DAE quality test
- ABEX 721R
The Nero CDSpeed showed that the drive cannot retrieve C2 error
information. As a result, the drive did not give good results in this particular
test, since the CDSpeed algorithm makes use of the C2 retrieved
information for evaluating the performance
of a drive.
4. Protected Data Disc Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE -
Page 4
Protected Data Disc
Tests
This is the part of our review that we expect it will be of most interest
to hard core gamers, in a need to find a good recorder able to offer working
copies of their copy protected CD's (for back-up purposes).
CloneCD reports the following device capabilities for the Mitsumi CR-48XFTE
recorder:
- PSX Pressed Media
For this test we used the PSX game 'NBA Jam Extreme', in order to
rip the image to the HD using CloneCD. The Mitsumi drive was not very fast
and finished the disk image creation in 271sec. Plextor and Optorite drives
finished the task faster, with the Plextor drive to have the best performance.
- SafeDisc v.2 Results
The game title we used for this test is "Serious Sam - The second Encounter".
Mitsumi CR-X48FTE finished the task in 8:30 min, while the Plextor drive was
faster and finished at about 5min.
- SecuROM Results
Mitsumi can read SubChannel data from Data/Audio tracks. The duration
of the process was 2:40 minutes. This time the Optorite drive was slightly faster
by consuming only 2:30min.
- Protected Disc Writing Tests
For checking the drive's EFM correction status, we used 3 different game titles
with different SafeDisc 2 versions with the latest software patches installed.
We used the drive as reader/writer at the maximum reading/recording speed.
Two discs were burned for each game with CloneCD. The first
disc was burned with the "Amplify Weak Sectors" feature enabled and the second
with the feature disabled. The results are posted in the following table.
Drive
|
Game Title
|
SD2 Build
|
Settings
|
Amplify Weak Sectors
|
No Amplify
|
Mitsumi CR-X48FTE
|
Max Payne v1.05
|
v.2.50.020
|
OK |
Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07
|
v.2.60.052
|
The Sims - Unleashed
|
v2.80.010
|
The Mitsumi CR-XFTE is very strong when it comes to protected discs
with the various Safedisc2 builds. The drive is able to produce working backups
without any software help, and this includes even the latest SD2 2.80+ builds.
5. DAE Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE - Page 5
DAE Tests
- Pressed AudioCD results
In this test we examine the DAE speed of Mitsumi CR-48XFTE. The drive
ripped the audio files at a 33.8x average (pressed disc). The Plextor and
Optorite drives were faster in the same task reaching 36.8x.
- EAC Secure Extract Ripping mode
EAC "secure extract" ripping-mode ensures maximum
quality produced WAV's. The software reports that Mitsumi CR-48XFTE supports
"Accurate Stream", "caching" but it is not able to retrieve
C2 error
information.
Tested Drives |
Average DAE Speed (X) |
Pressed |
CDR |
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE |
8.6 |
8.5 |
Plextor Premium |
11 |
9.3 |
Optorite CW5201 |
14 |
15.2 |
Under the EAC Secure Ripping Mode, Mitsumi CR-48XFTE is slow due to the supported
"caching" we mentioned above. The Optorite is faster with 14x for
the pressed and 15.2x for the CD-R disc.
- Advanced DAE Quality
Below you can see the CDSpeed Advanced DAE test result for the Mitsumi drive.
The average reading speed is 33.76x, and the quality score is 100 (perfect).
In addition, the drive is able to read CD-Text, and information
from the Subchannel data:
- Ripping of 99mins AudioCD's
Tested drives |
Ripping up to |
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE |
99min |
Plextor Premium |
99min |
Optorite CW5201 |
92min |
- Reading/Ripping Protected AudioCD's
For the test procedure we used 2 protected Audio CDs, which we
tested in both the recognition and ripping (with EAC) processes:
- Pressed AudioCD with Sony Key2Audio (Celine Dion - New Day Has
Come), and
- Pressed AudioCD with Cactus Data Shield 200 (Natalie Imbruglia
- White Lilies Island).
|
Key2Audio |
CDS200 |
EAC |
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE |
OK |
OK |
Plextor Premium |
OK |
OK, with few errors |
Optorite CW5201 |
OK |
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE can handle "Key2Audio" and "Cactus Data
Shield 200"
protected titles. The produced audio files were accurate and no audible errors
were reported during playback.
6. Recording Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE - Page 6
CDR Tests
We tested the drive with latest version of Nero Burning Rom. The supported
writing speeds for Mitsumi CR-48XFTE are illustrated below:
The drive reduces the writing speed in case it is necessary
to maintain high writing quality. Our tests showed that the Mitsumi drive accepts
a limited number of media for writing at 54x. The screenshot below is the Nero
CDSpeed writing test with blank CD-R media by Samsung:
The average writing speed is 41.22x. The drive uses the CAV writing strategy,
starting from a 24.69x speed in the beginning of the disc and reaching the
54.07x in the outer tracks of it.
- Supported media
In the following chart you can see the maximum allowed writing speeds according
to the inserted disc type:
Disc |
ID Code |
Capacity |
Recording time (700MB) |
Reported Speed |
Plextor 48X |
TaiyoYuden 97m24s01f |
79:59:72 |
2:55 |
48X |
Mitsubishi Chemicals 48X |
97m34s23f |
79:59:73 |
3:34 |
40X |
SKC 48X |
97m26s26f |
79:59:73 |
2:43 |
54X |
Imation 48X |
CMC Magnetics 97m26s66f |
79:59:71 |
3:45 |
48X |
TDK 48X |
97m15s05f |
79:59:74 |
3:06 |
48X |
Fuji 40X |
97m26s45f |
79:59:73 |
2:59 |
48X |
Prodisc 40x |
97m32s19f |
79:59:72 |
3:43 |
32X |
EMTEC 48X |
97m17s06f |
79:59:74 |
3:46 |
48X |
FujiFilm 48x |
Taiyo Yuden 97m29s01f |
79:59:72 |
3:42 |
32X |
Ciba Plasmon 48x |
97m27s18f |
79:59:74 |
2:43 |
54X |
Samsung 48x |
(Plasmon) 975728 |
79:59:74 |
2:42 |
54X |
Mitsui 48X |
97m27s58f |
79:59:74 |
3:39 |
32X |
As you can see, the Mitsumi CR-48XFTE reduced the writing speed by the end
of the writing process, with most of the media we tested. This can be also
confirmed by the increased recording times. Writing at 54x was achieved only
by using Samsung 48x, Ciba Plasmon 48x and SKC 48x CD-R media. Among
them, the lowest writing time was achieved when using Samsung media
(2:42min).
The supported media list for writing at 54x is limited and this can certainly
be improved with a future firmware upgrade. Moreover, the recording times
are also not the best we
have ever experienced, and some 52x writers could easily compete Mitsumi in
this area.
Below you can see a Nero screenshot after a successful burning at 54x:
Mitsumi reduces the writing speed in case the media cannot
handle it. The following screen shot comes from Nero Burning Rom after a successful
burning at 54x, while the writing time shows that the actual speed
was reduced during recording:
- Other features
Below are tabulated the maximum overburning capabilities, along with the
ability of all the writers compared in this review to read and write CD Text.
|
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE |
Plextor Premium |
Optorite CW5201 |
Overburning |
99min |
99min |
81min |
CD Text read/write |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
7. Writing Quality Tests - Page 1
Mitsumi CR-485FTE -
Page 7
Writing Quality Tests
We used Taiyo Yuden 80min 48x CD-R media and burned the same
AudioCD project (with CD-Text) at all the available recording speeds. Below
you can see the 3T
Pit & Land Jitter graphs.
- 3T Pit results
According to the measurements, the jitter values are low for all the writing
speeds throughout the range of 8-32x speeds.
The 48x recording speed introduced higher jitter values after the 60min of
the disc, where the writing speed was approximately 44x (CAV). The jitter reached
the 42msec in the outer parts of the disc.
The specific media could not be burned at 54x. The drive reduced the writing
speed as soon as it reached the 48x, and this is confirmed by the duration
of the writing process. Thus, the 3T Pit jitter reached the 42msc limit by
the 60min address of the disc (48x), and was decreased to lower values as
soon as the drive slowed down to finish the writing task at a lower speed.
As a
result, we cannot make out the drive's behavior at 54x writing speed, with
this particular media. The following page includes jitter measurements
with various media and there you can come up with more conclusions.
In the above graph you can see the average 3T Pit jitter values for all the
recording writing speeds, with Taiyo Yuden 48x media. Note that the average
values can hide any possible problems caused by high jitter peaks in specific
areas of the discs. However, we get an overall idea of the drive's performance.
- 3T Land results
The average 3T Land results are almost the same as in the previous
measurements of the 3T Pit Jitter. Again the drive gave higher jitter at 48x
and 54x (which was actually only a 48x recording speed).
Below you can see the average 3T Land jitter values for all the supported
writing speeds:
- Summary
Recording Speed |
3T Pit Jitter (ns) |
3T Land Jitter (ns) |
> 35ns |
Max value (ns) |
8X |
26.71 |
28.12 |
No |
28 Pit, 29 Land |
16X |
28.56 |
27.90 |
No |
31 Pit, 29 Land |
32X |
28.93 |
28.32 |
No |
33 Pit, 33 Land |
40X |
28.27 |
28.85 |
No |
30 Pit, 28 Land |
48X |
30.20 |
31.27 |
Yes |
42 Pit, 40 Land |
54X |
30.12 |
30.66 |
Yes |
40 Pit, 44 Land |
To sum up, the Mitsumi CR-48XFTE gave very low jitter for the writing speeds
up to 40X. Writing at 48X produced higher values that reached 42msec, but
in any case the overall performance with the Taiyo Yuden 48x media is adequate.
On the other hand, notice that these results are not applied to the 54x writing
speed, since the drive did not write at this speed with the particular
media.
8. Writing Quality Tests - Page 2
Mitsumi CR-485FTE -
Page 8
Writing Quality Tests
We used various CD-R media and burned the same
AudioCD project (with CD-Text) at the maximum allowed recording speeds. Below
you can see the 3T
Pit & Land Jitter graphs. Notice that the speeds included in the graphs
are the nominal ones for each media and not the actual burning speeds. You can
check the actual writing speeds in the CD-R Tests page.
- 3T Pit results
As you can see the 3T Pit jitter is low for the most part of the written
media. However, the results are as expected since the actual writing speed
for most of them
was less than 48x. A pleasant exception is the case of Samsung 48x, Ciba Plasmon
48x and SKC 48x discs, which were burned at 54x. These discs gave very good
results
and low jitter.
On the other hand, the TDK 48x media showed very high jitter that reached
53msec. The burning speed was set to 54x but it was reduced to 48x by the
drive itself.
Below you can see the average 3T Pit jitter values for all the media we used
in this test:
- 3T Land results
The average 3T Land results are almost the same as in the previous
measurements of the 3T Pit Jitter. Again the drive gave a very good performance
with all the media except the TDK 48x.
- Summary
Recording Speed |
3T Pit Jitter (ns) |
3T Land Jitter (ns) |
> 35ns |
Max value (ns) |
Plasmon 48X |
25.05 |
24.61 |
No |
32 Pit, 29 Land |
Prodisc 40X |
29.23 |
28.71 |
No |
31 Pit, 31 Land |
SKC 48X |
29.39 |
28.46 |
No |
32 Pit, 31 Land |
MC 48X |
28.07 |
27.80 |
No |
30 Pit, 29 Land |
Imation 48X |
29.22 |
29.68 |
No |
30 Pit, 32 Land |
Fuji 40X |
27.27 |
26.24 |
No |
35 Pit, 34 Land |
TDK 48X |
38.80 |
39.90 |
Yes |
52 Pit, 49 Land |
Samsung 48X |
26.68 |
25.80 |
No |
33 Pit, 30 Land |
Mitsui 48X |
28.17 |
27.61 |
No |
31 Pit, 28 Land |
Emtec 48X |
26.39 |
26.34 |
No |
29 Pit, 30 Land |
The Mitsumi CR-48XFTE gave very low jitter with the most of the CD-R media
we burned, in the maximum allowed speed. However, since the writing speed was
reduced during recording, the jitter was kept at lower levels than expected.
TDK 48x discs seems to not work very well with Mitsumi CR-48XFTE. They
gave the lowest performance among the discs we tested with jitter values
that reached 52msec.
Apart from the fact that Mitsumi CR-48XFTE recorded the most of the discs
at a lower speed than the maximum, the behavior of the drive regarding the
jitter introduced is very good.
- C1 / C2 Tests
Below you can see some C1 / C2 error graphs for the TDK 48x, Fuji 40x, Taiyo
Yuden 48x and SKC 48x media.
According to the measurements, none of the discs gave C2 errors, and the average
C1 rate is generally low. In case of TDK 48x media, where it had introduced
the highest jitter values, the C1/C2 test showed that the disc gave the highest
average C1 error rate but not any uncorrectable error.
As long a the discs recorded at 54x are concerned, again the performance
seems to be adequate judging from the graph of the SKC 48x media.
9. Rewriting Tests
Mitsumi CR-485FTE - Page 9
RW Writing Tests
The
drive supports the 10x CLV recording method when using HS-RW media and is able
to rewrite at 24x P-CAV and 32x US-RW speeds. We used
new 32x US-RW media by Mitsubishi Chemicals. Unfortunately the drive
could not recognize them and we used for
writing 24x
US-RW media. With these particular discs, a user can record at 12x and 24x.
As you can see from the CDSpeed writing simulation graph, Mitsumi CR-48XFTE
started writing at 19.15x and reached the 24x by the 12min address of the
disc, keeping it fixed until the end of the writing process. The average writing
speed is 23.79x.
For the recording tests, we burned a full 74mins disc with all the drives.
The results are showed in the following chart. We used the maximum supported
speed
for each drive.
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE finished the task in 3:41min (24x). The Plextor drive gave
the same writing time while the Optorite CW5201 was
faster due to the 32x rewriting speed.
The
Mitsumi drive needed
23sec to perform a "quick erase" task.
Below you can see a screenshot from Nero Burning Rom after a successful writing
at 24x.
- Packet Writing Tests
We used Ahead InCD for the packet writing tests. The formatted disc
had 534 MB of free space. We copied a 403 MB file (403.147 KB) from a Hard
Disk (on the same PC as the writers) to the formatted RW media using Windows
Explorer (we dragged and dropped). The following
charts illustrated the results with 24x US-RW media.
In the following table there are the packet writing results using US-RW
media
Drive
|
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE |
24x |
10x |
Write |
20.2X |
7.95X |
Read |
20.51x |
15.27X |
- Mt. Rainier Tests
For testing the Mt. Rainier performance we used InCD UDF writing /reading
software by Ahead Software. After the format process, we immediately started
the recording process
(drag & drop). The opposite process gave us the reading speed.
Drive
|
Average Writing Speed (X)
|
Average Reading Speed (X)
|
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE
|
24X US-RW
|
5.42X
|
15.53X
|
HS-RW
|
2.68X
|
15.44X
|
While the background formatting process was in progress, the drive recorded
the file to the 24x CD-RW at only 5.42x. At the same time, the reading speed
was 15.53x. The same slow writing speed was also noticed when using the
10x CD-RW disc, while reading was again faster.
10. Conclusion
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE -
Page 10
Conclusion
Positive
|
Negative
|
- Very low seek times
- Average Error Correction
- High DAE Speed
- Supports Audio Protected discs
- Produces working SafeDisc v2.x backups
- Adequate writing quality
- Supports CD-Text (reading/writing)
- Supports reading up to 99min discs
- Overburning up to 99min
- Low Price
|
- Unstable reading behavior
- Weak error correction with heavily scratched discs
- Failed to rewrite at 32x
- Does not retrieve C2 error information
- Reading of US-RW media at 40x
- Limited CD-R media compatible with 54x writing
|
Summarizing the benchmarking results, we start with the reading performance.
In this part, the Mitsumi CR-48XFTE showed a very unstable behavior. In some
cases the drive either read the inserted disc at a lower speed than 54x (i.e.
48x CAV), or even dropped dramatically the reading speed in the outer parts
of the disc. This occurred with half of the CD-R or pressed discs we tested.
Mitsumi might probably be able to improve this behavior by offering a
firmware upgrade. On the other hand, in cases where the drive read the discs
at 54x
CAV, the
average reading speed was impressive. In addition, the drive gave very low
seek times.
Ripping of audio discs is supported at the maximum speed. The Mitsumi CR-X48FTE
gave a high performance in the ripping test with the ABEX-726 (defected, fingerprints)
disc but gave back more read errors with the TCD-721R (scratched). In addition,
the drive does not retrieve C2 error information, so we could not evaluate
correctly the error correcting capabilities of the drive by using the
CDSpeed test.
Audio protected discs were easily read by the drive. The contents of both
Cactus Data Shield 200 and Key2Audio protected discs were accurately transferred
to the hard disk.
In the writing part, we should mention that the drive supports 54x writing
in a limited number of CD-R discs. Most of the times, the featured writing
control mechanism dropped the writing speed by the end of the disc resulting
to increased writing times. Thus, the writing quality of the produced discs
was not negatively influenced by the high writing speeds. The jitter measurements
gave very good results, with some noticeable exceptions.
Generally, the C1 /C2 measurements were adequate and none of the discs gave
uncorrectable
errors.
Rewriting at 32x was not possible with the Mitsubishi Chemicals US-RW discs.
The drive could not recognize them, so we used 24x US-RW discs for the rewriting
tests. A possible firmware upgrade could easily solve this issue, since it
is mostly an on-chip logic matter than a media problem.
Mitsumi CR-48XFTE easily surpassed data protections. The drive was impressive
since it produced working backups of SafeDisc v2.80 protected discs without
any additional help by the CloneCD software (i.e. amplify weak sectors).
The Mitsumi CR-48XFTE is a very optimistic recording solution for all those
who always hunt impressive specifications. Although the drive could easily
make the difference in the benchmarks, it did not prove us that it deserves
the top, over the competitive 52x writers. The overall impression we got is
that the drive needs some extra fine-tuning through firmware upgrades in order
to
offer
better performance. However, candidate buyers have always the
last word and they always
balance the positive and negative options and judge according to their needs.
The Mitsumi CR-X48FTE is available in the retail the market at attractive
prices between $45 and $55.