52x CDRW Roundup - Page 6

Protected Data Disc Tests

CloneCD reports the following device capabilities for the Plextor and Optorite drives:

- PSX Pressed Media

For this test we used the PSX game 'NBA Jam Extreme', in order to rip the image to the HD with CloneCD. The Plextor drive was very fast and finished in 72sec. Optorite CW5201 was slower with 3:29min.

- SafeDisc v.2 Results

The game title we used for this test is "Serious Sam - The second Encounter". The Plextor drive finished the task in 5min while the Optorite was slower and needed around 50min.

- SecuROM Results

Both drives can read SubChannel data from Data/Audio tracks. The duration of the process was 3:11 minutes for the Plextor drive and 2:30 min for Optorite CW5201.

- Writing Protected discs

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 Alcohol 120% (v1.4.518). The first disc was burned with the default settings (ByPass EFM Error) and the second with the feature disabled. The results are posted in the following table.

Drive	Game Title	SD2 Build	Settings
			ByPass EFM Error (default)	Normal mode
Plextor Premium	Max Payne v1.05	v.2.50.020	OK
Optorite CW5201			OK
Plextor Premium	Serious Sam - The Second Encounter v1.07	v.2.60.052	OK
Optorite CW5201			No
Plextor Premium	The Sims - Unleashed	v2.80.010	OK
Optorite CW5201			No

The Plextor Premium is really a champion when 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.

The Optorite CW5201 can only handle up to v2.50 Safedisc discs.

Experienced users will find the following pictures (Enter the Matrix - SecuROM 4.84.75.0045) quite interesting…