Error Correction Tests

In the following tests we check the drive's behavior when reading scratched / defective audio discs. The test discs used were the ABEX series from ALMEDIO.

- ABEX TCD-721R

The software reported that the error correction abilities of the drive are within the acceptable levels. The overall performance awarded was 65.7 points out of 100. The 721R test disc is difficult to read with most drives, and the Aopen writer logged 3072530 reading errors during the read process and 14 of them were skipped.

- ABEX TCD-726

The 726 Abex test disc is less severe than the 721R and therefore the score for the drive is better with a total score of 74.1 points. The test finished with only 7787 errors but once again there was muting with skipped samples.

- CD-Check Audio Test Disc

The CD-Check Test Disc is a very useful tool for evaluating the Sound Reproduction / Error correction capabilities of a CD player. The disc offers a signal combination with disc error patterns to rate the drive's reading music abilities and reproduce it completely. Five tracks on the disc contain a progressively difficult sequence. These tracks are referred to as Check Level-1 through Check Level-5.

The tracks are reproduced (played) through a software multimedia player (i.e. Winamp, PowerDVD, Windows Media Player). Each level is considered as passed, if the tone coming out from the speakers is smooth, continuous without interruptions, skipping or looping. The higher the Check Level passed, the more reliable the sound reproduction of the drive.

Aopen 8x8 DVD Dual successfully passed only the first three levels of the CD-Check Audio test. Most drives manage to pass up to 4th level but once again Aopen proved poor on the CD error correction part.

- Summary

The average score for the Aopen 8x8 Dual DVD is only 69.9 points out of 100.0 This score, coupled with the poor overall performance of the drive with the CD error correction tests shows a weak point of the AOpen writer.