CyberDrive DX082D DVD+RW - Page 1

This Taiwanese company has shown in the past that is capable of offering technologically competent drives at very affordable prices. Although a little late, the company skipped the 4x DVD recording speed and followed the "plus" camp with the new DX082D 8x DVD+RW writer.

The drive is built upon the Philips DVD+RW reference design, based on the Nexperia PNX7850 chipset. The basic capabilities include 8x DVD+R, 4x DVD+RW, 32x CD-R and 24x US-RW recording. On the reading side the speeds are 40x for CD-ROM and 12x for DVD-ROM.

- Features

Seamless Link allows a CD-RW/DVD+RW drive to automatically monitor the recording status and prevent buffer under run from occurring.

Seamless Link allows the CD-RW drive to store the RecEnd address, the point in the data to which the recording mechanism has progressed, and pause the recording before a buffer under run occurs. When the buffer is again full, a Seamless Link-enabled drive locates the RecEnd address and resumes the recording process. The gap between the stop and restart point is closed, while managing the recording process precisely and transparently-eliminating under run errors while maintaining recording accuracy.

Dynamic Calibration

To ensure optimal writing quality over the entire disc at higher writing speeds, Cyberdrive implements theWalking OPC algorithm, introduced by Philips. WOPC directly measures and optimizes the actual writing quality during the writing process.

At certain intervals, the writing process will be briefly interrupted, the writing quality directly evaluated and the writing power adjusted accordingly, if required. The Cyberdrive DX082D uses a more dynamic implementation based on the position on the disc and the temperature inside the drive.

In addition, Dynamic Calibration includes a tilt calibration feature. The best reading and writing quality can be obtained if the angle between the disc and the laser beam is 90 degrees. However, if the disc is warped, the laser beam will no longer be correctly positioned which will cause a distortion of the laser spot which will result in decreased writing quality if it is not corrected.

The tilt calibration will reposition the Optical Pickup Unit (OPU) to maintain a 90-degree angle between the laser beam and the disc surface at all times ensuring an optimal spot shape, even on warped discs. The frequency of the tilt calibration depends only on the position on the disc according to a non-linear function. Near the end of the disc the risk for warping is higher so the frequency of the tilt calibration will increase accordingly. As with WOPC, the writing process will be briefly interrupted, the tilt measured and the OPU repositioned if required.

Walking OPC and Tilt Calibration together form the Dynamic Calibration. Although they act independently of each other, some effort is required to synchronize the Tilt Calibrations with the disc position dependent component of Walking OPC.

- Specifications

The drive has an 8MB buffer size. Nero Info Tool confirms that the CyberDrive supports reading of all the media formats except DVD-RAM. The drive also supports RAW DAO 96 writing (CD). Mount Rainier is not supported.

The CyberDrive DX082D drive, as most of the DVD drives, uses the RPC II region control and allows the user to change the drive's region 5 times. For our tests, we set the region code to 2 (Europe).

- The drive

By taking a closer look at the drive itself we can see on the frond panel the supported formats with their maximum speeds on the left. In the middle is placed the DVD+RW logo while the CD rewriteable logo is on the right. A little lower and left of centre is the indicator light, which is green while reading and blinking green while writing. Right above the eject button located on the extreme lower right, can be found the emergency eject hole.

On the rear panel is the digital and analogue audio outputs (SPDIF), the IDE connector and the power input.

Removing the screws and opening the drive's cover voids the drive's warranty. For reference reasons, we post the following pictures. The CyberDrive DX082D is built on the Nexperia (Philips/BenQ) DVD+RW reference design. Click on the mainboard picture for a higher resolution image:

Here can be seen the main chipset of the drive which is the Nexperia PNX7850 from Philips, same with the one found in Philips latest DVD recorder DVDR824P. The difference here is that Cyberdrive implemented all the capabilities provided by the PNX7850, offering 32x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing. (24x/10x for Philips DVR-DVDR824P)

- Retail package

The retail package includes the DX082D recorder, an installation guide, four mounting screws, an audio cable and two blank media ( one DVD+R and one DVD+RW).

As for software there is a complete package from Ahead Nero including Vision Express 2-SE, InCD 4, Nero Showtime etc.

- Installation

The CyberDrive DX082D was connected to our test PC and was identified as "CyberDrv DX082D" under WinXP OS. All tests were done with firmware revision v100B.

In the following pages can be seen the test results and in addition a comparison with three other DVD burners, the Philips DVR824P DVD+RW, the Optorite DD0401 and the Plextor PX-708A dual DVD burners.