DVD-ROM Roundup Vol.4 - Page 4

Transfer Rate Reading Tests

In order to confirm the specifications for all drives in CD readings we used one CD pressed media, a copy on CD-R and HS-RW media. The results are illustrated in the following graphs.

- CD Format

In the first two tests with Pressed CD and CDR media, the LiteOn proved to be much faster than the two other drives. With USRW media however, the Asus was the fastest with the LiteOn slowest.

- DVD Format

We repeated the same tests with DVD media this time.

All drives reported similar speeds. The differences can be considered as negligible.

The following DVD is a PTP DVD-ROM where the two layers of the disc are read sequentially with the drive starting reading from the inner part of the disc, which is the beginning of each layer, progressing towards the outer range for each layer.

The Asus drive performed much faster with the specific media type.

The graph shown below, indicates the reading performance of the three drives with an OTP dual layer media. The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously. The difference here is the reading strategy of the second layer on the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks towards the inner part of the disc.

As in the previous case, the Asus drive was again the fastest and by a rather considerable difference. Hence with Double Layer media, the Asus drive simply proved to be too fast for the competition.

The two following graphs include the reading performance with recordable and rewritable media, where again the Pioneer drive is the fastest due to its higher supported speed.

Once again the highest reading speeds belong to the Asus drive. LiteOn had normal speeds while the Samsung was slow and below average.

We ripped the contents of a pressed Double Layer movie to the hard disk using each of the drives. The results are summarized below:

The ASUS drive's ripping speed is quite impressive leaving the other two drives lagging behind.

The Samsung drive is the only one that supports DVD-RAM reading, a feature that differentiates the drive from the other two:

-Appendix Nero CD-DVD Speed Graphs

Asus

• CD Pressed / CD-R / US-RW
• DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed DL / DVD Pressed DL OTP / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW

Samsung

• CD Pressed / CD-R / US-RW
• DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed DL / DVD Pressed DL OTP / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW / DVD-RAM

LiteOn

• CD Pressed / CD-R / US-RW
• DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed DL / DVD Pressed DL OTP / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW