NEC ND-3500A Recorder - Page 11

DVD Recording Tests

- Writing Performance

The NEC ND-3500A supports DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW writing. The maximum supported speed for DVD±R is 16X CAV and 4X CLV for DVD±RW media. You can see the full range of supported speeds on the first page of this review. Nero Burning Rom's reported speeds are shown below.

By using Nero CD-DVD Speed with DVD-R and DVD+R media, we are able to see the 8X ZCLV, 12X ZCLV, 13X CAV and 16X CAV recording technology being used by the recorder for -R and +R media.

• DVD+R media @ 8X ZCLV

• DVD+R media @ 12X ZCLV

• DVD+R media @ 13X CAV

• DVD+R media @ 16X CAV

• DVD-R media @ 16X CAV

Below is a table with several 12X and 16X recorders, listing their average writing speeds as measured by Nero CD-DVDSpeed and showing that the NEC ND-3500A and TDK 1616N are the fastest 16X recorders.

- Burning Tests

Full Media Support list will be discussed later on this review

• DVD-R media

There are only a few -R media that can be recorded at 16X. The TDK 8X media was recorded at the 16X speed but the drive could not pass the 14X limit, giving similar recording performance to that of TY 8X media recorded at 12X. Maxell 16X media had the best performance of all.

• DVD+R media

Best performance was reported with Verbatim 16X media (recorded at 16X). It should be reminded that the TDK 1616N could write BeALL and BenQ 8X media only at 4X, and the NEC ND-3500A should support these speeds as well. For 16X media, CMC Magnetics and Philips media could only be recorded at 8X, while Traxdata 8X and 16X media (Ritek based) supported only 4X(!). This is a major drawback for this device.

- Comparison with other drives

Although there are faster +R media recorders, recording times reported by the NEC ND-3500A were indeed more than satisfactory. The Pioneer DVR-108 seems to be the slowest drive, being able to write at 16X Z-CLV in 431secs. With -R media, the Memorex drive could not compete with the other drives, since it can only write at 8X. The ND-3500A was the fastest for this media format.

With DVD re-writable media, all drives could record up to 4X, and the Memorex recorder was the fastest of all. However, the ND-3510A surpassed the Pioneer and BenQ drives.

- DVD Overburning Tests

Using Nero CD-DVD Speed, we tested if the NEC ND-3500A can overburn using DVD+R and DVD-R media. The drive does not support overburning, giving the following error with all inserted media.

• DVD-R media

• DVD+R media

- DVD+MRW Tests

The NEC ND-3500A does not support the Mount Rainier feature.