-- Burn Tests and Conclusions
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3 The SD-R1312 kit comes
with PowerDVD for DVD playback as well as InstantCD/DVD for CD/RW
mastering. We did use InstantCD/DVD to do some burn tests, but
it did not provide any timed speeds for us. So we also doubled
back and re-burned using Nero Burning Rom.
Click to Enlarge
The InstantCD/DVD program is pretty
straight forward, but may seem a bit bloated to some. There
are a ton of different ways to create and backup your CDs.
Some categories would have been better put together instead of
spread apart into numerous categories.
Click to Enlarge
If you take a look at the above
screenshot, it does look similar to the Nero Burning Rom program.
The drive allowed for burning at max speed of 32X. With
buffer-underun protection (ability to stop disc burning until data
is fed from source), this drive should be quick and not cause any
errors.
Our burn tests were done using Kodak
24x Ultima media and Fuji (Tayo Yuiden) 32x media. Both media
brands are 700MB/80min discs with ability for up to 40x burns.
An ISO of 605MB was written to 2 sets of CD-R each, with an average
time taken. The average speed for the CD-R was 4 minutes and
43 seconds, just slightly slower than the Samsung by a few seconds.
We tested a Ricoh and Samsung 10x CD-RW
disc using the same averaging scheme for the CD-Rs. Results
were 7 minutes and 34 seconds, which is also just a few seconds
slower than the Samsung.
An over-burn test was also conducted
using Nero, but the best we could do was burn exactly 700MB worth of
data with finalization of the disc. Even 701MB was not
possible.
Overall, the drive is decently priced.
The bundled software of PowerDVD and InstantCD/DVD is nice and
should get you going as soon as you install the drive. The
only downfall is the lack-luster read speeds of the drive in our
testing. Burn speeds were right there with the equivalent
Samsung drive.
Pros:
- Nice complete kit
- Drive is not loud
- Combo drive is useful in computers strapped for space
- Buffer-underrun protection
Cons:
- Slow read speeds
- Drive is not very appealing cosmetically
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