In House Review - BenQ DW1640 16x DVD±RW

[eric93se]

the firmware has improved greatly since the review. here is some infome r20, burned with mcc03 write strate, 8x media burned at 16x, solid burn on.

[Gabe]

Unfortunately, I used my last CMC MAG AF1 on my previous review, so I had no more for use in this review (and it's not available for purchase anymore). As for CMC MAG E01, I some INCREDIBLE results from it for the most part... although the quality of CMC can vary quite a bit! The Memorex Director's Cut media I tested wasn't able to even finish the burn without failing! So I suppose you could say I received my best and worst scores (or very close to them at least) from CMC MAG E01

I don´t have any AF1, too, so I can test it with a blank media. But I´m sure the most people survive it when the 1640 don´t like AF1

[dolphinius_rex]

Nice review, just a small correction/addendum. It does report C2 errors with Nero CD/DVD Speed, but not with EAC. This was confirmed by Erik Deppe over at the cdfreaks forum.

Q.

I'm having a very hard time getting the drive to report C2 errors... maybe I need a newer version of Nero CD/DVD Speed? In any case, it didn't report them on any of my tests... and to be honest, originally it had been stating that it could read C2 errors, and someone corrected me to have it say it couldn't

I'm going to leave it as is for now, until I can produce a scan with C2 errors detected

[dolphinius_rex]

Maybe you only scan with a Benq and a Liteon-drive, the graphs are easier to read (for me), and you save much time.

Can you tell us, what´s the next drive you want review?

Well, in THEORY, I'll have 2 PX-716SAs running for my next review, so it'll go a little faster that way (that's *IF* I can afford the other one....). Next time I'll be scanning with just 3 models of drives, The PX-716SA (hopefully 2 units), the BenQ DW1640, and some LiteON drive, hopefully not my SOHW-832s which I would like to retire to a garbage pile soon.

As to why I do this... I like the third opinion on the disc, and I REALLY like the Beta testing done by the PX-712/716 drives.... but if it becomes a major issue I might stop doing PIE/PIF scanning with them, and cut 1.5 hours of testing time into .5 hours only (per disc).

The next drive I'll be reviewing? Not too sure yet. Possibly a new LiteON drive.... we'll have to see! (yeah, I really don't know yet)

[Scour]

Well, in THEORY, I'll have 2 PX-716SAs running for my next review, so it'll go a little faster that way (that's *IF* I can afford the other one....). Next time I'll be scanning with just 3 models of drives, The PX-716SA (hopefully 2 units), the BenQ DW1640, and some LiteON drive, hopefully not my SOHW-832s which I would like to retire to a garbage pile soon.

As to why I do this... I like the third opinion on the disc, and I REALLY like the Beta testing done by the PX-712/716 drives.... but if it becomes a major issue I might stop doing PIE/PIF scanning with them, and cut 1.5 hours of testing time into .5 hours only (per disc).

The next drive I'll be reviewing? Not too sure yet. Possibly a new LiteON drive.... we'll have to see! (yeah, I really don't know yet)

Can you in the next review the pics of Benq or Liteon direct include into the performance-page and for the Plextools-scans include a link to the pics?

Liteon, so... it is the 1635s, I guess

[Muchin]

Next time I'll be scanning with just 3 models of drives, The PX-716SA (hopefully 2 units), the BenQ DW1640, and some LiteON drive, hopefully not my SOHW-832s which I would like to retire to a garbage pile soon.

As to why I do this... I like the third opinion on the disc, and I REALLY like the Beta testing done by the PX-712/716 drives.... but if it becomes a major issue I might stop doing PIE/PIF scanning with them, and cut 1.5 hours of testing time into .5 hours only (per disc).

Superb work and a new milestone. You may have covered more discs than Benq’s own team did.

For the purpose of reducing the test time in the next review to come, may I make the following suggestions for you to consider?

1. The default speed of PxScan to perform PIE/PIF plus beta/jitter scanning is 2X, but one may edit the batch files to do PIE/PIF error tests at max speed (the simplest way is to add “jitterbeta” command to the fast_scan.bat file, in case you don't know). In doing so, one is also rewarded with PIE/PIF error counts comparable to those given by CATS for some discs at least, besides saving much time.

2. You have scanned all the discs with four drives for the sake of completeness. IMO, you may do the tests with a pickier drive first, if the scans are bad, there is no need to examine with other drives. In this way, you may cover more discs and the information is no less useful.


I would suggest LiteOn 167T DVD-ROM drive if you want to replace LiteOn SOHW-832S. CDRinfo and I myself have made some comparisons between 167T and CATS device in PIE/PIF error testing, and I am satisfied with the results of scanning with 167T at 8X speed, cutting some time again.

[dolphinius_rex]

Can you in the next review the pics of Benq or Liteon direct include into the performance-page and for the Plextools-scans include a link to the pics?

For the moment, I'm going to keep my current format for doing performance reviews. As it is the page loads awefully slow for most people, and it's killer on dial up... if I included the other tests directly inbedded, it'd take more then an hour or two for 56K'ers to load.

As for the Plextools link... the thumbnail of the image is also a link to the main image.

[dolphinius_rex]

1. The default speed of PxScan to perform PIE/PIF plus beta/jitter scanning is 2X, but one may edit the batch files to do PIE/PIF error tests at max speed (the simplest way is to add “jitterbeta” command to the fast_scan.bat file, in case you don't know). In doing so, one is also rewarded with PIE/PIF error counts comparable to those given by CATS for some discs at least, besides saving much time.

This is something I considered when setting up my original testing model for my reviews. But since 2x is the default with Plextor, I'm sticking with that, just like my LiteON scans are done at 4x, and my BenQ at 8x. As for CATS, like CDRInfo I also have access to my own CATS tests, but it probably takes a lot more work on my part to get them done In any case, I'm not totally convinced about reaching CATS like scores on any drive for a majority of media... it's just that some drives get lucky sometimes in some circumstances. The only two exceptions to this is the Plextor's Beta scores, which, when tested at 2x, come very close to CATS scores, and BenQ's Jitter scores, which when tested at 8x, come just a point or so higher then CATS scores. Which are both reasons why I use the drives

2. You have scanned all the discs with four drives for the sake of completeness. IMO, you may do the tests with a pickier drive first, if the scans are bad, there is no need to examine with other drives. In this way, you may cover more discs and the information is no less useful.

Well, 4 drives is not my usual model... I just included comparions of the DW1620 vs. DW1640 in this review so that I could decide how close one scanning results were to the other, and show other people as well. As for a picky drive to scan with first.... what's a picky drive? The PX-712a/PX-716a? A LiteON? a BenQ?? All three of these drives have different perspectives on discs, and I've seen all 3 drives give a bad score to a disc the other 2 have given a good score to!. I like sticking with a 3 drive perspective, since it gives an idea of real world performance, rather then just a bunch of numbers most people have a hard time inturpretting beyond 280/4.

I would suggest LiteOn 167T DVD-ROM drive if you want to replace LiteOn SOHW-832S. CDRinfo and I myself have made some comparisons between 167T and CATS device in PIE/PIF error testing, and I am satisfied with the results of scanning with 167T at 8X speed, cutting some time again.

Sorry, but I'm certainly not satisfied with using a LiteON DVD-ROM as a serious scanning device. And yes, I have seen the comparison, and initially I was also excited about it... but the consistancy in LiteON DVD-ROM's has been shown time and time again to not be there. And besides that, I don't even consider LiteON DVD-RW drives to be serious scanning devices either

[Muchin]

1. The default speed of PxScan to perform PIE/PIF plus beta/jitter scanning is 2X, but one may edit the batch files to do PIE/PIF error tests at max speed (the simplest way is to add “jitterbeta” command to the fast_scan.bat file, in case you don't know). In doing so, one is also rewarded with PIE/PIF error counts comparable to those given by CATS for some discs at least, besides saving much time.

This is something I considered when setting up my original testing model for my reviews. But since 2x is the default with Plextor, I'm sticking with that, just like my LiteON scans are done at 4x, and my BenQ at 8x.

Let me first quote a paragraph by Alexander Noé:

“….. some people claim that higher scan speeds lead to an inaccurate result. This is simply wrong. The result you receive tells how much work the error correction had to do when reading the disc. That means, if the result is good even at higher speeds, the disc is good. If higher scan speeds lead to severely increasing error rates, the drive has trouble with the disc in question.”

Taking other factors into consideration also, IMHO, it is a good practice to scan at a speed that will give the highest PI/PO error counts for the drive used. Thus I would use 4X speed with LiteOn SOHW-832S and max speed with drives from Benq, Plextor and most others, including LiteOn DVD-ROM drives and more recent models of LiteOn DVD writers. It is easier this way to distinguish the truly good discs from those with intermediate quality, besides being faster in most cases. I think it is preferable to scan at max speed with the Plextor’s rather than to consider omitting its PIE/PIF tests as you said earlier. Moreover, I have not seen any evidence to show that scans at higher speeds obtained with a Plextor drive is unreliable, so I suggest you to give it a second thought.

As for CATS, like CDRInfo I also have access to my own CATS tests, but it probably takes a lot more work on my part to get them done In any case, I'm not totally convinced about reaching CATS like scores on any drive for a majority of media... it's just that some drives get lucky sometimes in some circumstances. The only two exceptions to this is the Plextor's Beta scores, which, when tested at 2x, come very close to CATS scores, and BenQ's Jitter scores, which when tested at 8x, come just a point or so higher then CATS scores. Which are both reasons why I use the drives.

A definitive conclusion on PIE/PIF testing can not be drawn at present. However, the PIE/PIF profiles and counts reported by LiteOn 167T for the single-layered DVDRs (by Mitsubishi/Verbatim, TY, Ricoh, Optodisc, and CMC) tested by CDRinfo and by myself are all reasonably close to those by CATS. On the basis of what I have been informed, I am also optimistic about Plextor 712. I am eager to see you publish your comparisons to get a clearer answer, but please read the following thread, if you have not done yet:

CATS vs. Home-made scans

2. You have scanned all the discs with four drives for the sake of completeness. IMO, you may do the tests with a pickier drive first, if the scans are bad, there is no need to examine with other drives. In this way, you may cover more discs and the information is no less useful.

Well, 4 drives is not my usual model... I just included comparions of the DW1620 vs. DW1640 in this review so that I could decide how close one scanning results were to the other, and show other people as well. As for a picky drive to scan with first.... what's a picky drive? The PX-712a/PX-716a? A LiteON? a BenQ?? All three of these drives have different perspectives on discs, and I've seen all 3 drives give a bad score to a disc the other 2 have given a good score to!. I like sticking with a 3 drive perspective, since it gives an idea of real world performance, rather then just a bunch of numbers most people have a hard time inturpretting beyond 280/4.

Among the four drives you used, PX-712 (at max speed) and LiteOn 832S (at 4X) will be pickier than the Benq drives except in very few cases, which do not matter. Since you are much interested in beta test, PX-712 is the first drive to use. I would rate a disc as a bad one even if only one drive returns unsatisfactory test scores, and I am interested in only truly good discs. But if you do not care about the extra time needed and want to do more tests, of course I do not mind .

I would suggest LiteOn 167T DVD-ROM drive if you want to replace LiteOn SOHW-832S. CDRinfo and I myself have made some comparisons between 167T and CATS device in PIE/PIF error testing, and I am satisfied with the results of scanning with 167T at 8X speed, cutting some time again.

Sorry, but I'm certainly not satisfied with using a LiteON DVD-ROM as a serious scanning device. And yes, I have seen the comparison, and initially I was also excited about it... but the consistancy in LiteON DVD-ROM's has been shown time and time again to not be there. And besides that, I don't even consider LiteON DVD-RW drives to be serious scanning devices either

What I have said applied to 167T only, not to other LiteOn DVD-ROM drives. I have two units of 167T, and I was surprised by the remarkable closeness between scans by the two even when the versions of firmware are different. what you have heard are most likely about some earlier models.

I agree with you about LiteOn DVD writers if narrowed down to the 16xx series, yet with the exception of Sony 710A (but not its equivalent LiteOn 1633S). LiteOn 832S and some other earlier models may behave differently from the newer ones and may give PIE/PIF profiles and counts not far from CATS’.

[burninfool]

Nice review, just a small correction/addendum. It does report C2 errors with Nero CD/DVD Speed, but not with EAC. This was confirmed by Erik Deppe over at the cdfreaks forum.

Q.

I'm having a very hard time getting the drive to report C2 errors... maybe I need a newer version of Nero CD/DVD Speed? In any case, it didn't report them on any of my tests... and to be honest, originally it had been stating that it could read C2 errors, and someone corrected me to have it say it couldn't

I'm going to leave it as is for now, until I can produce a scan with C2 errors detected

I don't know what that guy is smokin' Dolph but no BenQ DVD writer(DW800A-1640) can report C2 errors or damaged sectors.

[Scour]

Hello!

I give Benq a chance, my 1640 is ordered

Thanks to Dolph for so many scans and transfer-rate-tests

[dolphinius_rex]

Hello!

I give Benq a chance, my 1640 is ordered

Thanks to Dolph for so many scans and transfer-rate-tests

Well, when CDRlabs, CDFreaks, and CDRinfo, all agree it's one of the best drives, or even THE best drive available.... you can't be risking too much I don't think

[Scour]

Well, when CDRlabs, CDFreaks, and CDRinfo, all agree it's one of the best drives, or even THE best drive available.... you can't be risking too much I don't think

I will see next days

[Qyngali]

I don't know what that guy is smokin' Dolph but no BenQ DVD writer(DW800A-1640) can report C2 errors or damaged sectors.

Thanks for the kind words. If you don't take my word for it maybe you'll trust Erik Deppe (author of Nero CD/DVD Speed)...

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php ... ost1073541

Q.

[Ian]

Basically there are two ways of reporting C2 errors:
1) the standard MMC method which can be used in conjunction with audio CD ripping. BenQ DVD burners do not support this method.
This is the method which InfoTool reports.

2) a vendor-specific method which can only be used for disc quality testing.
This method is supported by BenQ drives so the results from the Disc Quality test are correct.

Well.. if you go by Erik's comments, then Dolph is correct. The drive does not report C2 errors when ripping audio CD's.. with EAC or otherwise.

[Ian]

I finally broke down and ordered myself a DW1640 from Zipzoomfly today. Hopefully, it will be replacing the DW1620 in my write quality testing. I might even use it for stress testing.

[Qyngali]

Well.. if you go by Erik's comments, then Dolph is correct. The drive does not report C2 errors when ripping audio CD's.. with EAC or otherwise.

Read my initial post again and you'll realize that that's almost word for word what I wrote. Except for the 'or otherwise' part of course. Please show me where Erik said that, I sure can't find it.

Nice review, just a small correction/addendum. It does report C2 errors with Nero CD/DVD Speed, but not with EAC. This was confirmed by Erik Deppe over at the cdfreaks forum.

Oh well, if the scans in the thread I linked to doesn't convince you nothing will. It's your loss, I'm done arguing.

Ok I'm not done.

2) a vendor-specific method which can only be used for disc quality testing.
This method is supported by BenQ drives so the results from the Disc Quality test are correct.

In other words, Nero CD/DVD Speed reports C2 errors wit han audio cd when running the Disc Quality test.

Q.

[Ian]

In other words, Nero CD/DVD Speed reports C2 errors wit han audio cd when running the Disc Quality test.

Yes, that is true. But Dolph was not talking about when doing a disc quality test. His comments were in regard to ripping audio CD's. Not testing for disc quality.

If the drive did in fact report C2 errors when ripping audio CD's, you wouldn't get a worthless Scandisc graph like this:



If you don't believe EAC, Erik's own InfoTool reports the same thing.

[Qyngali]

If you don't believe EAC

Again, read what I wrote earlier. I've said more than once now that EAC doesn't support it. EAC utilises the regular MMC commands, same command set that the infotool checks for.

So yes, the BenQ can't use C2 while ripping with EAC, but it can check any cd for C1+C2 errors (with CD/DVDspeed).

And about that scan you posted. Well, first of all my copy of CD/DVDspeed allows selecting C1/C2 - PI/PO Test instead of read test. Seems like you got an old version since the C1/C2 test option is greyed out, or you forgot to switch from read test to C1/C2 (or you're trying to discredit me by intentionally choosing read test, but it was probably just a honest mistake on your part ). Using the proper setting would make the scandisc test use the same test engine as the disc quality test, and it would report both C1 and C2 (if present on the cd of course).

Sad to say, I can't find a scandisc scan with C2 errors present right now, but I'll try and find one. 5:30 AM now so it might take a while.

Edit: Found one.

Q.

[Ian]

That screenshot I posted was a bad example. It was from the Plextor PX-740A (OEM DW1640) and the C1/C2 tests are disabled on the drive.

Your screenshot is a bad example as well since its using the drive's C1/C2 testing capabilities (Erik's example #2) and not the regular MMC commands (example #1) that are used in Scandisc's normal read test (and EAC).

In any case... I'm not trying to discredit you. I'm just trying to set the record straight. As it is, there's too much incorrect info flying around the intraweb.

[Bhairav]

Ian, you ordered 2 1640s from ZZF? Hope they don't come DOA.. I bought 2 from a B&M store, BOTH couldn't read any discs at all out of the box. Both were Made in China, July 05, BSHB.. watch out!

[Ian]

No, just one.

I wanted a retail but they're impossible to find here in the US.

[Gen-An]

No, just one.

I wanted a retail but they're impossible to find here in the US.

I've heard Circuit City carries them; have you tried there?

[Ian]

I heard that as well. I also heard they want like $80+ for them.

[Scour]

Hello!

Question about SB: In Qsuite 2 only 6 lines for learned media. Anyone knows if the max. is 6 learned media or more?