CDRLabs.com

ExtremeMhz has a review as well:

http://www.extrememhz.com/dw1620-p1.shtml

It got their "Extreme Excellence Award"...

Unfortunately, I had run much of the review's tests before newer firmwares came out that corrected many of the problems. I was able to re-run some tests, but other tests I was not (due to lack of time and lack of certain media). I *am* however quite surprised that they were able to get DVD-R media to burn at 16x... since none of the media that they used at 16x worked for me (even with the latest firmware!!)... but this might be because Europe tends to get higher grade media then North America does. This however does not explain why the media BenQ themselves sent me, did not work at 16x www.cdrinfo.com also had this problem too!

I'm testing a BenQ clone right now too and even with their latest firmware, I haven't found any -R that will work at 16x yet.

dolph, according to your review you had firmware version B7J9 only at the end. I think alot of the problems weren't "sorted" till the B7K9 version (now up to B7L9 and soon to be B7M9) came out.
Do you still have the drive? Maybe you can do some updated review addendums...
I think this would be useful for all reviews, given the drive is still with the reviewer...
I was impressed with your throughness of testing and look forward to your future reviews.

Ian wrote:I'm testing a BenQ clone right now too and even with their latest firmware, I haven't found any -R that will work at 16x yet.

Ian, from their latest "released" firmware they state:

Code: Select all

For 8x DVD-R media which is able to write at 16x:
01. BenQ/ Daxon (DAXON0 08S)
02. SONY (SONY08 D1)
03. TAIYO YUDEN (TYG02)

Do none of this achieve 16x?

I have some FUJIFILM03 DVD-R that burns very nice at 12x.

pchilson wrote:

Ian wrote:I'm testing a BenQ clone right now too and even with their latest firmware, I haven't found any -R that will work at 16x yet.

Ian, from their latest "released" firmware they state:

Code: Select all

For 8x DVD-R media which is able to write at 16x:
01. BenQ/ Daxon (DAXON0 08S)
02. SONY (SONY08 D1)
03. TAIYO YUDEN (TYG02)

Do none of this achieve 16x?

I have some FUJIFILM03 DVD-R that burns very nice at 12x.

I Have all those media types... and none of them burn at 16x for me I will continue to keep an eye on it though.

I'm not sure about an updated review per se, but continual support via the forum is quite likely. The fact is, I love this drive, and it's my main personal drive now! Beating out the PX-712a (not a hard thing to do) and the Pioneer DVR-107. So no, this drive is not being returned anywhere anytime soon

I'm in the process of throwing some more tests together actually, since I hit a temporary snag on the unit I'm looking at now anyways. Of course, my computers never really stop burning and testing media... so don't worry!

It's not that you can't choose the 16x writing speed for some of that media. It's that the writing times suggest that the drive's WOPR technology is preventing it from reaching that speed.

The "M" version firmware should be out this week. I believe CDFreak had M firmware at his disposal when he did his review. Also someone with the G series firmware (OEM branded DW1620) G7K9 couldn't burn fuji03 8x - at 12x, until he crossed flashed it to the B series firmware and on to B7L9, then he could.

Hef wrote:The "M" version firmware should be out this week. I believe CDFreak had M firmware at his disposal when he did his review. Also someone with the G series firmware (OEM branded DW1620) G7K9 couldn't burn fuji03 8x - at 12x, until he crossed flashed it to the B series firmware and on to B7L9, then he could.

I don't think they had B7M9 firmware... it wasn't made for that kind of testing. The Beta M firmware was only tweaked for DVDInfoPro really, and wasn't the final version by any means. I could be wrong of course, but I would hope they were using a finalized firmware such as B7K9 or B7L9.

Under the Sonic DLA write up it says: "The version of DLA Nu Tech has included with the DW1620 supports most CD and DVD media, including write once formats like CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R."

I think Nu Tech needs to be changed to BenQ.

Also, very last paragraph on the features page says: "The DW1620 offers much more than than though."

I think the 2nd 'than' needs to be a 'that'.

In the 'Nero CD Speed v3.16 - DVD-ROM:' section.

The CD-DVD Speed screenshot shows an end speed of 16.24X and a disc size of 4.36GB. The paragraph and table information below contradicts the data in the screenshot.

"The DW1620 wasn't as fast as the other drives when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. While it came close, the drive came up a little short of its rated speed in our tests. However, this is most likely due to the DVD being only 4GB in size."

Here I go again.

In the section labeled "DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.3.1.20 and DLA 4.60:"
The data disc screenshots are linked with the following dead links:
http://cdrlabs.com/reviews/PerformanceP ... +R(Burn16x)(CDSpeedDatadisc).jpg
http://cdrlabs.com/reviews/PerformanceP ... -R(Burn12x)(CDSpeedDatadisc).jpg

In the table containing various media/Mids/write times.
"Pandisc 4x DVD-R" is missing a MID code, does this have a MID? If not maybe you should specify "No MID"

"Ritek 4X DVD-RW" is listed with a MID of RITEKW004, shouldn't this be RITEKW04 ?

3rd paragraph, last sentence on the conclusion page:
", and each the time the drive becomes more and more impressive!"
I think you need to remove the first 'the' word quoted here.

Hope this helps Dolph.

I'd also like to say "great job!" on the entire review and your thorough media testing! Very enjoyable reading/viewing.

fixed, fixed, and fixed....

That last one was due to a frantic re-running of the test with a larger disc, and then forgetting to update the details accordingly. Doh!

Hi all - some comments about my test at cdfreaks.

Firmware B7K9 is used for most read speed tests.
Firmware B7L9 is used for all writing tests except for TY CD-R that is re-done with B7M9 since it failed with all earlier firmware version and Ritek G05 DVD-R (but nothing improved with B7M9).

I got B7M9 from BenQ to fix my TY CD-R problem as well as trying to improve writing quality on some DVD-R discs - I did not get it from Nic.

I've never had DVD-R writing speed problems, my drive has written up to 16x from day one when I got it.

Nero CD/DVD-speed is used to test so I could see the writing curve all the way and writing time was correct too (varying from 5:53 to 6:08 for DVD-R at 16x).

So I guess the question is, is it drive performance variations? or is it the media differences between countries? Some of the results between our two reviews are very similar, but others are very different! Ritek 4x DVD-RWs would be a good example! Mine was run with B7K9.

New firmware B7M9 should enable high speed scanning - It's not showing up on the html page of firmware for the DW1620, but it's there!


http://support.benq.com/files/storage/F ... 0/B7M9.zip

Hi,
I've just upgraded to the DW1620 and flashed the latest firmware (B7M9) and I have the following problem:
It won work at all with any of my old CD-RW and some Memorex DVD-RW disks as folows:
Mitsubishi, 4 X CD-RW, 74:43.00 (won't write)
Infodisc, 4 X CD-RW, 79:59.74 (Writes OK, fails verification)
Acer, 4 X CD-RW, 74:41.50 (Won't write)CMC Magnetics, 4 X CD-RW, 75:00.00 (Won't write)
Blank DVD-RW (Memorex 1X DVD-RW, won’t work)

Should I just stay away from those media types? or there is something wrong with my DW1620?

Did it work with any of that media before? Most of those discs are from formats no longer supported, since no one wants to wait around for 20min for a CD-RW to burn, or an hour for a DVD-RW to burn anyways

I had no problem using all those CD-RW with my old LG GMA-4020B Drive, except for the Memorex CD-RW and DVD-RW which didn't work either...

Any ideas?

They probably aren't supported. Try sending an e-mail to BenQ's support department. They are actually quite good usually (They fixed a lack of support for mini DVD-R/RW media for me)

Most of you will have read it already

http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tm.asp?m=87453

4x DL screenshots

Nice. Hopefully they'll release it soon. I might have to email BenQ and see if I can get a copy of it early.

Ian wrote:Nice. Hopefully they'll release it soon. I might have to email BenQ and see if I can get a copy of it early.

Hrm... would have been nice to get this too...

dolphinius_rex wrote:Hrm... would have been nice to get this too...

Yes, but you'd have to sell your soul or permanently sew your lips to the ass of someone at BenQ.