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In House Review - NEC ND-3520A 16x DVD±RW

PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:46 pm
by Ian
Today CDRLabs brings you a review of NEC's second generation 16x DVD±RW, the ND-3520A. While affordably priced, the drive features some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available. The ND-3520A is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. More importantly, it's one of the first drives to feature support for both the DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL formats.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the ND-3520A and see how it compares to some of the 16x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does NEC's new drive have what it takes? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=255] Image
NEC ND-3520A 16x DVD±RW[/url]

As usual, if you have any comments or questions about this review or the NEC ND-3520A, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:51 pm
by Ian
Just to let you know, your review suggestions are not going ignored. BenQ DW1620 scans are included in this review for those that wanted to see Jitter rates. While I didn't do it here, I've already modified my testing to use a full 4.37GB disc image for DVD write tests. You'll see those in the next review.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:36 am
by hoxlund
what a coincidence i got my 3520 today also, delivered a day early

same firmware, but mine was manufacturered feburary 05

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:55 am
by MediumRare
I haven't read the whole review yet- have to leave for work in 20 min.- but I really like the drive's mug-shot in the Features-section. There's no hiding that this comes from CDRLabs- even without the watermark! :D

G

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:56 am
by hoxlund
ohh that was a good idea, unless that wasn't your intent Ian

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:32 am
by Wesociety
Ian wrote:I've already modified my testing to use a full 4.37GB disc image for DVD write tests. You'll see those in the next review.

Thanks Ian. :D

PostPosted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:06 am
by Ian
MediumRare wrote:I haven't read the whole review yet- have to leave for work in 20 min.- but I really like the drive's mug-shot in the Features-section. There's no hiding that this comes from CDRLabs- even without the watermark! :D

G


The picture with Kicker in it? I started taking that shot and realized that it was pretty boring. Kicker was sitting there so I stuck him in there.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 4:26 am
by bill
Ian wrote:Just to let you know, your review suggestions are not going ignored. BenQ DW1620 scans are included in this review for those that wanted to see Jitter rates. While I didn't do it here, I've already modified my testing to use a full 4.37GB disc image for DVD write tests. You'll see those in the next review.


Nice review, Ian. Thanks for all your effort, it is appreciated.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:26 am
by ETP
Yep! It's time to buy up all those $52 drives at Newegg.com. :lol:

PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 5:57 pm
by MediumRare
Ian wrote:The picture with Kicker in it? I started taking that shot and realized that it was pretty boring. Kicker was sitting there so I stuck him in there.

Yes, that's the picture I meant. I find it to be a really nice touch!
Ian in the review wrote:For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same NEC Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

Who makes this media for NEC? Or was it just a quick search-and-replace from a Memorex review? :wink:

Seriously, another good review. I really appreciate the detailed media performance tests, also with BenQ scans.

One thing I noticed was some sort of structure in the PI Error rate and jitter at ca. 2.3 GiB in almost all the BenQ-scans- either a spike or a jump or (rarely) a drop. The transfer rate and KProbe scans showed no such structure. Is this an artifact of the BenQ drive or does this correspond to a speed step in the NEC burning strategy (unlikely at 16x CAV)? Do discs from other burners show this too?

I have a couple of other suggestions, but they're more general and I'll post them in the feedback thread.

G

PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:04 pm
by Ian
MediumRare wrote:Who makes this media for NEC? Or was it just a quick search-and-replace from a Memorex review? :wink:


Oops.. that has probably been in there for awhile. #-o

One thing I noticed was some sort of structure in the PI Error rate and jitter at ca. 2.3 GiB in almost all the BenQ-scans- either a spike or a jump or (rarely) a drop. The transfer rate and KProbe scans showed no such structure. Is this an artifact of the BenQ drive or does this correspond to a speed step in the NEC burning strategy (unlikely at 16x CAV)? Do discs from other burners show this too?:


Yeah, I noticed this too. I think it's due to the Z-CLV writing strategy. I haven't used the BenQ enough for PI/PIF testing to know (yet) whether or not it does this with discs burned by other drives.

PostPosted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 6:22 pm
by MediumRare
Ian wrote:I think it's due to the Z-CLV writing strategy.

I thought that might be the case too- but it doesn't match the speed steps (if your 8x DVD+RW curve goes for +R media too) and a spike shows in the 16x CAV curve without any steps.

G

PostPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 9:19 am
by RJW
Very good review.
Again it's showeing great improvements.
If things keep going like this then I would be really suprised to see what you can do for the next reviews.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:37 am
by jsl
MediumRare wrote:One thing I noticed was some sort of structure in the PI Error rate and jitter at ca. 2.3 GiB in almost all the BenQ-scans- either a spike or a jump or (rarely) a drop. The transfer rate and KProbe scans showed no such structure. Is this an artifact of the BenQ drive or does this correspond to a speed step in the NEC burning strategy (unlikely at 16x CAV)? Do discs from other burners show this too?

Yes that's a little interesting because there are similar spikes in the Japanese "YSS" guy's 16x burn scans from both NEC ND-3520 and Pioneer 109:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/dvr-abn1 ... dvd16x.htm
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/a09j/a09jdvd16x.htm

Slower burning with ZCLV on these writers does not seem to produce these spikes though and I can't remember I've seen them from burns made on any other writers either. So maybe the BenQ just doesn't like CAV burns from drives based on the latest NEC chipset? ;)