CDRLabs.com

I just bought a BenQ DW1620. If you read Dolphinius' review, you can see the max read speed of DVD-R is at 8x. However, I've noticed that some of my DVD-R disks can be ripped at the same speed as single layer DVD-ROMs at 16x max. Those disks would also get up to 16x in CD speed tests. Upon further investigation I found out that this was happening with approximately 70% of the diks that I had previously burnt with my Pioneer 107D. The 70% of the disks that got up to the high speed, they all had very good and uniforn PI/PO tests. The other 30% were had some fluctuations in the PI/PO tests.

The strange thing is that I burnt some DVD-R media with the BenQ1620, with even better PI/PO than the Pioneer 107D. However, all the diks burnt with the BenQ could be ripped back only at the normal 8x max speed. In CD Speed tests the BenQ burnt disks were limited to 8x max also.

I wonder whether anybody else might have run into similar situations. Any thoughts on why some DVD-R media can be read back at double the speed? Any possible way to get 16X ripping speed on all DVD-R media?

Weird....

since I never rip DVDRs personally, I never ran into that situation....

Anyone else notice this?

Forgot to mention, this happens with all the firmwares. I've tried G7P9, B7P9, B7T9, and B7U9.

Yes, if the minus disk is a especially good burn it will rip at upto 16x, if it's merely pretty good it does around 8x max like normal. Most of mine max out at 8 but I have a few godlike burns that can do 16. My NEC seems to almost always do 16x but it's error correction isn't as good. Of course I'm using reworked firmware with the 3500

Actually, this phenomenom has been discussed at some lenght at cdfreaks. It is a firmware bug. It should only occur with certain mid's. It is a generally accepted belief that the 1620 should be able to read all dvd +/- at 16x, but for some unknown reason it has been limited in the firmware........