detail information

For our final (advanced) tests we're going to test how the AOpen drive performs when reading and writing data and audio copy-protections. Besides that we'll also check if the drive can overburn and if it can handle 8cm discs. Let's start with the data copy-protections:

Copy-Protected Data:

For our copy-protected data tests we used CloneCD to read and write several popular copy-protections. In the picture below you can see that the AOpen DRW4410 is fully supported by CloneCD:

The AOpen drive supports the DAO-RAW96 recording mode which basically means that the drive can write uncorrected data and SubChannel Data. In the table below we've summed up all of our results and after the table we will clarify our results:

Protected Data	Game Title	Protection (version)	Read Time	Back-up Works
	Desperados	LaserLock	8m:25s	Yes
	The Sims: House Party	SafeDisc v2.10.030	6m:25s	Yes
	Mafia: The City Of Lost Heaven (CD1)	SafeDisc v2.70.030	7m:21s	Partially
	Neverwinter Nights (CD3)	SecuRom v4.76.00.0051	2m:21s	Yes
	Final Fantasy VIII (CD1)	PlayStation LibCrypt	2m:22s	Yes

The AOpen DRW4410 drive performed very well in our data copy-protection tests. The drive was able to read all discs in an acceptable time and did especially well with the LaserLock disc since that protection often needs a lot of time to be read. When it came to writing the protections the AOpen drive also performed pretty well but it was too bad it needed CloneCD's weak sector amplification for newer SafeDisc 2 versions to make a fully working back-up.

Copy-Protected Audio:

For the copy-protected audio discs we used the Exact Audio Copy (EAC) software. We simply inserted the audio discs in the drive and waited if the drive could recognize the disc and if so, could extract the audio tracks. In the table below we've summed up our results. Note that before we did any of these tests we disabled the 'Auto Insert Notification' for the AOpen drive:

Well what can we say? After the AOpen's good performance with data copy-protections it was disappointing to see the drive failing with all our audio copy-protections. The DRW4410 drive simply failed to recognize any discs.

Overburning:

For our overburning test we, as always, used the Nero CD-DVD Speed software and started the test. According to the CD-DVD Speed software the AOpen drive can almost fully overburn up to 98 minutes:

To test if the results we got from Nero CD-DVD Speed were correct we used the Nero 5.5 software to set up a new audio compilation of 98 minutes. Unfortunately the burn process failed:

When we lowered the compilation size to roughly 93 minutes the disc was recorded successfully. Notice that the recording speed was 12x with this particular CD-R brand. We of course checked if overburning was limited to 12x but it wasn't since when we recorded 704MB to a 48x CD-R with overburning enabled, the recording speed was 24x:

GigaRec/99 Minute Discs:

GigaRec is a new technology that was introduced with the Plextor Premium drive (and as of yet this is the only drive that supports this technique). In short GigaRec allows you to expand the capacity of a normal 80 minute (700MB) CD-R disc up to 111 minutes (or almost 1GB of data). GigaRec has different rates and for our next test we used a GigaRec disc that was recorded with the highest setting, 1.4x, which means that there is 113 minutes of audio on a standard 80 minute disc:

Although the AOpen DRW4410 drive detected the wrong disc size (177 minutes) it was able to read the complete disc! So, in theory reading back our freshly created 93 minute CD-R should be no problem for the drive:

The AOpen drive could indeed read the disc but as you can see from the produced graph the drive lowered the read speed to a safe 8x.

8cm Discs:

For our final test we'll, as always, test if the AOpen drive can read and write 8cm discs. For our write test we used Nero Burning Rom 5.5 and after that we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to do another transfer rate test. As expected, both tests were completed without a problem:

Re-Write Tests

Conclusion