detail information

Positive:

• Retail package with a good software bundle.
• Supports 8x DVD+R/-R speed.
• Supports 4x DVD+RW-RW speed.
• Supports 40x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds.
• Excellent CD-R writing quality with most media.
• Supports DAO-RAW writing.
• Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data.
• Supports reading and writing 8cm CD-R discs.
• Fast and perfect audio extraction.
• Supports 'Correct EFM encoding of regular bit patterns" making it easier for it to backup safedisc protected games.
• Supports reading and writing 99 minutes CD-R discs.

Negative:

• Retail package do not include any printed documentation, and documentation on CD is hard to find and contains little information
• Retail package do not include any media
• Reads DVD-Video discs at 6x speed only.
• Slow at reading all types of rewritable media (CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW)
• Unable to write credit card CD-R discs.
• Less than 40% of the disc is written at 8x making it the slowest 8x writer we know of.
• DVD-Writing quality, especially at 8x speed needs serious improvements.
• Low writing quality with most Re-Writable media (CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW)
• Almost no 4x media is supported at 8x speed
• DVD-Media compatibility could be improved.
• Doesn't support bitsetting (It did support bitsetting with earlier firmware versions, but it's removed in newer firmware versions).
• BTC firmware update program is problematic.
• BTC bitsetting program do not work on all computer configurations.
• Does not support Mt. Rainier.
• Can't extract the content of cactus data shield protected audio discs.

Conclusion:

To be honest; BTC has a lot to improve when it comes to DVD-Writing, but let us summarize the total impressions of this drive.

The main positive points: The drive is an ok reader with most discs including unprotected audio discs, it is also a good option for backing up protected games as it supports correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns. This drive is also among the best drives we know of for writing CD-R discs. Another thing we like is that the retail package includes Nero Burning ROM software, which is our favourite recording software.

The main negative points: This time we have many serious issues on the negative side. Most importantly the DVD-Writing quality, which is completely useless with most 8x discs as well as with some 4x discs. BTC has a job to do on improving that. And it's a very slow 8x writer and writes less than 40% of the disc at 8x, making it over 2 minutes slower than the fastest writers. And almost no 4x discs works at 8x writing speed, and while we are at it we would like to mention that the media compatibility could also be improved for DVD-R and DVD+R discs. Since we are already speaking about writing quality we will mention that writing quality with Re-Writable media is not very good either. Then we have a few reading issues, although not that serious; it reads DVD-Video discs at 6x speed only and the reading speed is low with all types of Re-Writable media. It doesn't support extracting the content of cactus datashield protected audio discs either. Then it's time to speak about bundle and software problems; the package does not include any documentation, not even a quick installation guide. The manual is very hard to find as it's not available through the autorun menus on the software discs, you have to manually browse the Nero disc to find the manual, and when you find it you will see that it's not among the better manuals either. We have also found some annoying problems with the BTC firmware updater; it will not find the drive if it's connected to PCI IDE controller card, the drive must be connected to the Southbridge/motherboard chipset IDE controller. And before flashing remove the discs from every CD-Unit in your system, not only the BTC, sometimes you must also disconnect CD-Devices connected to PCI IDE controller cards or else the flash program will lock up your system and a cold restart is required. Sometimes after a firmware upgrade and after restarting the computer we found some of our CD-Units disabled, and we had to remove them and restart to get them activated again, very annoying. And then onto the BTC Bitsetting program; we were unable to get it to start at our computer. We do not know what the cause is; we have tried removing all extra IDE controllers, and usb/firewire devices, but it still won't start.

To sum it all up, this is the best we could say: 'Avoid it unless BTC improves the firmware GREATLY". As you probably have guessed already we don't feel like handing out any awards this time. And let us hope that BTC has learned their lesson and comes up with a better drive next time.

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

 For providing the media used in this review. Conrexx technology is the supplier of Traxdata media as well as other media for whole Europe.

 For providing some of the That's Write media used in this review. That's Write focus on providing quality media at reduced prices in Europe.

 For providing some of the Memorex media used in this review. Memorex is one of the largest providers of all types of media for larger parts of the world.

Additional comments:

As you may see from the dates on several images we've had this drive for a long time, and the review was finished about a month ago. The reason why it took so long were the problems we ran into in this review and that we tried to hunt down the cause of the problems. What we have tried:

⋅         Tried the drive in 4 different computers
⋅         Tried a lot of different firmware versions
⋅         Tried a lot of different media (as you see).

Defective drive? No we do not think so as we had a BTC DRW1008IM that had the same problems with writing at 8x. The review of the BTC DRW1008IM was never published as we thought it was defective; we shipped it back to BTC and got the new DRW1108IM in return.

After finishing the review the BTC DRW1108IM were sent back to BTC along with all discs written with it (over 50 discs). This was for BTC to test it out in their lab, and since we are reasonable people we gave them one month to fix the problem and provide us with a new working drive / or firmware that fixed the most serious issues (Mainly DVD-Writing quality).

When BTC got it back in their lab they admitted that there are problems with DVD-Writing quality at 8x with their drives. But they promised to fix the issues and our contact person claims that the new firmware version B225 improves the DVD-Writing quality, but he did not want to ship the drive back to us so we could take a look at it (We of course need to verify it ourselves if it really is improved).

But we still have the option open for BTC; if the drive/firmware is improved so that the worst issues are fixed, ship the drive back to us and we will re-test it and update this review.

If BTC do not ship the drive back to us we guess they have been unable to fix the issues and that this review stands true.