detail information

Test machine:

For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

⋅         Motherboard: Abit IC-7 MAX3 i875P
⋅         Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3,2GHz 800MHz FSB Prescott with Hyper Threading support.
⋅         RAM: 1Gb PC4300 DDR
⋅         GFX: Asus GeForce 6800
⋅         Sound: SB Audigy 2
⋅         Hard disks: 400Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 S-ATA connected to the Intel i875P S-ATA controller.

System set-up:

The BenQ DW1625 was connected as secondary Master and identified itself as BENQ DVD DD DW1625. DMA (Direct Memory Access) was enabled for all devices where it was possible.

Software:

Windows XP Professional is installed on the computer along with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. We will be using the following software in this review:

⋅         Nero Burning ROM version 6.6.0.13
⋅         Nero CD/DVD Speed v3.80
⋅         Nero InfoTool v3.10
⋅         DVD-Identifier 3.6.3.1
⋅         K-Probe v2.4.3

Installation and supported features:

We quickly installed the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero InfoTool:

Our drive came shipped with firmware BBAA, we updated the firmware to version BBFA and later on to BBGA. The only drawbacks we could see are the inability to read and write DVD-RAM discs as well as missing Mt. Rainier support along with a slightly small buffer. A larger buffer would at least smooth up the data transfer to the drive a bit on stressed systems. It also looks like this drive doesn't support reporting C2 errors.

Qsuite:

BenQ DW1625 ships with the QSuite application, let us take a look at the different features of Q-Suite:

The first tab tells you information about the drive and about the media in the drive.

The second tab is for booktype changing, the BenQ DW1625 sets all DVD+R/RW/DL discs to DVD-ROM booktype as default, and we can't see why anyone would  want to change this, but you have the opportunity to do it at least.

Let us see if the discs are correctly identified with DVD-ROM booktype:

No problems, the discs are identified as having DVD-ROM booktype.

The third tab is the QScan feature which checks if the media you have in the drive is suitable for the selected speed. According to QScan our MCC004 disc is NOT suitable for 16x writing. This could vary from disc to disc though.

The fourth tab is for disabling the OPC function of the drive. We disabled the OPC function and tried three different 16x DVD+R discs. Take a look later in this review for results with WOPC enabled.

Verbatim 16x DVD+R, MCC004 works fine with WOPC off, not a big difference compared to having the WOPC technology enabled. But on the other side there are only 3-4 seconds saved.

Traxdata 16x DVD+R, Ritek.R04: Compared to the result with WOPC enabled later in this review, this result is very good. First it writes at 16x compared to 8x with WOPC enabled, second the error levels is much better! But for 16x writing a result of 6 minutes and 4 seconds is not really stunning - we expected it to be faster with WOPC disabled.

That's Write 16x DVD+R, Philips.C16: Compared to the result with WOPC enabled later in this review this result is pretty good. First it writes at 16x compared to 8x with WOPC enabled and the error level is not significantly higher. But for 16x writing a result of 6 minutes and 15 seconds is not really stunning either - we expected it to be faster with WOPC disabled.

Overall: Disabling the WOPC technology seems to improve the writing quality with some media and prevents the OPC technology to limit the speed. But it doesn't save you any time in most cases it seems. Opposite of what we expected you may say; we expected lower writing times at the cost of quality - but that is not the case.

The fifth and last tab is to enable/disable test writing on DVD+R/RW/DL. By enabling it, the drive will first try to simulate a write and if that succeeds write the actual data to the disc.

Problems encountered: BenQ QSuite doesn't work on all computers. Computer containing extra PCI add-on IDE controllers with optical drives connected will cause the program to crash. The same with BenQ firmware upgrades, they will also crash. BenQ programming team should look into these issues.

Error scanning of written discs:

The BenQ DW1625 supports error scanning of written discs by using Nero CD/DVD speed.

Nero CD-Speed gives you an indication of the quality by giving a score. Higher score is better; a good result should at least be over 80 in quality score.

Other features:

Here are the other features that BenQ promotes with this drive:

Included recording software:

Now it's time to look at the included software, and comment it if needed. Notice that we may not use the included software in our performance testing part of the review.

Nero 6 OEM Suite:

The well-known Nero suite is also included and covers all tasks from creating the movie to writing it to the disc. This is one of our favourite programs.

BenQ QVideo 2.0:

This is how BenQ presents their QVideo 2.0 program:

Instant DV to DVD - QVideo 2.0 
With BenQ's exclusive QVideo 2.0 you can instantly transfer your digital video footage into a DVD disc without spending hours completing capturing, rendering, authoring and burning processes.

As you see QVideo is used to transfer data from capturing devices directly to DVD-Discs with almost no delays, this of course saves some time.

Now that we have finished examining the drive and bundled programs - let us head on to the next page, which is reading performance test…