detail information

Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD's, including audio discs and DVD-media.

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc; the Canon Digital Camera Solution disc 9.0. This disc is close to 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The NEC 3540A didn't quite hit 48x when reading this CD, but it would probably have no trouble reaching that speed with an 80 minute CD-ROM.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Canon Digital Camera Solution disc. The disc we used was a Verbatim 52x certified CD-R manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation. 

Again the reading speed is very close to 48x, as advertised.

CD-Rewritable discs:

For this CD-RW reading test we used a Verbatim UltraSpeed+ CD-RW manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The NEC 3540A reads CD-RW at 40x using a P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) technique. This is a nice improvement over previous NEC models!

Audio CD:

We used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate on an Audio CD. The audio disc we used is 74 minutes long (74:02.70).

The NEC 3540A reads Audio CD's at 40x using a P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) technique. Again a nice improvement over previous NEC models! DAE quality scores a perfect 10 and the drive also achieves an Accurate Stream.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

DVD - DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with single and double layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it is useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you're going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD-Video Single Layer

DVD-Video Double Layer

The NEC 3540A reads both DVD-Video Single layer and DVD-Video Double layer discs at 8x maximum. This is an improvement over previous NEC models that utilize a 5x riplock (maximum reading speed) for DVD Video discs, but it is still disappointing to see that we cannot read at full 16x speed with single layer DVD Video discs.

We can see that the NEC ND-3540A was able to successfully hit 16x reading speeds on the data DVD-ROM disc. The dip in reading speeds near the end of the disc is due to imperfections on the test disc.

DVD - DVD+R(W):

For this test we used one DVD+R and one DVD+RW with about 4.4Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The NEC 3540A can read DVD+R discs at 16x and DVD+RW discs at over 13x! Very impressive!

DVD - DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a one DVD-R disc and one DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

The NEC 3540A can also read DVD-R discs at 16x and DVD-RW discs at over 13x! Again, very impressive results!

DVD - DVD+R9 DL:

For this read test we used a Fujifilm DVD+R9 DL disc and the result can be found below:

The NEC 3540A reads DVD+R Double Layer discs at less than 8x maximum. We would like to see faster reading speeds for this media type!

DVD - DVD-R9 DL:

For this read test we used a Verbatim DVD-R9 DL disc and the result can be found below:

The NEC 3540A reads DVD-R Dual Layer discs at less than 8x maximum. We would also like to see faster reading speeds for this media type!

On the next page: Writing performance…