detail information

Positive:

• Good burn quality on most CD-R
• Very good/good burn quality on most DVD±R/RW
• Very good reading performance
• Good bitsetting support (set booktype DVD-ROM)
• Good DVD±R media support
• Excellent digital audio extraction performance
• Can burn selected DVD±R media at higher than its rated speed
• Good software suite
• Can read DVD±R/RW at 16x/13x
• Fast write times with DVD±RW media

Negative:

• Compatibility with CD-R could be better
• Write quality on CD-RW media needs improving
• RIPLOCKED for pressed DVD-Video SL/DL at 8x/5x
• Seek times are slightly slow
• Slow 8x Z-CLV write times on DVD±R media
• Mt Rainer is not supported
• Write quality on some CD-R/RW could be improved

Conclusion:

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points: The Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X can write most DVD±R/RW with very good quality and burn it quickly at 16x.

CD-R writing is another area where the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X excels, with fast and good quality burns with most media.

Media compatibility with DVD±R was also very good with the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X. Ensuring most media will be well supported at its rated write speed.

Reading performance with the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X is also extremely good; the drive is very fast and reliable with all media types.

The Nero Express software suite is also a nice inclusion. Nero Express has a nice balance of applications, and should provide the necessary tools for most users needs.

The main negative points: There are not that many negative things to say about this drive. Like all drives, it does have some shortcomings.

CD-RW write quality is one area that needs improving, as the results obtained in our tests were poor.

CD-R media compatibility is another area that needs improving with the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X. Some very good quality media is burned slower than its rated speed, all be it with very good quality.

Pressed DVD-Video reading locked at SL/DL 8x/5x is annoying when ripping a DVD-Video, but does of course mean that Pressed DVD-Video disc's are played back quietly on the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X. If the drive was used for this purpose, one could say it's a positive point with the drive.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'The Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9-8X is a neat drive and performs well". If you are in the market for a good performing no nonsense DVD burner, then this drive may well be the drive for you.

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we were unable to find a price listing for the drive.

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

Thanks to:

For providing some of the Verbatim media used in this review. Verbatim provides high quality media all over the world and strives to be the standard for DVD hardware reviewing.

Advanced Media/Ritek-USA for providing some of the RiData media used in this review. RiData is an official Ritek brand and thus you are guaranteed to get quality Ritek manufactured discs when buying RiData media.

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.

                 For providing the Optodisc media used in this review. Optodisc Technology Corporation excels at the manufacturing and selling of High-Density Optical Storage Media DVDs