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In the next
round of tests, we ran a few "real world" examples of CD/DVD
recording performance. We focused on CD-R and DVD+R
recording to give a few examples of each drive's
performance. Each one of the write tests was completed
using Ahead Software's Nero 6.0 Ultra Edition. We then
finished off with some MP3 encoding using Music Match 8.0.
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CD/DVD Write Tests |
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The
Burning Question... |
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Nero CD-R
Write Analysis:
The first test
we ran was a CD-R write test. In this test, we
recorded 702MBs of MP3 music files from the hard drive to
Memorex CD-Rs rated for 48X. The CD was finalized as a
non-multisession disc. We wrote down the times shown
at the end of the burning process for both drives and
compared the two:
It should be
expected that the AOpen DRW4410, with it's 24X CD-Write
capabilities, outpaced the 16X Teac DV-W50D by a minute and
twenty seconds. 4:13 seconds may not be the fastest
time we have ever seen when burning a CD, but it's hard to
really complain about. Especially when you consider
that if you're getting a DVD burner, you're probably going
to be more interested in making DVDs, as we will see in the
next graph.
Nero DVD+R Write Analysis:
Next, we set out
to backup all of the files from our a volume on our testing
hard drive. The assorted large and small files on this
drive totaled 4.43GBs, just enough to mostly fill up our TDK
DVD+R discs rated for 4X burning. Again, we timed
burning the same set of files on both drives.
Although both
drives are rated as 4X burners, the Teac completed the
process in just under 14 minutes, while the AOpen DRW4410
finished at 15:21. That's makes the AOpen drive almost
10% slower when burning a complete DVD. At this point
in time, we've seen a couple of firmware updates on AOpen's
website that are meant to improve reading performance, but
nothing to speed up the writing aspect.
MP3 Encoding with MusicMatch 8.0
In our last test
we loaded MusicMatch 8.0 and a 69 minute audio disc to test
the drives capabilities while ripping MP3s. We set the
quality to 192Kbps and turned off error correction to show
the best possible performance attainable with each drive.
The two drives
completed ripping all eleven tracks in roughly the same
amount of time. In essence, we took 69 minutes of
audio and ripped them into 11 small files in less than a
quarter of that time. There's really no way to declare
either drive as being better than the other here, so we'll
just move on to our conclusion..
Overall, the
AOpen DRW4410 performed very well. It supports almost
all CD and DVD reading formats, although writing is limited
to DVD+R and CD-Rs. It's not the fastest CD burner out
there, but four minutes is hardly a long wait, and digital
audio extraction was right on the mark. DVD burning
was somewhat slower however, than competitive drives, which
was not very promising. Another small sticking point
was the relatively high seek times and CPU utilization it
posted, especially at higher speeds. What we feel will
really help sell this package is it's price point.
Currently selling as low as $95 on some major reseller
websites, the AOpen DRM4410 is a deal hard to beat.
This may actually be the first DVD Writer we have seen to
dip below the $100 mark, and will undoubtedly help pave the
way for broader adoption of DVD burners in mainstream end
user systems.
We'll give the
AOpen DRW4410 DVD+R/RW CD-R/RW drive
an 8 on the HotHardware
Heat Meter.
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