Indepth analysis of DVD-R media results
The DVD-R media support was very good overall with all the tested brands of media attaining at least their maximum rated speed. Sometimes faster than rated speed was achieved with the likes of the Plextor, Panasonic, Verbatim and Miflop 8x media achieving 12x. The Maxell and Sony branded 8x DVD-R media both achieving 16x with some decent quality for a 100% overspeed but as it is rated at 8x, for those really important backups we would recomend slowing down to its rated speed.
The average recording time at 16x was consistently over 6 minutes which is on the slow side of 16x but the quality we feel was very good indeed.The one exception was the Datasafe 16x printable DVD-R media which did seem to have very high PIF count and we wait to see if others find the same. Again a minus point was the recording time for 8x media. Just like the DVD+R version, a very slow 9 minutes 59 seconds average recording time and we hope that one day NEC drives will record 8x media using a P-CLV based strategy which is much quicker and well proven now on many drives.
Although during the DVD+R tests we didnt manage to show any 8cm DVD+R results, we do have plenty of 8cm DVD-R media to have a look at. The value brands such as Datasafe and Bulkpaq seemed to have rated speed support but did not record with the same sort of quality as the Traxdata and Piodata branded versions. The NEC ND-4550 had issues transfering the value brands where as the Traxdata and Piodata 8cm DVD-R using the RITEK G04 dye transfered fine. Although the true test of a 8cm DVD media is how well it works in camcorders, we do believe if the media was of good quality the NEC ND-4550 should have good support for it. 4x rated media has been around so long now that the dyes used in all these 8cm DVD-R media should be well known to NEC.
At the time of writing this article only 2 types of DVD-R Dual Layer media where available to us for testing. The Traxdata 4x DVD-R Dual Layer media was unsupported in present firmware and so we could not show you the results. The Verbatim 4x DVD-R Dual Layer media when recorded at the maximum speed available for the drive of 6x had some very large PIF groupings which we could not reproduce on other writers during our review of this media at its rated speed. Judging by the results 4x would be a better speed for now until firmware matures as further 6x tests on the Plextor PX-716 did not reproduce this PIF grouping ( and we tried several pieces with consistent results ).
For the most part, the NEC ND-4550 offered some very good DVD-RW support with all tested media achieving their rated speed. The highlights being the Verbatim and Traxdata branded 6x DVD-RW media results which are excellent with low potential PIF errors reported and excellent pits even after several wipes and rewrites.
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