BenQ 8x DVD-R media review

Verification and Playback

Both VSO Inspector and Nero CD Speed were used to check the recorded DVDs for any bad sectors that might be present. Has the BenQ 8x DVD-R media was recorded at 100% past its rated speed at the end of the disc, we are interested to see if this over speeding actually introduced any unreadable sectors in to the completed recording.

As both the screenshots below quite clearly show, no bad sectors where found during any of the scans on the recorded media used during this review ( please remember we recorded 5 pieces from various sections of the spindle ) and all showed as good in our tests.

VSO Inspector Showing no errors reported during its scan of the BenQ 8x DVD-R media recorded on the PIONEER DVR 108. No problems where encountered even at the maximum reading speed of 14.81x for this scan:

CD Speed Showing no errors reported during its scan of the BenQ 8x DVD-R media on the NEC 3500AG. No file or surface errors where found during the scan even at maximum reading speeds.:

So according to all the file and surface tests we carried out on the BenQ 8x DVD-R media during this review, no errors where reported at the over speed to 16x (100% past this media rated speed of 8x). We can recommend this media for over speeding in the NEC 3500AG and PIONEER DVR 108 using the latest firmware's available for these drives.

Not content with just doing file and surface scans we employed CD Speeds Disc Quality tests to see how many PI (C1) and PIF (C2) errors where present on the recorded media.

"Please note that you will need a compatible drive for doing these scans such as the Liteon 1633 we have used. Other drives you could try include BENQ/ NU TECH and ASUS branded writers."

Please see later on in this page for an explanation of what these tests actually can tell us about the inserted media.

CDSpeeds Disc Quality test scanning the BenQ 8x DVD-R media that was recorded at an over speed of 16x using the PIONEER DVR 108. The resulting scan shows that a maximum PI error level of 31 was noticed on the recorded media with a very pleasing average of just 14.25.

Please bear in mind that levels of over 100 are still very good discs - this is just exceptionally good considering it has been recorded 100% past its rated speed .

"Of upmost importance is the PI and PO failures. Very high PI failures can be corrected and read properly by nearly all reading devices, although PO failures normally mean unreadable sections on the media. Lower is better for these tests."

A maximum PI failure of 2 with an average of just 0.02 and a total of only 208 PI failures was noticed on the recorded media - again well within accepted levels for a quality media and all devices should show no problems reading this media. CDSpeed gave this scan a quality score of 91 and it is worth pointing out that a CDSpeed quality score of 70 and over normally indicates a top quality recording.

CD Speeds Disc Quality test scanning the BenQ 8x DVD-R media that was recorded at an over speed of 16x using the NEC 3500AG. The resulting scan shows that a maximum PI error level of 20 was noticed on the recorded media with a very pleasing average of just 10.72.

A maximum PI failure of 7 with an average of just 0.58 was noticed on the recorded media which is again well within accepted levels for a quality media and all devices should show no problems reading this media. CD Speed gave this a quality score of 66 because of one section where the the maximum PI error level reached 71.

This is still well within set standards for a very good readable media. It is our conclusion that although not as good as the recording at 16x on the PIONEER DVR 108 was in CDSpeed, the NEC 3500 is still recording this media perfectly well at 100% past its rated speed and this is a scan that you would be happy with had it been recorded at its rated 8x.

NOTE:

"The less PI/PIF errors that are found on a media then in theory the longer the archival life of the media and so this media should have a good archival life without data loss. That said these are to be used as a basic guideline to the quality of the recorded media only.

At CDR-Zone.COM we have found that these tests always are backed up by the file and surface scans we have carried out and if the Quality tests show low levels of these errors, all devices capable of reading DVD-R media should have no problems with these discs"

Playback Tests:

The recorded BenQ 8x DVD-R media was tested to see if it would be recognised in various PC DVD Writers and DVD ROMS, as well as a selection of home standalone DVD players and the Sony GX3 home DVD Recorder.

Every PC device we tried the BenQ 8x DVD-R media media in recognised the media without problem. The BenQ 8x DVD-R media is recommended for use in all our test PC drives even when recorded at an overspeed of 16x.