Infiniti 16x DVD+R media review

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Posted on 30 Apr 2005 by SirQUK

Conclusion

As with their 16x DVD-R range of media which we have reviewed for our reader Here recently, Infiniti has chosen to continue their partnership with Mitsibushi Chemicals who produce the dye for this new range of their 16x DVD+R media.

During this review, as is now standard for all CDR-Zone.Com reviews, 5 pieces of the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media where recorded to each drive, with the exception of the Plextor PX-716 which had 10 pieces recorded to ( 5 with Power Rec enabled/disabled ), and only the recording which most represents the average recording to each drive is shown in this review. We feel is how best to get a good reflection of well a particular drive/media combination works.

We have also introduced a new way of doing our Disc Quality tests with the reasons for the change we feel being very valid ones in an attempt to get as much accurate information about the recordings to the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media as possible. As mentioned in the Disc Quality section, the Plextor does allow us a more indepth look at each individual recording. The Liteon in conjuction with the Transfer tests are still in our opinion a very valid indication of a good/bad recording but we do get a lot more detail about just how good/bad the recording was if using the advanced tests available on the Plextor PX-716A. If you are to carry out the complete list of available tests we do highly recomend the use of PXScan which can conduct all of these tests in one go and display the results in an easy to understand format. The tests at the recomended settings do take 1 hr 25 minutes to complete but it is much easier than doing all the tests individually in Plextor own software - Plex Tools Pro.

In general the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media gave some very good recordings all round with better/similar results to the Verbatim 16x DVD+R version we reviewed about 3 months back.

Newer firmwares for both the NEC drives seemed to produce better Disc Quality results when compared to the Verbatim review which is inline with what we would expect from newer firmwares and both the NEC 3500 AG and NEC ND 3520 repeatitly produced amongst the best of and most pleasing results to the Infiniti 16x DVD+R media. Consistently both drives reported low PI Error and PI failure levels, Jitter was low and even as was the beta with the recording pits been very good and we have no reason to doubt the NEC - Infinti Pro 16x DVD+R combination would cause us any issues at all.

A new addition to the CDR-Zone.COM media review recording devices, the Liteon-IT 1673 did produce a much better recording than the 1633 had achieved previously in the Verbatim review and the signs are that 16x recording is not bad at all for owners of the newer Liteon drive under current firmware with the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media. The PI Error and PI failure levels are low and no really high jitter was noticed on any of the 5 recordings on this drive ( something that had plauged our particular 1633 drive ). The the only slight question mark if we are critical is that the beta on the quality scans shows a higher than recomended deviance. That said, we achieved consistent results and all recording passed the now standard high speed transfer tests on the NEC 3500 AG at maximum read speed and the one media we used for our DVD playback tests also played fine right the way through the recording.

Plextors owners should be advised though that only one of our tests with Power Rec enabled on the PX-716 actually made it to 16x with the average recording time being around 6 mins and 22 seconds. The Plextor recording with Power Rec enabled did though produce one of the overall best results when scanning on the Plextor with PXScan. Plextor owners will know all about the Power Rec feature but in a nutshell it takes the information it finds when doing tracking and focus tests during calibration at the beginning of the recording and uses that information to decide on the optomin recording strategy and is per media specific. Recordings with this option enabled are like snowflakes with no two recordings being the same, but they all share the same goal of the Plextor trying to record as perfect a recording pit as possible and a more detailed explanation can be found Here at the Plextor website( Abode PDF reader required ). Recording to the Plextor PX-716A with the Power Rec function disabled is not recomended as only one out of 5 recordings with it disabled produced discs of acceptable quality - quite often the last 300 mbs of the Infiniti Pro 16x DV+R media would contains areas of concentrated, out of spec PI Failures and badly written pits. Our advice is resoundingly in favour of waiting the extra 20-30 secsonds for a Power Rec enabled recording to attain a more than acceptable quality recording with a very well written recording pit according to our TA results in PxScan.

The BenQ DW 1620A with firmware B7V9 recorded to the Infiniti 16x DVD+R media consistently with all 5 pieces recorded to achieving very similar results. These being around 6 minute recording times and all having very low and even PI Error levels. As is now becoming very ususal with our particular 1620 some high out of specs PI failres are noted right at the end of the recording ( something that seems to happen to nearly every DVD+R media we record to at 16x on our BenQ 1620. PxScan reported 7 PI failures above the recomended limit of 4 with the highest being 10. Single spikes like this can exist and remain readable as long as they dont go above 32 for any length of time and it is common knowledge that these spikes never seem to intefere with playback or readability. We would rather not see them but it is the norm for 16x recording in our opinion on the BenQ and completely within this particular recorders character to do this. Beta is nice and even as is Jitter even with the small rise near the end and the TA results show that an acceptable recording pit has been created.

Last but by no means least the Pioneer DVR 108 with firmware 108 only allows for 12x recording to the Infiniti 16x DVD+R media under even the most recent and upto date firmware. As mentioned in earlier reviews, the 16x recording strategy of the Pioneer is no faster than its 12x writing strategy and so in essence what we have with the 12x recording is what you would of seen even if 16x had beeen attainable in the Pioneer DVD 108. Nevertheless, the Pioneer DVR 108 delivered a very pleasing result and users who like to under speed their 16x media can see just how well suited to a slight slowdown in speed this media is. With low PI error and PI Failure levels,very nice beta/jitter and arguably the best recorded pit of any of the recording done on any of the recording devices used in this review according to the TA tests in PxScan.

In summing up we found during this review of the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media that attaining 16x was possible to all review recording devices used except for the Pioneer DVR 108 under firmware 1.19 as mentioned above and that the results in general at maximum speed are more than acceptable most of the time. The Plextor really didnt like recording to the Infiniti 16x DVD+R at its rated 16x with Power Rec disabled and if Power Rec was enabled what we got was an average recording time somewhere in line with a slightly faster than 12x recording. The NEC 3500 AG and particulary the NEC ND 3520 with firmware 1.UD seemed to achieve consistently better overall recordings to the Infiniti Pro media than any other review drive at 16x with all other drives getting good ratings.

Recommended at 16x in the NEC ND 3520,NEC 3500 AG and BenQ DW 1620A drives and 12x in the Pioneer DVR 108 and Plextor PX-716A drives if you want a top quality recording. The Liteon-IT 1673s is also recommended at 16x if the produced beta can become just a little more even throughout the recording though the really quality concious may say this is slightly higher than perfect and maybe 12x is the optimum speed under present firmware. With only 2 out of 50 pieces of media tested showing any visible marks on the dye side,consistent results on each individual writing device during the various tests and very good playback results if the writing device allows for Bitsetting of DVD+R media to DVD-ROM, the Infiniti Pro 16x DVD+R media seems to be of the same quality as the Verbatim version we reviewed Here.

We look forward to using the new Disc Quality results method on more media soon and hope you have enjoyed the more indepth look at the quality of the written media per device we can attain from using the Plextor PX-716A more advanced tests in conjuntion with PxScan.

About Infiniti:

Infiniti is amongst Europes leading suppliers of optical storage media. Established in 1996, the Infiniti range has achieved a strong reputation by only ever using the very best manufacturers. It is Infiniti goal to bring high quality CD & DVD's to the market before our competitors, as demonstrated recently by the launch of our 16x media and consistency is as important to us as quality. Ourcustomers know exactly what they are getting when they buy Infiniti. We will never compromise our values for the sake of cheap pricing.

The digital future is in your hands.

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