Samsung 8x DVD+R media review

home - reviews - dvd media reviews

Posted on 29 Nov 2004 by SirQUK

Conclusion

The Samsung 8x DVD+R media media burnt perfectly at its rated speed of 8x on all 5 selected pieces of media using CD Speed Create CD tests on all of our review drives. The 8x Disc Quality results were so impressive on the BenQ 1620A, especially the NEC 3500A. There should be no reason to doubt that this media quality is capable of over speed past its rated speed on these drives under future firmware.

According to CD Speeds Quality and transfer tests, the Liteon-IT 1633S and Pioneer DVR 108 could do with a little tweaking in future firmwares. This would bring them in line with the results we obtained both the BenQ 1620A and NEC 3500 AG.

CD Speed gave similar scan results in the region of +/- 5% on all 5 pieces tested in each of the review drives, showing to this reviewer that the Samsung 8x DVD+R was of a very consistent quality and no C2 failures (displayed as 'POFS' in CD Speeds Disc Quality test) where reported.

CD Speed gave similar scan results in the region of +/- 5% on all 5 pieces tested in each of the review drives. This tells us that the Samsung 8x DVD+R was of a very consistent quality and that no C2 failures (displayed as 'POFS' in CD Speeds Disc Quality test) where reported on any recorded piece of media.

Note on Verification tests:

"We will only show sector scanning and verification results if the recorded media had problems resulting in errors being found. If you dont see a verification test in our new style of media reviews then the you can safely assume none where found during our tests."

All the software and hardware DVD Players played the DVD without the Booktype being change without error. One exception was the Cyberhome 512 standalone DVD Player, which we find to be consistent with other similar tests on DVD+R media of high quality and the Cyberhome device. Changing the Booktype to that of DVD-ROM with both the BenQ 1620A and Liteon-IT 1633S review drives resulted in the Cyberhome being able to read the disc.

No skipping or jerking of any kind was noticed on the Samsung 8x DVD+R media (recorded with CopyToDVD) for the playback tests when placed in devices able to read it with its best Booktype setting. Although not many modern day standalone and console devices have issues with DVD+R media without the Booktype change, it is in CDR-Zone.com's opinion, nice to have the ability to change this setting for the older players that are still around.

Judging by the results of our tests, 8x seems a good optimised recording speed for this media with the Pioneer DVR 108 and Liteon-IT 1633S under present firmwares. We would like to think that both the BenQ 1620A and NEC 3500 AG might be capable of even faster.

During the review of this Samsung 8x DVD+R media the only thing we could find to complain about was NEC 3500 AG's ability to read some of the media recorded on other review drives. Although that said, it didn't have any issues reading the disc it created at full speed.

The Samsung 8x+R is recommended for use with all drives used during this review and with consistently good results in particular on the NEC 3500 AG under fimrware 2.08. It's a mid range priced media we can recommend to use without any errors based on the spindle we used for all tests in this review.

Tested on: