This is a small test to compare the popular BenQ 1620 with the NEC3500A. In this test I am using 3 common types of DVD-R media to burn movie DVDs. Both writers have been loaded with the latest firmware available, the NEC3500A is loaded with Qikee Extreme V3 firmware and the BenQ with firmware B7T9. Quality scans are done on a LiteOn 811s.

In the Disk Quality tests
PI errors (blue graph) of over 250 may skip on some standalone players.
PI errors (blue graph) of over 400 may skip on many standalone players.
PI fails (yellow graph) of over 10 indicate the DVD is a coaster (excluding a single spike).

In the Disk Speed Tests
A completed line shows the disk can be copied in a PC, and the speed you can copy it at.

Datasafe 4x Hub Printable DVD-R (media ID ProdiscS03)


Burnt at 4x on the BenQ (this media fails at 8x with this writer) (14min 30s)



Burnt at 8x on the NEC (9min 30s)

Both burners give very good results on the quality tests and as they have a PI (blue) error rate of well under 250, are unlikely to skip on any standalones.

Let’s see how easy they are to copy

Nero DVD speed test results, using Datasafe disk (ProdiscS03) written on the BenQ at 4x


Reading on the BenQ



Reading on the NEC

Both give nice smooth reads, but the NEC has speed hacked firmware that will allow it to read much faster than the BenQ.

Reading using the Datasafe disk written on the NEC at 8x


Reading on the BenQ



Reading on the NEC


Strangely the BenQ reads an S03 disk written on the NEC much faster than the disk it writes itself. I have checked several times that this is no mistake. The NEC again reads much faster. I have cheated a little on this test, as I had to write 4 of these disks on my BenQ writer before I had one that would read at all on the NEC.

Datawrite Yellow 8x DVD-r (media ID CMC MAG AE1)


Burnt at 12x on the BenQ (7min 10s)


Burnt at 12x on the NEC (7min 8s)

The BenQ burnt disk has PI errors of over 250 and this indicates the disk may skip on picky players like the PS2, the NEC again looks like it will play on anything with PI errors mostly below 120.

Nero DVD speed test results, using Datawrite Yellow (CMC MAG AE1) disk written on the BenQ at 12x and the NEC at 12x gave nice smooth reads in line with the previous results. This time the BenQ had no problems producing disks that the NEC could read.

I won’t show the graphs as they had nothing interesting on them.

Datawrite 8x Hub Printable DVD-r (media ID FUJIFILM03)


Burnt at 8x on BenQ (8min 53s)



Burnt at 8x on NEC (9min 20s)


What a difference between the 2 scans, the BenQ scan looks like a movie that may skip all the way through, and according to the PI fails, a coaster. The NEC has again produced a good scan.

Conclusions
The NEC3500A produced good results under all test conditions and it was also the fastest DVD-R reader I have ever used.

I repeated the quality tests using the BenQ as the reader, and surprisingly it reported all the disks that had been written as good, so maybe the BenQ burns are incompatible with my LiteOn 811 used for the quality tests, rather than being bad burns.

I also played all the disks burnt from both writers in my 'very picky' PS2, 'not so picky' Philips dvdr75, and 'I’ll play anything' DK Digital 915. All movies played perfectly (despite some of the quality test results). The days of having to use Ritek G04 or Verbatim to produce playable movies seems to be over. Out of the 3 media types I used in the tests, I preferred the new Datawrite Yellow 8x @12x (CMC MAG AE1) because of speed of burn and compatibility with standalone players.

Note
I had 2 of each of the writers to burn with. Both NEC3500A writers produced nearly identical burn results. The 2 BenQ writers produced wildly different burns; the worst of the writers could not even burn to FUJIFILM03 media and was discarded from this test as faulty.

Added:  Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Reviewer:  pjclark1

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