20x Speed Burning! is it Really Faster?

The 4 Minute Burn is it a MYTH?

When 16x DVD writers came out all the manufacturers claimed fastest burning speeds and NEC actually claimed that it would burn a DVD in under 4 minutes. I disputed this in my review and feel we were all misled by this marketing hype. We now have 20x speed burners and still have not yet reached the 4 minute burn claimed by NEC. So how do the 18x & 20x speed burners compare? I have available a few drives to make my comparisons I ordered a Liteon 18x DVD burner from a well known supplier and was surprised & excited to find they had sent me the DH20A1P which is a 20x speed burner, I contacted Danny their technical boffin in case there had been a mistake to find that Liteon were now shipping this model as standard :) My chart below shows the actual burn times of the various drives I tested together with the maximum & average burn speeds achieved

Rank Make Speed Start Max Avg Speed Time Taken Click the Thumbnail to see the Specs Click the Time to see the Graph 1 DH20A1P 20x 8.04x 19.87x 13.63x 5 Mins 3 Secs 2 GSA-4163B 16x 7.57x 16.56x 11.92x 5 Mins 16 Secs 3 18x 8.04x 19.60x 11.75x 5 Mins 22 Secs 4 SH-S182 18x 7.57x 18.45x 11.50x 5 Mins 39 Secs 5 GSA-4166B 16x 7.10x 17.03x 11.01x 5 Mins 40 Secs 6 16x 6.15x 17.03x 10.58x 6 Mins 7 Secs 7 16x 7.10x 16.56x 9.55x 6 Mins 47 Secs The figures below indicate the Predicted time for Actual average Speeds Actual Avg Speed Predicted Time Taken 20x 3Mins 30Secs 18x 3Mins 50Secs 16x 4Mins 15Secs 12x 5Mins 30 The Liteon DH20A1P 20x speed burner was the quickest at 5mins 3 seconds. Closely followed by the LG GSA-4163B 16x burner at 5mins 16 secs The 16x speed burners I tested varied in time up to 6mins 47sec & although the drives achieved the maximum speed as per the specification the actual average burning speed is well below that ranging from 9.55x to 13.63x speed. I feel we are still a long way from the 4 minute burn. To achieve the 4 minute burn the drives would have to spin up quicker to the faster speeds for the maximum burn speed to be achieved much earlier & this would render the current discs likely to shattering inside the drive. Special super high speed media would be required to prevent this from happening

Added:  June 4th 2007
Reviewer:  Flash
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