Urban Giraffe

CD tests

Nero CD/DVD Speed was used to measure the CD reading capabilities of the drive:

Transfer Rate (start = rate at start of test, end = rate at end of test, average = average rate)

	Audio CD	CD-R
Start	9.11x	10.93x
End	20.94x	23.28x
Average	15.74x	17.78x

Seek Times (random = random seeks, 1/3 = seeks moved 1/3 of disc, full = seeks moved full disc)

	Audio CD	CD-R
Random	120ms	113ms
1/3	142ms	125ms
Full	255ms	231ms

CPU Usage

	Audio CD	CD-R
1x	1%	1%
2x	2%	1%
4x	3%	2%
8x	48%	4%

Burst Speed

	Audio CD	CD-R
Speed	30125 KB/sec	32103 KB/sec

Writing a 700MB CD took 6 minutes 5 seconds. This gives a writing speed of 1963KB/sec. About standard for a notebook burner.

Overburning an 80min disc resulted in 82.36 minutes being recorded.

DVD tests

Nero CD/DVD Speed was used to measure the DVD reading capabilities of the drive:

Transfer Rate (start = rate at start of test, end = rate at end of test, average = average rate)

	DVD-ROM	DVD+R	DVD+RW
Start	3.45x	2.57x	2.58x
End	8.01x	6.20x	6.14x
Average	6.02x	4.63x	4.60x

Seek Times (random = random seeks, 1/3 = seeks moved 1/3 of disc, full = seeks moved full disc)

	DVD-ROM	DVD+R	DVD+RW
Random	115ms	121ms	128ms
1/3	127ms	143ms	149ms
Full	245ms	266ms	267ms

CPU Usage

	DVD-ROM	DVD+R	DVD+RW
1x	6%	6%	5%
2x	11%	11%	11%
4x	19%	19%	18%
8x	56%	N/A	N/A

Burst Speed

	DVD-ROM	DVD+R	DVD+RW
Speed	36503 KB/sec	34746 KB/sec	34895 KB/sec

Writing 4.6GB of files to an 8x Memorex DVD+R took 13 minutes 36 seconds, and worked flawlessly on a consumer DVD player.

Writing the same files to a 4x JVC DVD+RW took 15 minutes 46 seconds, and again worked flawlessly on a consumer DVD player.

No tests have currently been made of DVD-R, DVD-RW, or Dual Layer media.

Ripping

ExactAudioCopy identifies the drive with these parameters:

Retrieve C2 Errors:	Yes
Caching:	No
Accurate Stream:	Yes

Perfect for ripping CDs!

DVDDecrypter was used to rip a variety of DVDs. When the DVD was in the same region as the drive, then no problems were found, and clean rips were made. However, it was not possible to make a rip of a region 1 DVD (The Simpsons). Several other programs were used, but all resulted in errors. This is very unfortunate, as the previous drive used in the test notebook was capable of ripping the same DVD. Maybe someone over at http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php can provide a new firmware soon?

DVD-RAM - updated 7th July, 2005

Since writing this I have discovered that Panasonic have a set of drivers for the UJ-845 that provide DVD-RAM capabilities from within Windows. This driver allows a DVD-RAM to be formatted and accessed as if it were any other drive. This means you can drag and drop files onto the drive as normal, and it makes for a very nice method of backing up data. It should be noted that DVD-RAM provides a much longer life-span than other DVD media.

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