How we test.... DVD writers

Computer Shopper’s DVD writer benchmarks test how long it takes a DVD writer to completely fill a blank DVD or CD using realistic data. Our tests are designed to show the performance you can expect when doing everyday tasks such as burning a video DVD or backing up files from hard disk to DVD.

We convert our results to a speed rating — 3.7x, 7.6x or such like — that can be compared to the quoted specification — 4x, 8x and so on — of the drive. The results are graphed against the average speeds we’ve seen. We use Nero 7.0.1.4 Premium, the latest version of Ahead’s popular burning software, to write each disc. We also update the firmware of drives to the latest version before testing.

DVD+/-R Speed

SETTINGS: Writing speed: maximum, Write method: Disc-at-once, Multisession: off, Verify data on disc after burning: off

WHAT IT DOES: This test times how long it takes to write 4.4GB of data to a write-once DVD. The data consists of a collection of large files, representative of backing up video, photographs and MP3 from your hard disk. We run the same test on DVD+R and DVD-R discs.

We record the overall time to write the disc including initialisation and disc completion, not just the time taken to physically copy the data. This is converted to a speed rating on the basis that a 1x drive would take 56m 16s to write a 4.4GB disc.

DVD+/-R DL Speed

WHAT IT DOES: Two layer discs can hold a maximum of 8.5GB of data and are commonly used to hold movies. Our test times how long it takes to fill one of these discs using a similar set of files to that of a DVD movie.

We record the overall time to write the disc including initialisation and disc completion, not just the time taken to physically copy the data. This is converted to a speed rating on the basis that a 1x drive would take 1h 42m 8s to write a 8.5GB disc

Test bed

3.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 560
1GB DDR RAM
160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 7 hard disk

Reference scores

DVD+R 15X
DVD+R DL 6X
DVD-R 12X
DVD-R DL 6X