First look: NEC ND-4550A DVD Burner

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We at CDFreaks would like to present a 1^st look at the latest drive from NEC the ND-4550A. This is NEC's first SUPER MULTI DRIVE; implementing DVD-RAM read and write for the first time in a NEC PC drive.

The NEC ND-4550A supports 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL, and 6X DVD-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written. DVD-RAM at present is supported at up to 5X.

Drive specifications:

Below is the NEC ND-4550A specifications found on NEC (D) website

What's inside the box?

Since the drive is a bulk drive, there is neither a retail box nor any software. Below you will see the contents of the bulk bundle:

• The internal ND-4550 drive itself with silver bezel

Now it's time to take a look at the drive itself:

Front

The bezel is NEC's usual plain but not unattractive style. The front sports a single (green) LED for read/write, an emergency eject hole and the eject/close button.

Top

On top of the drive we found one label, and we can see the drive was manufactured in Malaysia, during September 2005.

Bottom

On the back of the drive there are from the left: Digital Audio connector; analogue audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or master; IDE connector, power connector.

Now, let us install the drive and check out the features on the next page…

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Test machine:

For this
article we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: ASUSTeK A8N-SLI DELUXE
  (nForce 4 SLI chipset)
  
• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice)
  800 MHz FSB.
  
• RAM: 2 GB Corsair TWINX 2CL DDR
  
• GFX: Leadtek Winfast  6600 TD (PCI
  Express nVidia)
  
• Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy 2
  
• Hard disk: 1X 200Gb Seagate Barracuda
  (SATA): 1X 120Gb Maxtor (SATA).

System set-up:

The NEC ND-4550A was connected as Secondary Master and
identified itself as _NEC DVD_RW ND-4550A. DMA (Direct Memory Access) and auto-run was enabled for all devices.
NOTE: This
motherboard has 8 IDE channels; although the screenshot states the NEC ND-4550A
is connected to a Primary IDE channel. It is in fact connected as
Secondary Master.

Software:

Windows XP
professional is installed on the computer along with Service Pack 2 for windows
XP. We will be using the following software in this review:

• Nero CD-Speed
  V4.07
  
• Ahead Nero InfoTool v3.03
  
• K-Probe v2.4.2
  

Installation:

We quickly
installed the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero info
tool:

Our drive came
shipped with firmware 1.06. The only drawbacks we could see are: the missing Mt
Rainier support along with the small buffer size. New on this NEC drive is
support for reading and writing DVD-RAM media

Features
and
techniques:

ACTIVE
OPC

NEC uses Active OPC
Technology with its optical hardware. Active OPC constantly monitors the
sensitivity of the media and adjusts the laser strength to achieve the best
possible results. It does this by analyzing the reflection from the media's
surface.

Now lets
head over to the next page where we will test the ND-4550A reading
performance

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Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD's, including audio discs and DVD-media.

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Roxio Media Creator 7 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7 install CD. The disc we used was a Ricoh 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by CMC Magnetics. 

CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The drive is locked at 40x while reading CD-RWs

Audio CD:

We used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it's about 79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

Again we can see that the read speed for CD Audio is locked at 40x

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

DVD '“ DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and dual layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it's useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you're going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

Pressed DVD-Video Single Layer

Pressed DVD-Video Double Layer

As we can see, it reads DVD-Video Single layer at 16x and DVD-Video Double layer at 12x; meaning no video RIPLOCK is in place.

DVD '“ DVD+R(W):

For this test we used one DVD+R and one DVD+RW with about 4,4Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

As we can see from the results, the NEC ND-4550A reads a DVD+R at 16x and a DVD+RW at 13x

DVD '“ DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used one DVD-R disc and one DVD-RW disc filled with about 4,4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

As we can see from the results, the NEC ND-4550A reads a DVD-R at 16x and a DVD-RW at 13x

DVD '“ DVD+R DL:

For this test we used one DVD+R DL disc and the result can be found below:

DVD '“ DVD-R DL:

For this test we used one DVD-R DL disc and the result can be found below:

As we can see from the results, the NEC ND-4550A reads a DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL at 8x.

DVD '“ DVD-RAM:

For this test we used one DVD-RAM disc and the result can be found below:

As we can see
from the read test; the NEC ND-4550A reads DVD-RAM at 5x

on the next page: Writing performance…

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Writing Data CD-R/RW discs:

The specifications state that the drive should be able to write CD-R's at 48x and CD-RW's at 32x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write CD-R's at 48x. This gives an average writing speed of 36.33x and a writing time of 3 minutes and 3 seconds.

For write speeds below 48x; the ND-4550A uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) to write CD-R's at 32x. This gives an average writing speed of 28.82x and a writing time of 3 minutes and 37 seconds.

A fast burn time and an excellent K-Probe result on the Traxdata CD-R manufactured by RITEK

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD+RWs at 32x. The average speed is 29.75x and total writing time is 3 minutes and 21 seconds.

DVD-Writing performance:

The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD+R DL at 8x, DVD-R DL at 6x, DVD±R at 16x, DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x and DVD-RAM at up to 5x.

DVD+R at 12x and 16x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to burn DVD+R media at its maximum write speed of 16x.

Traxdata 16x manufactured by RITEK. The average write speed was 11.77x with a total write time of 6 minutes 3 seconds. Many drives struggle to handle this media, there were no such problems with the ND-4550A. A very good result.

Verbatim 16x DVD+R media, average writing speed of 11.75x, and a writing time of 6 minutes and 12 seconds, and a excellent K-Probe result.

FUJI 8x manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. The average write speed was 11.44x total write time 6 minutes 12 seconds. AOPC kicked in and slowed the burn speed down at the end of the disc. Why it did this we're not sure as the K-Probe scan is excellent.

DataWrite Titanium manufactured by Prodisc Technology. The ND-4550A wrote this disc at 12x using Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity). The average write speed was 10.22x with a total write time of 6 minutes 52 seconds. The K-Probe result is good, but the grouping of PIF errors at the end of the disc is a little concerning.

DVD+RW at 8x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW media at 8x. The average speed was 7.78x with a total write time of 7 minutes 15 seconds. The K-probe shows us PI levels are quite high at the start of the disc.

DVD-R at 16x:

The NEC ND4550A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at 16x. This gives an average writing speed of 11.74x, and a writing time of 6 minutes and 9 seconds.

Infiniti MCC03RG20 manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corperation. As the K-Probe result shows, there are some single PIF spikes, but overall the result is good.

Taiyo Yuden TYG03 16x rated. The result is very good.

DAXON 016S 16x rated. The K-Probe result is very good.

DVD-RW at 6x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 5.80x and total writing time is 11 minutes and 6 seconds. The K-Probe result is good.

DVD+R DL at 8x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R DL at 8x. This gives an average writing speed of 6.55x, and a writing time of 18 minutes and 40 seconds. The K-Probe result is good.

DVD-R DL at 6x:

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL at 6x. This gives an average writing speed of 5.65x, and a writing time of 20 minutes and 41 seconds.

 DVD-RAM:

Panasonic branded DVD-RAM manufactured by Matsushita. The average write speed was 1.96x with a total write time of 28 minutes 27 seconds.

As we can see with the Panasonic 5X media manufactured by Maxell, the ND-4550A wrote the disc at 5x in 11 minutes and 28 seconds with write and verify off.

With write and verify on, the same media wrote at 2x in 27 minutes 14 seconds.

Now lets head over to our first look conclusion...

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Positive:

• Supports DVD-RAM read and write 5x
• Supports DVD±R at 16x
• Supports DVD±R DL writing at 8x/6x
• Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW writing at 8x/6x
• Supports CD-R/RW writing at 48x/32x
• Supports bitsetting on DVD+R DL media (sets auto. booktype to DVD-ROM)
• Reads DVD-Video SL/DL at 16x/12x
• Good DVD media compatibility
• Very good reading performance
• Very good write quality on our tested media

Negative:

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Reads CD-DA/CD-RW only at 40x
• Does not support bitsetting on DVD+R/+RW
• Green LED for both reading and writing
• Some CD-R media rated at 48x/52x only writes at 32x

Conclusion:

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: Although the NEC ND-4550A is a very new drive, and no firmware updates are yet available. This drive performs extremely well. Reading performance is excellent and writing performance on the tested media is very good. DVD-RAM support read/write is also a very welcome addition.

We should however wait on a full CD Freaks review before coming to any premature conclusions.

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we found the drive listed at £25.30 +VAT (September 2005).

You may discuss/comment on this article below, or in this forum thread

Thanks to: 

Verbatim - Germany and United Kingdom for providing the media used in this article.

SVP
Communications  '“ The United Kingdom for providing the media used in this article.

Conrexx Technology B.V./RITEK Europe '“ The Netherlands for providing the media used in this article.

Medea International '“ United Kingdom for providing the media used in this article.

E-Net Distribution '“ United Kingdom for providing the media used in this article.

Ricoh Europe '“ For providing the media used in this article.