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Acronova has kindly sent us their new Nimbie NB12 duplicator for review. This standalone unit requires no PC or software for operation and has a very small footprint. The easy one touch pushbutton operation make duplicating CD's and DVD's quick and easy.

In this review we will show the performance of the Nimbie NB12 by running the duplicator through many tests on a considerable amount of CD and DVD media.

 

Corporate information: 

Below is a profile of Acronova that you may also find on their website.

Acronova Technology Inc. vows to provide innovative and affordable solutions to fulfill all disc-duplication needs and requirements, from individual duplicators to professional duplication services.

On this next page we will take a look at what the Acronova Nimbie NB12 came shipped with and take a look at the duplicator itself.

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Page 2

System Features:

The specifications of the Acronova Nimbie NB12 were found here at www.acronova.com.

System specifications

What’s inside the box?

Let’s take a look at what comes with the System:

Full View

Side View with legs attached

Front push button panel

Rear View

Underside reject disc ejector

As we can see, the system contains everything you need to get started:

• Acronova Nimbie NB12
• Power Adaptor
• Detachable legs
• Extension rods
• Finish Disc bin
• Alignment pad
• Setup and Operation manual
• Internal hard drive

The internal hard drive is used for storing the image from your master disc, then the subsequent writes are from the hard drive directly to the blank media.

Next let’s take a look at our test machine and system requirements:

Test machine:

For this review we will be using this computer for quality scanning with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Asus P5K Deluxe WI-FI/AP
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe @3.70 GHz
• Memory: 4x 2GB A-DATA PC2-6400 DDR2
• Video: ATI  2600HD Pro HDMI
• Display: Hanns·G HG-216DPO 21.6" 5ms Widescreen HDMI LCD
• Sound: SoundMAX Digital HD Audio (Onboard)
• Hard Disks: 2x 320GB – 1x 750GB Seagate SATA-II
• Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 is installed on this machine.

Set-up:

Now we will setup the Acronova Nimbie NB12 duplicator. The first thing we notice when opening the box is how well the duplicator was packaged, the sturdy preformed bubble wrap type used for packing provides outstanding protection for the unit in transit. Next we take out the duplicator and all the accessories, everything is individually wrapped and secure inside the box.

Now that we have everything out of the box we went ahead and attached the legs to give the unit some height, these detachable legs simply clip on and stayed firmly in place.

Legs installed

Opening the top of the unit we can see the Extension rods securely stored on the inside of the cover, the Extension rod insert, the Feeding Mechanism and the Pioneer DVR-116 CD/DVD Burner.

Internal View

With the Extension rods installed the Nimbie NB12 has the capacity to hold 100 blank discs.

Extension Rods installed

A Closer look at the Pioneer DVR-116 CD/DVD Burner.

Pioneer DVR-116 Burner

The Alignment pad below has two guide holes at the top that the legs of the unit fit in, as well as having a rubber backing like a mouse pad keep it securely in place. The Finish Disc Bin should look familiar as it's an empty disc Spindle top. The discs exit the burner and slide right into the bin after being duplicated.

Alignment pad and Finish Disc Bin

Now we will take a closer look at the Nimbie NB12's Control Panel Buttons and see how they function.

Control Panel Buttons

• High Button

Pressing the "HIGH" button will start the duplication process at the highest possible write speed supported by the media

• Safe Button

Pressing the "SAFE" button will start the duplication process at a safe speed.

• Function Button

Pressing the "FUNC" button will activate or deactivate disc verification during the duplication process

• Abort / Test Button

Pressing this button before starting the duplication will run a simulated Test run, pressing the button while the duplication process in running will abort the operation

Disc Verification:

Using Disc Verification is quite simple; while you have a Duplication job running you can simple press the "FUNC" key and then before the disc is ejected the data on the disc will be verified with the image stored on the internal hard disc drive. If the data is correct the disc will be moved to the finish disc bin, if errors exist the disc will eject to the bottom reject disc ejector.

On the next page we will take a closer look at the Disc Quality…

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Disc quality:

Now let us take a look at the Disc quality of the Nimbie NB12 duplicator. Here we are going to take a closer look at the disc quality by running both CD-R and DVD media using the "Safe Speed" and "High Speed" settings.

CD-R Disc Quality Scanning - C1/C2:

CDs use an error detection and correction system (CIRC) which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the "quality" of a disc by  performing Disc Quality Scanning which shows how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers of error detection and correction on all CD media; these are called C1 and C2. Data CDs also have a third layer of error detection/correction.

 

There is more than one way to handle C1 and C2 error detection/correction, but a simple and common way is to detect and correct up to two errors per frame in each stage and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C1 layer

The sum of these (per second) is called the BLock Error Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by C2 layer

Any E31 is uncorrectable by the C1 layer and will result in the bytes in that frame being redistributed into multiple frames which are passed to the C2 layer.

 

Any E32 is uncorrectable by the C2 layer and will result in interpolation being used for Audio CDs or will result in third layer error correction being used for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these Exy errors in a Disc Quality scan. The drives used in this review report Exy as follows.

BenQ DW1655 Advanced Disc Quality:

• All Exy errors are reported separately as well as BLER=E11+E21+E31

Here is a little easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive’s error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive’s error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best quality discs, or at least below 10.0 C1 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

In short, our analysis will be based on this guideline to determine the quality of the burned disc:

CD-R/RW quality scans guideline

Safe Speed Duplication (16x Speeds):

Maxell CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Excellent and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Moser Baer CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Good and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Taiyo Yuden CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Excellent and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Verbatim CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Good and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

High Speed Duplication (40x Speeds):

Maxell CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Good and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Moser Baer CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Good and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Taiyo Yuden CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Excellent and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

Verbatim CD-R:

BenQ Advanced Quality Scan

Optiarc Transfer Rate Test

Disc quality is Excellent and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

CD-R Summary:

Overall the disc quality on both Safe and High speed CD-R burning was Good to Excellent.

On the next page let’s take a look at the DVD+R Writing Performance…

 

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DVD+R writing performance:

DVD Disc Quality Scanning - PI/PO:

DVDs use an error detection and correction system (ECC) which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the "quality" of a disc by  performing Disc Quality Scanning, which shows how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers or stages of error detection and correction on all DVD media; these are called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks containing rows and columns of user data with additional columns of PI error correction and rows of PO error correction.

An ECC block contains 32 kByte of user data with some added control data, scrambled and arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an additional 10 columns of PI error correction and 16 rows of PO error correction.

The Parity Inner stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes in a row can be corrected. Any row with one or more errors is counted as a Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with more than 5 errors is considered uncorrectable and is counted as a Parity Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer stage is performed next and will detect and attempt to correct any errors that are still left after the PI stage. Any column that has errors is counted as a Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column that has uncorrectable errors is counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a POF occurs the drive can sometimes re-read the problematic spot and correct the problem; this happens only during normal reading and not during scanning, however.

Disc Quality scanning is influenced by the drive performing the test, and that's why different drives report different results and even the same drive will report (slightly) different results when scanning the same disc again. Please note that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc quality and that other important aspects are not revealed.

But what is a good scan? That is a discussion that we don’t think will end soon, as different drives report different amount of errors, some players are more picky about media than others, and so on.

The Lite-On DVD burners used in this review report errors as follows.

• PIE per 8 ECC blocks (rows with 1 or more bytes in error)
• PIF per 1 ECC block (rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as low error numbers as possible.

PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed DVD-discs above are well within the standards.

If you want to look at the standards for yourself, download the ECMA 267 Standard for DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for DVD+R/RW and the ECMA 338 Standard for DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc – but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note is that we have scanned the discs at 4X speed, by lowering the speed to 2X (DVD-R/RW)/2.4X (DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X CLV due to lower speeds taking too much time.

To see if there is a connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs we also include the reading curve from an Optiarc AD-7240S DVD-Writer which by default is able to read DVD±R media at 16x speed. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs, but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Here is an easier explanation on how to read the test results

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to look for in your Nero DiscSpeed Quality Scans?

Use this as a guideline for good discs:

• PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.
• PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 4.

And as always: the lower is better.

Jitter:

Jitter is a very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to use optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part courtesy of Pioneer Electronics).

“The DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since the above target is for "after error correction," the error correction capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between error correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD format was set to one ECC block per 32 kB. This requires a byte error rate before correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of the efforts on both sides.

As will be explained hereafter, it is difficult to make the error rate a specification of the disc itself. Therefore, a jitter standard is set by the DVD specifications. A simple calculation based on a normal distribution requires that the jitter rate be under 15.4%, and experimental results indicate that jitter must be fewer than 16%, to achieve the required error rate. Since the disc tilt varies within a revolution, it was decided to adopt the design concept that jitter must remain within 16% at the instantaneous peak value of tilt. Since it is actually very difficult to measure the peak value, the concept became to measure the average jitter at fewer than 15%, and the byte error rate at under 5 x 10-3.”

What is Jitter?

In basic terms, we could say jitter is a product of “pit and land distortion” In other words, when the drive reading the disc has to compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which constantly tries to move and refocus the PUH lens for optimum tracking and tries to compensate for the imperfections of pits and lands on the pressed or recordable media. This is further compounded by the hardware used for recording and playback. Not only is the record and replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it is also horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject to non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits in nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly accurate. Anything which causes variations in the sizes of the pits will produce jitter. A prime culprit of this is sudden variations in laser power (laser noise). If laser power varies, then the laser beam itself changes and will vary in intensity and possibly focus. This will cause the pit length and width to also vary and we now have jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser beam spot may overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same track, or if the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced by the adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by the laser beam spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely random contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the highest frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with which the crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some other factors to consider

There are many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We are now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now let’s look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to measure jitter.

If there is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source noise, circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter -symbol interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighboring tracks.

Next we consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How we will measure jitter.

We will be using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Nero CD-Speed. In the screen shot below we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the purple graph in the lower window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now, let's find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate that 8% average value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD specification. That does not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad. In fact, many optical drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with jitter values of more than 14% average without any problems. Other drives, including standalone DVD players may begin to struggle reading discs with average jitter values above 10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable values. One must test our own playback devices to see what they can cope with.

However, for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we present a rating system for average jitter values.

• Less than 8% (average) = Very good
• 8% - 9% (average) = good
• 9% - 12% (average) = average
• Above 12% (average) = poor

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality 

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS220 drive along with Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the disc quality. We will provide you with an image of the Quality Scan, Transfer Rate Test (TRT), and a Table which gives the pertinent details for the burn and quality scan to include the number of samples taken in the Quality Scan. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S along with Nero CD-DVD Speed for our read-back tests.

Editors Note: We used our Samsung SH-S203N drive to create the master disc using CDSpeed, then we used this disc for our duplicating process. This is why you will notice "recorded with TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-S203N vSB01" in every DVD scan as the duplicator is making an exact copy of the Master disc.

Safe Speed Duplication (4x Speeds):

The media burned with Good quality and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burned with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

High Speed Duplication (Discs fastest supported speed):

The media burned with Good results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Good results and the Transfer Rate Test has a smooth curve.

The media burned with Good results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

DVD+R Writing Summary:

Overall DVD+R writing was Good to Excellent and we did not create any reject discs.

On the next page let’s take a look at the DVD-R Writing Performance...

 

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DVD-R writing performance:

In these tests we will again be using a Lite-On iHAS220 drive along with Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S along with Nero CD-DVD Speed for our read-back tests.

Safe Speed Duplication (4x Speeds):

The media burned with a few high PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4 but the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with just a couple high PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4 but the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with just a couple high PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes but the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with quite a few high PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4 but the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with quite a few high PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes but the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

High Speed Duplication (Discs fastest supported speed):

The media burned with OK results and had a few PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4, the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Good results except a couple of PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4 at the beginning, the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Excellent results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Very good results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

The media burns with Very good results and the Transfer Rate test has a smooth curve.

 

DVD-R Writing Summary:

The Nimbie NB12 did have quality issues with some of the DVD-R media in "Safe" and "High" speed modes, though the Transfer Rate tests did look fine.

 

On the Next page you will find the conclusion...

Conclusion:

 Positive:

• Easy one button operation
• First in First out design
• No robotic arm
• Well defined Operations manual
• Internal hard disk drive
• No PC required
• Lid closes for dust free operation
• Small form factor
• CD-R burning was Very good
• Has Disc Verification
• Low cost duplication
• No learning curve to operate
• Up to 100 disc capacity
• Good DVD+R burning

Negative:

• Needs more control over the medias burning speed

Conclusion:

The Acronova Nimbie NB12 is simple for anyone to operate, setup literally took only minutes. Once turned on the straight forward push button operation made duplicating a breeze. The intuitive quick start manual explained every feature in great enough detail making it easy enough to read for the novice but had enough detailed information for the experience user. The "none robotic arm" design is quite unique in that the discs are not picked up and moved around; they simply drop into the tray and gives you "first in" "first out" duplication. The internal hard drive is another great feature, not only for storing the disc images created from the Master disc but can be used to Verify the duplicated discs. The CD-R quality in both "Safe" and "High" speed mode were Good to Excellent producing quality burns on all our test media.

The DVD quality was Good on our +R media but the "Safe" mode and "High" mode on our -R media did present a few issues with PIF (Parity Inner Failures) spikes over 4. This can be caused by the media burning either too slow or too fast. In future updates we would like to see a few more settings to control the speed the discs are being duplicating at.

To sum up this duplicating system up in one sentence… “The Acronova Nimbie NB12 is well designed automated duplicating system with disc verification, superior ease of use and good disc writing”.

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

Special thanks to:

We would like to thank Acronova for providing the Acronova Nimbie NB12 Duplicator used in this review. Acronova Technology Inc. a US based manufacturer of DVD, CD and Blu-ray duplicators.