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Review:  ASUS BC-1205PT Reviewed by:  The Kipper Provided by:  ASUS - USA Firmware:   1.03 Manufactured:  August 2007

ASUS USA was kind enough to send us their new and very interesting Blu-ray Combo Drive, the BC-1205PT; this is an internal SATA drive.  This drive incorporates Blu-ray reading and it still supports CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW as well as DVD-RAM read and write capabilities.   Single layer 4.7GB DVD burning is supported at 12X max. Double Layer Recording speed is 4X max. Write speeds are 6X max for both DVD+RW.  For DVD-RAM, the drive will both read and write at 5X.  CD-R/RW burning is supported at 24X max.

We invite you to have a look at the “Press Release” on the ASUS BC-1205PT
 

In this review we will show the performance of the BC-1205PT when reading Blu-ray media along with running the drive through many tests on a considerable amount of various CD/DVD media.

Company Information

ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world’s top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology.  As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to complete in the new millennium.

In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard.  Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and are expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007.

ASUS product’s top quality stems from product development.  It’s like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the “Chi” and inner strength.  Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction.  ASUS notebooks are the first TCO’99- certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (batter consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service.  That’s why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the “ASUS Way of Total Quality Management” to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year.  BusinessWeek ranked ASUS amongst its “InfoTech 100” for the 9^th straight year.  The readers of Tom’s Hardware Guide, the world’s largest IT website, selected ASUS as the best maker of motherboards and graphics cards.  Furthermore, the company is ranked as No.1 in quality products and services by the Wall Street Journal.

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Drive Specifications

Multi Function: (X MULTI)

Max Write:  5X BD-ROM/R/RE Read

Max Write:  12X DVD+R/6X DVD+RW/6X DVD-RW/4X DVD+R (DL) Write

Max Read:  32X CD-R/24X CD-RW Write

Max Write:  12X DVD-ROM/32X CD-ROM Read

Max Write:  5X DVD-RAM Write/Read

Liquid Crystal Tilt Technology – Precision on Uneven Discs

LCT (Liquid Crystal Tilt) technology provides enhanced pick up head accuracy during recording and playback on discs with uneven curvature and thickness.

FlextraLink™ Buffer Under-run Errors Prevention Technology

Built-in FlextraLink prevents users from buffer under-run problems and eliminates the creation of unusable discs.  Throughout the recording process, FlextraLink consistently monitors the data buffer status to ensure best recording quality under high-speed operation.

FlextraSpeed™

Built-in FlextraSpeed and AI Auto Speed Adjustment Tech. enhance accuracy and reliability when reading/writing/re-writing across a broad range of certified media in different formats.  FlextraSpeed continuously monitors the recording media and sets the optimal writing speeds to ensure best recording quality.  The ASUS proprietary FlextraSpeed occupies minimal system resources so the PC remains full operational and available for other applications even during recording process.

Superior Stability with DDSSII

The DDSSII technology is designed to minimize the vibration caused by the spindle motor and resonance between components as well as the drive and PC cases.  The ASUS patented DDSSII stabilizes, both horizontally and vertically, the pick-up head, achieving more precise tracking and focusing, with reducing vibration and noise caused by high-revolution spindle motors.

Smart laser Driver Technology

The smart laser driver technology is to combine the strategy circuit into the laser driver in the OPU.  The main PCB only sends the data and clock signal through the connectors and cables.  Even there is distortion in the data and clock signal, the strategy circuit in the OPU will correct them back to normal status and would not let the distortion effect the recording quality.  Especially for high speed recording drive, the smart laser driver technology is the key to get stable recording quality.

Compatible with Wide Range of Disc Formats

Operates on Horizontal or Vertical Mounting

ASUS Unique Live Firmware Update Tool

Bundle Burning Software

Windows XP/NT/2000/Vista Supported

Drive Specifications

What’s inside the box?

The drive we received was a retail package that comes with all you need for an easy and quick installation.  The retail package includes the following:

• BC-2305PT ASUS BD Combo Drive
• CyberLink BD Solution CD
• Quick installation guide

Retail Package Contents

Moving right along, let’s take a closer look at the Package Details.

Box Front

Box Rear

Now let’s take a closer look at the drive itself:

Drive Front

Drive Rear

Drive Left

Drive Right

Drive Bottom

Drive Top

Drive Sticker

Test machine

For this review we are testing the ASUS BC-1205PT mounted inside of our Intel based system with the following components:

• Motherboard: ASUSTek, P5K Deluxe
• Processor:  Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2.4GHz
• Memory:  4GB G-SKILL  DDR2-800
• Video: GeForce 8600 GTS
• Sound:  SoundMAX integrated Digital HD Audio, onboard
• Hard Disks: 250GB Seagate SATA-II, X2
• Optical Drives: Lite-On DH20A3P, LG GSA-H62L, ASUS BC-1205PT, Optiarc DVD RW AD 7170A,  BenQ DW1650, Samsung SH-S203B, Lite-On CD-RW SOHR-5239V, and the ASUS DRW-2014L1T

 

System set-up:

The drive identifies itself as: ASUS BC-1205PT and is installed SATA, with firmware 1.03 with a 4MB buffer.

Software

Windows Vista Business 32bit installed on our test system; we will also be using the following software for this review:

• Nero Burning Rom 8 Ultra Enhanced
• Nero CD-DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• Slysoft CloneCD
• K-Probe 2.5.2

Included Software with the Drive

The ASUS BC-1205PT is shipped with the CyberLink BD Solution CD, containing the following programs:

• Power Producer 4
• Power Director 5
• PowerDVD 7.3
• Instant Burn 5
• Power 2Go 5.5

As we can see from the below screenshot from the CyberLink install; these package contains everything a new owner of the BC-1205PT will need to get started.

Book type (bitsetting):   

The ASUS BC-1205PT supports automatic bit-setting and is capable of writing DVD+R DL media with the book type of DVD-ROM.  However, bitsetting of DVD+R/RW is not supported.

You can check if your discs are in fact written with DVD-ROM book type by starting Nero CD-DVD Speed and open the Disc Info Tab and you should see something like this:

Writing technique     

Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the ASUS BC-1205PT:

For these tests we used CD-Speed and wrote a full disc at the drives maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the ASUS BC-1205PT, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 24X on supported media.

The ASUS BC-1205PT used Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X.  This gives an average speed of 20.89X with a total write time of 4 minutes and 41 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The AUSU BC-1205PT performs on average when comparing write times.

CD-Rewritable

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW media at its maximum speed of 24x, with an average write speed of 21.96x and writing time of 4 minutes 22 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The ASUS BC-1205PT is one of the fastest of our test drives at writing CD-RW.

12x DVD+R

The ASUS BC-1205PT should be able to write DVD+R media at a maximum speed of 12X.

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R at the maximum supported speed of 12x. This results in an average write speed of 9.44x and a writing time of just 7 minutes and 22 seconds.

Here we have prepared a table to show how the ASUS BC-1205PT compares with other Blu-ray drives:

The BC-1205PT is right in the mix of things when we look at overall write times.

12x DVD-R

The ASUS BC-1205PT should be able to write DVD-R media at a maximum speed of 12X.

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R at the maximum supported speed of 12x. This results in an average write speed of 9.45x and a writing time of just 7 minutes and 09 seconds.

Here we have prepared a table to show how the ASUS BC-1205PT compares with other Blu-ray drives:

As you can see the ASUS BC-1205PT performs on average looking at write times when compared with our other tested drives.

6x DVD+RW

According to the specification of the ASUS BC-1205PT it should be able to write to DVD+RW at a maximum of 6X.

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 6x. The average speed is 6.01x and total writing time is 10 minutes and 20 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The ASUS BC-1205PT performs on average with other 6X capable drives.

6x DVD-RW

According to the specification of the ASUS BC-1205PT it should be able to write to DVD-RW at a maximum of 6X.

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 6.01x and total writing time is 10 minutes and 14 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As you can see the ASUS BC-1205PT performs on average when compared with the other drives we have tested.

Let’s take a look at DVD±R DL writing techniques……

4x DVD+R DL 

According to the specifications of the ASUS BC-1205PT, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 4X.  Here are our results.

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 4X. This gives an average speed of 3.96X and a total writing time of 27 minutes and 06 seconds.

4x DVD-R DL

According to the specifications of the ASUS BC-1205PT, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 4X. 

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at 2X with this media with an average speed of 1.97X and a total write time of 53 minutes and 37 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table:

The ASUS BC-1205PT performed on average with our other tested drives for DVD+R DL; and the slower writing to DVD-R DL is most likely due to the review team not having additional –R DL media to test with at this time.

DVD-RAM  

The specifications for the ASUS BC-1205PT state that the drive is capable of writing DVD-RAM at 5X.  Let’s take a look at the write strategy for this media.

5X DVD-RAM Writing

The ASUS BC-1205PT uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at is maximum speed of 5X.  This gives an average speed of 4.98X and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 08 seconds.

Summary

The ASUS BC-1205PT performed well with our writing tests.  We regret that we do not have any DVD-R DL capable of writing at the drives rated speed to test with at this time. Let’s move on ahead and check out the reading performance on the next page….. 

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Reading performance  

We will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various BD, CD and DVD Discs; including audio discs and DVD-media.

Blu-ray reading performance

BD-ROM

For this test we will read a SL and DL BD-ROM:

BD-ROM SL

The ASUS BC-1205PT read our SL BD-ROM at its rated speed of 5X.

BD-ROM DL

Reading of BD-ROM DL is done at 2X.

BD-R   

The ASUS BC-1205PT read our BD-R media at it’s 5X rated reading speed.

BD-RE

The ASUS BC-1205PT reads BD-RE discs at 5X, however there was a slight deep at the end of the disc.

BD-R (DL)

The BC-1205PT reads BD-R DL discs at 2X speed.

Not let’s take a look at CD reading performance……..

CD reading performance   

Pressed CD-ROM discs

We used an original pressed CD-ROM disc containing 72.39.55 minutes of data.

The ASUS BC-1205PT reached 33.47X, so how does that compare with other Blu-ray drives, let’s take a look here:

The ASUS BC-1205PT reads on average with the other drives in speed and seek times.

CD-Recordable Discs

For this test we used a Data CD-R that we created with Nero CD-DVD Speed in “create data disc” mode.  The disc was a Maxell 48X certified disc manufactured by Ritek.  (Thanks to Maxell for sending us this media.)

The ASUS BC-1205PT reached the speed of 33.57X when reading a full CD-R disc.  Let’s take a look on how that compares with other Blu-ray drives.

With our CD-Recordable Disc the ASUS BC-1205PT performs on average with our other tested Blu-ray drives.

CD-Rewritable discs

For the CD-Rewritable tests we created a Data CD using Nero CD-DVD Speeds’ “create data disc”.  We used a Verbatim 32X CD-RW.  (We thank Verbatim USA for sending us this media)

The ASUS BC-1205PT reaches a read speed of 25.29X; let’s compare this with our other tested Blu-ray drives:

The ASUS BC-1205PT performed on average while reading our CD-Rewritable disc.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction

To test digital audio extraction performance with the ASUS BC-1205PT we used Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate; the audio disc we used is 74:00:00 in length.

The ASUS BC-1205PT reached the speed of 32.71X when reading our Audio-CD; let’s take a look on how that compares with our other tested drives below:

The ASUS BC-1205PT performs nicely with Digital Audio Extraction times.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test  

For the Advanced Audio DAE test we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature of Nero CD-DVD Speed.  The CD-R media used is a 40X certified Memorex Music CD-R manufactured by Ritek. (Thanks to Memorex USA for sending us this media.)

The ASUS BC-1205PT will permit “On-The-Fly” copying at all tested speeds through 12X, however is too slow for on-the-fly at 16X; the drive does not support reading data form the Lead-in or Lead-Out.

DVD reading performance

DVD-ROM “Pressed Disc”

We utilized Nero CD-DVD Speed to measure the reading performance.  We will to the reading performance testing on various types of DVD discs.  To start off with we will test the ASUS BC-1205PT at reading “Pressed” DVD-Video discs both Single Layer and Double Layer.

DVD-Video Single Layer

DVD-Video Double Layer

The ASUS BC-1205PT read the SL DVD-Video disc at 5.23X and the DL DVD-Video disc at X.  Let’s take a look below to see how the drive compared with other we have tested:

DVD+R/RW  

For testing the read speed of DVD+R and DVD+RW discs we used Verbatim 16X DVD+R and 8X DVD+RW.  Both Discs were written with 4.38GB of data using Nero CD-DVD Speed.  (Thanks to Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) See the results below:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

We have prepared this table to show you how the ASUS BC-1205PT reads DVD+R/RW media as compared with other drives:

The ASUS BC-1205PT is fastest at reading our DVD+R test disc, however at reading the DVD+RW it performed on average with other test drives.

DVD-R/RW  

For testing the DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance we used Verbatim discs we used Verbatim 16X DVD-R and 6X DVD-RW.  (Thanks to Verbatim USA for sending us this media.) Below you will find our test results.

DVD-R

DVD-RW

We have also provided this table to show how the ASUS BC-1205PT compares with other drives for reading these media:

Here again the ASUS BC-1205PT is the fastest of our tested drives at reading DVD-R and average at reading our DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL

For this test we used a Verbatim DVD±R DL discs filled with data.

DVD+R DL

DVD-R DL

The ASUS BC-1205PT reads both media at 8X. 

DVD-RAM

For this part of our test we are using a Maxell 5x DVD-RAM filled with 4.27GB of data. Our test results are found below:

The ASUS BC-1205PT will read DVD-RAM at 5X; reading this disc in 11 minutes and 08 seconds.

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Writing Quality with CD-R/RW discs

Now we are going to test CD-R discs from different CD-R manufacturers.  To measure the write speed we will use the “Create Data CD” function from within Nero DiscSpeed.  We wrote these discs at the maximum speed that the drive supports.  For the quality test, we also used Nero DiscSpeed.  DiscSpeed runs under Windows and supports several drives.  Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs.  We used a BenQ DVD DW1650 with firmware BCDC and scanned these discs at 48X speed.

Disc Quality Scanning - C1/C2 (and CU); here is an explanation in more detail:

CDs use an error detection and correction system (CIRC) which is for the most part not seen by the user when reading the disc.  We can get a working idea of the quality of the media in question by performing Disc Quality Scanning that will show us the amount of errors the drive is detecting and correcting while reading the media.

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

• E12: 1 error detected and corrected by C2 layer
• E22: 2 errors detected and corrected by C2 layer
• 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 use for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these errors in a Disc Quality scan.  For example the following drives will report C1 and C2 errors this way:

BenQ DW1650 Disc Quality:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

BenQ DW1650 Advanced Disc Quality:

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

Lite-On SOHR-5239V:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

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; multiple C2 errors in the same frame are not wanted on a good quality disc.  A good disc should not contain any C2 errors of the E22 or E32 kind, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best quality discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs.  After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

So, in short, our analysis will be based on these guidelines to determine the quality of the burned discs which will be Quality Scanned on our BenQ DW1650:

CD-R/RW quality scans guideline

Below you will see our obtained results:

Writing Data CD-R discs

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 703Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (48x):

The ASUS BC-1205PT completed this burn in 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Now let’s take a closer look at writing quality using CD-R media with the ASUS BC-1205PT.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

An excellent result to start our CD-R quality tests, no C2 errors reported from the Lite-On drive and no E22 or E32 errors reported from the BenQ scan.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT did not fare as well with this media with the existence of E22 errors when Advance Disc Quality Scan was conducted with our BenQ drive.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT did better with this media; however we still found E22 errors as reported with our Advance Disc Quality Test on the BenQ.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT writes to this media with very good results.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

Here we see a few (3) E22 errors other wise this would have been a good quality burn.

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT writes to this media with good results.

Now we will see how the ASUS BC-1205PT performs with our CD-RW media…..

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT did not do well with this media which can be problematic with some burners.

We will also test the ASUS BC-1205PT with the Maxell 4X CD-RW disc:

Advanced Disc Quality Scan with Stats at 16X CLV

Disc Quality Scan at 48X

The ASUS BC-1205PT burned this test disc with C2 errors as reported with our 48X Quality Scan using Kprobe and our LiteOn CDRW.

Summary

CD-R writing quality is overall good with the ASUS BC-1205PT.  We would like to see improvements in the drive’s ability to handle our tested CD-RW media.

Since this is a BD-ROM/DVD-Writer, let’s head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…

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

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DVD-Writing performance

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD±R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO compilation containing 4482Mb of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

DVD+R

DVD-R

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. But as a comparison we present you with scans from two pressed DVD discs:

This scan above shows the results from a pressed, Single Layer DVD-Video disc (Flicka).

This above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (MI3).

This above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (MI3).

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 a BenQ DW1650 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.

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality 

In these tests we will be using either a Lite-On DH20A3P  drive along with Nero CD-DVD Speed and DiscSpeed to measure the disc quality. We will provide you with an image of the Quality Scan, 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 BenQ DW1650 along with Nero CD-DVD Speed for our read-back tests.

Here is what we discovered:

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

Here again the ASUS BC-1205PT burns this media with good results; smooth TRT.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X

TRT

The ASUS BC-1205PT performs very nicely with this media from Verbatim, highly recommended.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

As expected the ASUS BC-1205PT does an excellent job with our Taiyo Yuden test disc.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality

We used the same test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Here are our results.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205PT did a good job with our RiDATA DVD+RW test disc.

Summary

The ASUS BC-1205PT writes DVD+R/RW media with overall good results on our tested media. 

Now let’s look at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the next page…..

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DVD-R media compatibility and write quality

As with the +R media, for these tests we will be using either a Lite-On DH20A3P  drive along with Nero’s CD-DVDspeed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the BenQ DW1650 along with Nero CD-DVDSpeed for our read-back tests.

Here is what we discovered:

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205PT burned this 16X with very good results.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

This media showed a block of high PIF towards the end of the disc but the TRT is smooth.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

Smooth TRT and overall very good quality for this media with the ASUS BC-1205PT

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205 burned this media with very good results.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205PT performed very well with this media from Verbatim.

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality

We used the same test procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

Here are our results.

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205PT did an excellent job with the RiDATA media.

Summary

Overall, the ASUS BC-1205PT did a good job with our DVD-R/RW test media.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD R DL writing performance and quality……

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DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality

The ASUS BC-1205PT supports the DVD±R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 4X on supported media. 

Testing procedure:

We created an ISO Image from a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a total on-disc size of nearly 8.5GB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning ROM 7. Below are the results:

DVD+R DL

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

The ASUS BC-1205PT performed nicely with this media.

DVD-R DL

As we mentioned above the ASUS BC-1205PT is capable of writing DVD-R DL discs at 4X, however we do not have any DL dash media that is capable for 4X burning at this time.  We did use a 4X RiDATA DVD-R DL disc for our test which would burn at 2X only.  You will see those results below:

Disc Quality Scan at 4X with Lite-on Drive

TRT with BenQ DW-1650

This media has proven to be problematic for the ASUS BC-1205PT as well as other drives.

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DVD-RAM writing performance

The ASUS BC-1205PT is a so-called multi DVD drive; meaning is also supports writing and reading the DVD-RAM format. Writing and reading at 5X.  

This drive is one of few drives that also supports the DVD-RAM format, lets us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can see it has differences from the other DVD+R/W/R9 DL and DVD-R/W discs.

We can see a very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These tick marks are "address information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header Field") which is embedded onto the disc. This is header information in front of data sector area, and is the same format as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
• UDF 1.02
• UDF 1.50
• UDF 2.00
• UDF 2.01
• UDF 2.50

By formatting a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a removable hard drive and all writing will be done as “background processes”. Meaning you do not have to wait for it to finish, you can start or work with other applications while the DVD-RAM is working without noticing any “hangs” or CPU slowdowns.

DVD-RAM has error correction, but also has error replacement to spare sectors as a "defect management" function. This gives higher reliability than other DVD format.

Another advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be formatted/erased/written at over 100.000 times before it will/can cause/report any errors. Let’s try to read back the 2 discs that we wrote:

Lets us take a look how the drive performs:

Writing the Maxell 5X without verification

Writing the Maxell 5X with verification

Transfer Rate Test

For those of you who are not familiar with DVD-RAM, you may probably think that something went wrong during the write process with the verification turned on, since the 5X media was written at 5X. But don’t worry, that is pretty normal for DVD-RAM discs. The reason for the lower writing speed is the drive constantly reads back the data after writing it to verify that it’s written correctly. We can also call it a “bullet proof” writing/verify technique, with no data loss/errors.

Summary

The ASUS BC-1205PT was able to read and write our tested media without any problems.

Positive

• Very quiet operation
• Can read BD-ROM/BD-R/RE at 5x reading speed
• Good DVD±R/RW writing quality.
• Supports DVD-RAM read and write  at 5x
• Excellent build quality.
• SATA connection
• Good software package.
• Relatively low price to get you into high definition Blu-ray viewing.

Negative

• Low burn quality on some DVD-R DL and CD-RW media

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points: Following our tests we found that this drive is a good Blu-ray Reader; with very quiet operation, so that we can truly enjoy the playback with emphasises on the Hi-Def audio. The ASUS BC-1205PT also supports reading and writing to CD-R/RW, DVD±DVD to include DL media as well as DVD-RAM. Based on our tests, the BC-1205PT is able to deliver very good writing quality on DVD±R/RW media as well as some of our CD-R/RW media.  This drive is quiet and noiseless even when reading or writing at its maximum speed.  Reading of Blu-ray media is the foremost feature of the BC-1205PT and that is accomplished with the comprehensive software package from CyberLink that is provided.  The sleek SATA cables are so much more amenable to twists and turns while taking up less space in the chassis; and the days of setting jumpers with these SATA drives are over.

The main negative point: The issue that we would like to mention with hopes of it being improved is; the quality of the burns to some DVD-R DL and the tested CD-RW media.

So to sum it all up, this is what we would say:

“If you are looking to move into the Hi-Def world with a very quiet and reliable Blu-ray reader, this just might be the drive you are looking for.”

Here in the US we have found the drive listed at www.newegg.com for $269.99; December 2007.

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this thread.

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