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Review: HP DVD-1040e Reviewed by: H3rB3i Provided by: Lite-On/HP (NL) Firmware: EH23 Manufactured: March 2007

Lite-On was kind enough to send us the external HP DVD-1040e for review. In this review we will be seeing how this drive from one the world's most respected electronics manufacturers performs in our tests.

The HP DVD-1040e supports 20x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x DVD+R/DL-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written. In addition this drive also supports DVD-RAM read and write at 12x.

Company Information

HP is a technology company that operates in more than 170 countries around the world. We explore how technology and services can help people and companies address their problems and challenges, and realize their possibilities, aspirations and dreams. We apply new thinking and ideas to create more simple, valuable and trusted experiences with technology, continuously improving the way our customers live and work.

No other company offers as complete a technology product portfolio as HP. We provide infrastructure and business offerings that span from handheld devices to some of the world's most powerful supercomputer installations. We offer consumers a wide range of products and services from digital photography to digital entertainment and from computing to home printing. This comprehensive portfolio helps us match the right products, services and solutions to our customers' specific needs.

Drive Specifications

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We found the specifications of the HP dvd1040e at the HP website

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.

Our package included the HP dvd1040e itself, a power cable, vertical stand, USB cable, drive documentation and the Nero 7 Essentials software.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

The bezel of the HP dvd1040e is plainly styled. We can also see various logos, an emergency eject hole, single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of the drive we found two labels and we can see the drive was manufactured in China during March 2007.

On the rear of the drive we can see an USB Connector, the power connector and some holes for air ventilation..

Now let’s head on to the next page were we can take a look at the features of the drive….

 

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Test machine

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

Hardware:

·         Motherboard: ASUSTeK P5K (Intel P35 chipset)

·         Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 4x2.4GHz (G0 Stepping)

·         RAM: 2048 MB DDR2 800 Corsair XMS2

·         GFX: Leadtek GeForce 8500GT (512MB DDR2)

·         Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC882 HD audio controller

·         Hard disk: 1X 500GB Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB SATAII

·         Case: Thermaltake Armor Big Tower Black

·         PSU: BeQuiet Straight Power 600W

·         Display: 20 inch Gericom LCD

·         Operating System: Windows Professional SP2

System setup:

The HP dvd1040e was connected as an USB device. However, the drive has been identified as a HP DVD Writer 1040d.

And another screenshot from Nero InfoTool:

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the HP dvd1040e supports reading and writing to of all nowadays standard non- HiDef formats and that the drive also supports the LightScribe Disc Labeling Technology.

Installed software:

For conducting our various tests, we will be using the following applications.

• Nero Burning Rom 8
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• Slysoft CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy

Our review PC has Windows XP Professional SP2 installed.

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The HP DVD1040e supports automatic bit-setting and supports Bit-Setting on DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media.

DVD+R DL with BookType DVD-ROM

An quick test is to start Nero CD-Speed and look at the disc information:

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the HP DVD1040e:

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 HP DVD1040e, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 48x.

The HP DVD1040e uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 37.29x and a total writing time of 2 minutes and 36 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the HP DVD1040e was one of the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD1040e, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 32x.

The HP DVD1040e uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 32X. This gives an average speed of 25.01x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the HP DVD-1040e was one of the slowest drives when writing CD-RW media.

20x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD-1040e, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 20x.

DVD+R

The HP DVD-1040e uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 20X. This gives an average speed of 13.95x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 26 seconds. Anyway, the drive wasn’t able to reach 20x.

DVD-R

The HP DVD-1040e uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 20X. This gives an average speed of 14.04x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Again the drive wasn’t able to burn the disc at full 20x speed.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our table, the HP DVD-1040e was one of the fastest drives when writing DVD-R media and one of the slower drives when writing DVD+R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD-1040e, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The HP DVD-1040e uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.24x and a total writing time of 8 minutes and 15 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The HP DVD-1040e was one of the slowest drives when writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD-1040e, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The HP DVD-1040e uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 5.76x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 41 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The HP DVD-1040e was among average when writing DVD-RW media.

8x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD-1040e, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The HP DVD-1040e uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.82x and a total writing time of 17 minutes and 47 seconds.

8x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the HP DVD-1040e, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The HP DVD-1040e uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.82x and a total writing time of 18 minutes and 20 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The HP DVD-1040e was among average when writing double layer media.

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e is an average performing drive when it comes to write on the most common media these days. It is also not able to meet with the specs when it comes to write onto DVD+/-R media (20x couldn’t be reached)

Let’s head on to the next page where we will check reading performance….

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Reading performance

For these tests we will use Nero CD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM 16x
• CD-ROM 48x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing the Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The HP DVD-1040e reached 46.87x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e proved to be one of the fastest drives at reading our test CD-ROM. Access and seek times were excellent.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The HP DVD-1040e reached 46.67x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e was one of the fastest drives with our CD-R test disc.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The HP DVD-1040e reached 32.48x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading CD-RW media.

100 minute CD-R:

As we can see above, the HP DVD-1040e had no problems reading our 100 minute test CD-R. The drive reached a maximum read speed of 52.32x and showed excellent access times.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the HP DVD-1040e, again we used Nero CD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is about 75 minutes in length (74:45:27 min).

The HP DVD-1040e reached 47.16x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e performed excellent when reading our audio test CD.

Audio Extraction:

Unfortunately the external drive is not supported by Exact Audio Copy, so we couldn’t perform the tests.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used a CD-R media from JVC

The extraction quality was excellent and performance was good. However, the drive was reported as to slow for “copy on the fly” above 16x speed.

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.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double 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.

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

The HP DVD-1040e is not riplocked and read our double layer test discs at 12x

The HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading pressed DVD-Video media.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R and a Verbatim 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The HP DVD-1040e was well above average when reading DVD+R media and DVD+RW media.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Once again the HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading DVD-R media and DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The specs of the HP DVD-1040e state the it supports reading and writing of DVD-RAM media with up to 12x speed. Unfortunately we had no 12x DVD-RAM media available and we had to perform the tests with a 5x certified media.

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD-RAM disc at 5x using a CLV reading method.

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e has a very good reading performance and proved to be a reliable reader throughout our tests.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……

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The specifications of the Pioneer DVR-115D BK state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 40x and CD-RW at 32x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

For our data writing tests, we simply burned a full disc using CD-Speed (create data disc) function and burned the discs at the maximum speed allowed.

Write quality:

We will test CD-R discs from many different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the “create data CD” function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. Because our system didn’t support Nero CD-DVD Speed for the quality test, we used KProbe 2 and combined this with a Nero CD-DVD Speed Transfer Rate Test to test if the resulting disc was readable. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On SOHR-5238S drive with firmware 4S09 and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

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 un-correctable 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 un-correctable 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.  Lite-On CD-RW drives will report C1 and C2 errors this way:

·         C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31

·         C2=E32

Here is an 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 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.

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

CD-R/RW quality scans guideline

Below are the obtained results:

A good result for this Verbatim CD-R but other drives are performing much better with this media type.

A Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD-R and no surprise that it comes out with excellent quality.

The Tevion media manufactured by Daxon Inc. has burned with very good quality.

A very good result for this CMC Magnetics manufactured CD-R media.

A poor result for this media.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

A very poor result for this media.

Summary:

CD-R writing quality and media compatibility is average with the HP DVD-1040e and CD-RW writing quality is poor. However we only tested the CD-RW writing quality with one CD-RW media, other media may have shown better results.

Now let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD recordable performance….

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The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 20x and DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the writing times for various types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and media compatibility.

Write quality:

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 un-correctable 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 un-correctable 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:

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

The above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

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 we ignore the single PIF spike in the DL scan.

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 Optiarc AD-7203A 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.

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 under 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 under 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 neighbouring 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

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/CD-Speed 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.

·         Jitter: An average jitter value of 8% or less is considered very good. You should not worry too much if the average value is slightly above this figure.

And as always; lower is better

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On LH-20A1P with firmware KL0N along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the same drive along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

A good result for this media, although the drive couldn’t reach 20x writing speed.

PI errors are extremely low and the Jitter average is very good. Overall, this is an excellent result.

Another average result.

A very good result with average Jitter. It’s some kind of surprise that the result is that good.

The result is good but there are slightly higher PIF values at the end and average jitter is quite high.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

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

Below are our obtained results.

Very low PIE and PIF errors, a very good result for this Verbatim DVD+RW

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e performed very well with our tested DVD+R and DVD+RW media. There is almost nothing to complain about.

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:

In In these tests we will be using a Lite-On LH-20A1P with firmware KL0N along with CD-Speed to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the same drive along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

Very high PIE and PIF errors at the point where the write speed felt down. So the result looks bad.

A very good result for a high quality media.

Very high PIE values but PIF and Jitter is good.

Jitter average is slightly high but PI and PIF errors are good. The result is good. Note that Lite-Ons OHT feature is enabled by default for this MID.

The HP DVD-1040e supports writing this media with 20x speed but in out test it failed twice at 20x and 1 time at 18x. So our tested media was written at 16x speed. High PIE and a high Jitter makes this burn looking not so good, even with excellent PIF values.

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality:

For this test we used the same testing procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

A bad result for this media, we have really expected something better.

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e writes DVD-R media with acceptable quality but the drive fails sometimes at speeds above 16x and gives bad results on such burns. Recommended is here to write the media at their certified speed. DVD-RW burning looks bad, the high quality Verbatim 6x DVD-RW shows a very bad result.

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 HP DVD-1040e supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 8x.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we wrote an image file of a DVD-Video compilation of as near full capacity as possible with CD-Speed. We then used the Lite-On along with CD-Speed to test the discs quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on the same drive using Nero CD-Speed.

Reviewers Note:
The Lite-On LH-A20A1P is not able to perform a jitter test on the second layer of a DL disc and so we provide only the Jitter values for Layer1.

This is an outstanding result for this media.

DVD-R DL:

The disc shows high PIE values on the second layer but the result is still good.

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e writing quality with our tested DVD DL media was good/excellent.

Let’s head onto the next page where we will take a look at DVD-RAM performance….

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Writing performance DVD-RAM:

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The SN-S082M supports writing and reading 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 are 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’s 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.

Lets us take a look at the media we are going to use in these tests:

Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM media, manufactured by Matsushita Electric

Traxdata 3x DVD-RAM media, manufactured by RiTEK.

Now let’s find out how the HP DVD-1040e performed when writing DVD-RAM media:

Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM media, manufactured by Matsushita Electric.

Verbatim 5x at 5x with “Streaming” option

The HP DVD-1040e wrote our 5x DVD-RAM media in 12 minutes and 10 seconds.

Traxdata 3x DVD-RAM media, manufactured by RiTEK.

The SN-S082M wrote our 3x DVD-RAM media in 18 minutes and 22 seconds.

Now let’s see how our HP DVD-1040e performs when reading back the discs that we wrote:

As we can see above, the HP DVD-1040e had no problems reading back the Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM disc and the Nero CD-DVD Speed Scan Disc feature reported not a single error.

Again no problem reading the disc and no Error in Scan Disc

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040eperformed excellent at both reading and writing our test DVD-RAM media. When using 5x media the drive completed a full disc in 12 minutes and 10 seconds, which should be fast enough for every day backups.

Now let’s find out more about the LightScribe Performance of the drive....

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LightScribe:

On January 4, 2004, HP announced an innovative new technology to address the problem of labelling CD’s and DVD’s. LightScribe technology allows consumers to create silk-screen quality labels on their CDs or DVDs by burning text and graphics directly onto a disc, eliminating the need for adhesive labels.

But, before we continue - Let us first take a look at some information found at the LightScribe site:

CREATE SILKSCREEN-QUALITY LABELS FOR ALL YOUR CDS AND DVDS, RIGHT FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

Until now there hasn't been much choice when it comes to creating labels for your CDs and DVDs. Messy markers or sticky adhesive labels were pretty much the only affordable option. But imagine creating professional-looking labels using the same laser that burns your data-right inside your CD/DVD drive! Well, now it's easy with LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology.

LABEL-MAKING REDEFINED.

LightScribe technology is an integrated system that combines the CD or DVD drive of your LightScribe-enabled computer with specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce precise, laser-etched labels. You can design and produce labels to express your creativity and personality-the sky's the limit!

With LightScribe, the disc is the label. This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create elegant labels for all your CDs and DVDs. Simply burn your music mix, digital-video/photo archives, or business application. Then flip the disc and burn your own unique label.

LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical DVD writers, labelling software, and a variety of brand name discs. Remember, the LightScribe logo indicates a LightScribe-enabled product, so be sure to look for it at your favourite retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe page for a list of companies that make LightScribe-enabled products.

A RADICAL REVOLUTION IN DISC LABELING.

Once you've burned your first LightScribe label and experienced the amazing result, you'll never want to use a permanent marker or sticky label again. LightScribe makes it easy. It truly is a revolution in disc labelling.

JUST HOW DOES IT WORK?

How can you burn a label onto your disc right from your computer? Suppose you have just created a music CD of your favourite songs. Now you want to make a label that contains the song titles, artists' names, and some personal information and design elements to make it special.

Burn your tracks onto the data side of the disc. Flip the disc over to the label side and put it back in the drive. Burn your label by opening your favourite LightScribe-enabled label-making software and going to the CD template work area. Now you do all of your creative design work-imported pictures, copy, and artwork. When you are satisfied with what you have done, click "print." It really is that simple! No ink, no messy markers, no clumpy adhesive labels, just an amazingly beautiful label right before your eyes.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Your LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD disc drive contains a special laser that pumps light energy into a thin dye coating on the label side of the disc. The light from the laser causes a chemical change in the dye coating that shows up as a visible point on the disc. With laser precision, LightScribe delivers closely controlled light energy to multiple points on the disc as it spins in the drive. The result is a high-resolution reproduction of the artwork, text, or photos you composed in the software application. Seeing is believing!

In this review we decided to use Droppix Label Maker instead of the supplied label making module in Nero.

The LightScribe Media:

The surface of the LightScribe media is gold-brown, also referred to as sepia coloured.

If we take a closer look at the inner ring of the LightScribe media, we can see a bar code indexing system. This is what the drive’s laser uses to recognize the LightScribe surface, but also for the indexing (for later re-burns).

Designing and burning with Droppix Label Maker:

Drippix Label Maker is a very easy to use disc labelling software which allows you to create a LightScribe label within a few steps.

The Droppix Label maker label creation interface.

The Preview screen.

Once we have created our layout and when we just need to click onto the Print button to start the LightScribe labelling process.

Of course, we selected best quality printing and clicked the Print button again.

While printing the label we see the progress in the printing queue in the application.

Once the printing was done we quickly checked the result and as you can see above, it was perfect.

So finally we can say that the LightScribe feature works perfect and without any problems.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with some real world and advanced tests....

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Author’s page:

Introduction:

On this page, the author of the review has the freedom to run tests that she/he thinks will enhance the review. These tests, unlike our standard tests, which we try to keep consistent throughout the whole review team, so that our reviews are as consistent as possible. This page gives the reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced and/or real world tests that other review team members may not be able to run.

Advanced tests:

To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the HP DVD-1040e. These tests are: “Sheep Test”, and some special disc tests.

For this test, we will use the Sheep tests made by Alexander Noé. Why is it called sheep test? That’s because the logo of the first 1 to 1 copy program called CloneCD is a sheep. When looking at supported writers, you will notice that the feature list has sheep to indicate if a feature is supported or not. In this case we are interested in the writer’s ability to backup/write weak sectors. Also called: “Correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns”.

• No sheep: Can’t backup any safedisc 2 versions without the help of software tricks
• 1 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2 up to version 2.4x without software tricks
• 2 Sheep: Can backup safedisc 2, including version 2.5x
• 3 Sheep: Can write all possible weak sectors, few if any writers could do this.

One of our forum moderators Womble; has written a guide concerning the “Sheep Test” that can be and be found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Pioneer DVR-115D supports everything.

The HP DVD-1040e supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which basically means, it can write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

No surprise here, like many other DVD burners the HP DVD-1040e was successfully when doing the One Sheep and 2 Sheep test (including SD2.90) but failed at the 3Sheep test.

 

Overburning CD-R:

We tested the HP DVD-1040e to see if it could overburn CD-R media. The results are below.

900MB (100 minute) over-burn test:

The HP DVD-1040e reported a maximum overburn capacity of 99:54.31. We then setup a test burn with CD-Speed of slightly less than maximum and burned the disc.

As we can see, the HP DVD-1040e had no problems in writing our test disc. Now let’s see if the HP DVD-1040e can read back our created disc.

The HP DVD-1040e had no problems in reading our test disc.

This concludes our HP DVD-1040e review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points:

The HP DVD-1040e is a stylish drive which wrote our tested DVD±R/DL media with good quality.

The HP DVD-1040e is an excellent reader. It reads most media groups at high speed and reads all media groups reliably.

The drive supports the LightScribe Disc Labelling technology.

 

The main negative points:

The specification of the HP DVD-1040e tells us that the drive supports DVD+/-R writing with up to 20x speed, but the truth shows us that 20x speed couldn’t be reached. The Drive also shows questionable writing quality on some CD-R / CD-RW media.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The HP DVD-1040e is a stylish, average performing, external DVD Writer, with additional Lightscribe support. There shouldn’t be any problems as long media are burned at their rated speed”

At Geizhals.at we found the drive listed, starting at €49.80

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

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