Review: LG BP40NS20 Reviewed by: vroom Provided by: MILLENNIATA

We all know LG, and many of our members
have fallen in love with their LG DVD/BD burners. Here at MyCE we have a long
history of reviewing top of the line burners, and we are very happy to review
the latest Blu-Ray burner from LG.

This time we take a closer look on the
external USB2, self powered 6x Blu-Ray burner. The BP40NS20 is capable of
reading and burning CD-Rs at a max speed of 24x, and can also read and burn
DVDs at a max speed of 8x. The BP40NS20 is able to playback 3D movies with the
necessary equipment and it will also burn BDXL triple layer media at a max
speed of 4x.

The drive is also supports burning of
Millenniata’s MDISCs and I would like to thank Millenniata for providing me the
LG BP40NS20 for this review. More info on the MDISC technology and a list of LG
capable drives can be found on Millenniata's website.

Drive Specifications

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Here we can see
the specifications of the LG BP40NS20 USB slimdrive, as they appear on the LG
website.

Packaging

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Now let's take a
look at the packaging that the drive is shipped in.

The drive that Millenniata
sent me was an external Blu-ray USB2 burner. The BP40NS20 came as the retail
version and we can see the package and contents below.

Box front

Box rear

 

Box left and right sides

 

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.

The retail package
contained the LG BP40NS20, a split Y USB cable, a software disc and an instruction
manual.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

Drive front

The front of the LG
BP40NS20 has only the BDXL logo, an activity led, the eject button, and the
emergency eject hole. There's a very simple and clean look to the front of the
drive.

Drive rear

At the back of the
drive there is only the USB connection.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of
the drive there is one label with all the info, and also we can see that the
drive was manufactured in December 2011 in China.

A quick look at the optical system of the LG BP40NS20.

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

 

Test machine

---

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

Hardware:

• Motherboard:
  Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55 chipset)
• Processor:
  Intel i7 750
• RAM: 8 GB
  Kingston dual channel kit DDR3 
• GFX: ATI HD
  5670 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Hard disk OS:
  OCZ Vertex 2 64GB
• Hard disk storage: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB (STORAGE HDD)
• PSU: Chieftec
  500W
• Display:
  Fujitsu Siemens 22”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Premium (64 bit)

The LG BP40NS20 was
connected to a USB2 port on our test PC. The drive has a 4MB buffer, and it came
shipped with firmware version ML01.

Included software package

---

The LG BP40NS20 came
supplied with LG Burning Tool, PowerDVD 3D BD, Power2Go, PowerProducer,
MediaShow, MediaEspresso and USBFast, a good multimedia solution for all your basic
needs.

BD Solution v6

Note: We did not
install this software on our review notebook or test it.

Installed software:

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

• Nero Burning Rom 11
• Nero DiscSpeed
• Exact Audio Copy
• Opti Drive Control
• DVDFab

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The LG BP40NS20 supports
bitsetting on dual layer media only and it’s set to DVD-ROM by default.

Here is how you can
check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Start OptiDriveControl,
click the Disc info button and you should see something like this:

DVD+R DL with BookType DVD-ROM.

Writing technique

---

Now it’s time to
take a first look at the write technology used by the LG BP40NS20.

For these tests we
used Nero DiscSpeed and Opti Drive Control, and wrote a full disc at the drive’s
maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the
specifications of the LG BP40NS20, it should be able to write CD-R media at a
maximum speed of 24x.

The LG BP40NS20 uses
Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 16.10x and a total writing
time of 5 minutes and 34 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The LG BP40NS20 is
in somewhere in the middle when it comes to CD-R burn speed.

CD Re-writable:

According to the
specifications of the LG BP40NS20, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a
maximum speed of 24x.

The LG BP40NS20 uses
Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 14.90x and a total writing
time of 5 minutes and 42 seconds.

For comparison we
have made the following table: 

The LG BP40NS20 is
the fastest slimdrive that I have tested so farand it gave the impressive time
of 5 minutes and 42 seconds.

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the LG BP40NS20, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at
a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The LG BP40NS20 uses
CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum
speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.70x and a total writing time of 10
minutes and 58 seconds.

DVD-R

The LG BP40NS20 uses
CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum
speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.64x and a total writing time of 10
minutes and 50 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

As we can see from
our table, the LG BP40NS20 gave some very impressive results with both media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the LG BP40NS20, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a
maximum speed of 8x.

The LG BP40NS20 uses
Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at
its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 4.73x and a total writing
time of 13 minutes and 2 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The LG BP40NS20 is
the fastest drive that I have tested when it come to DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the LG BP40NS20, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a
maximum speed of 6x.

The LG BP40NS20 uses
Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at
its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.71x and a total writing
time of 12 minutes and 50 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The LG BP40NS20 is
the second fastest drive I have tested, it only needed 12 minutes and 50
seconds to complete a burn at 6x on DVD-RW media, simply impressive.

4x DVD+R DL writing speed:

The LG BP40NS20 is
capable of burning dual layer discs at a maximum speed of 6x.

The LG BP40NS20 uses
Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at
6x. This gives an average speed of 4.35x and a total writing time of 25 minutes
and 54 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The LG BP40NS20 is
so far the fastest slim drive that I have tested with +R dual layer media.

Summary:

The LG BP40NS20 did
show some very impressive performance, especially on re-writable media.

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

Reading performance

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For these tests we
will once again use Nero DiscSpeed, and Opti Drive Control to read various CDs
and DVDs, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the
introduction, this drive supports:

• BD-ROM 6x
• DVD-ROM 8x
• CD-ROM 24x

Pressed discs:

For this test we
used a pressed CD-ROM disc, containing various software, that is slightly over
75 minutes in length. Below you will see the result produced:

The LG BP40NS reached
its max speed without any issues.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we
made a copy of the original CD. The disc we used was an unbranded 52x certified
CD-R disc manufactured by Plasmon.

Again the drive is
able to reach a read speed of 23.95x.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a
copy of the original CD, this time we used a Verbatim 4x CD-RW disc (thanks to
Verbatim for providing me with this media).

The LG BP40NS20 reached
24.16x read speed.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the
digital audio extraction performance of the LG BP40NS20, again we used Optic
Drive Control to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc was 76 minutes in
length (75:56:45).

The LG BP40NS20 is
unfortunately a slow drive when it comes to reading audio.

DVD reading performance:

---

Again, we will use
Opti Drive Control to measure the reading performance, this time for various
types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single and double layer DVD discs
at 8x.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD
reading performance tests we are going to start with Single and Double Layered
DVD video discs. Whilst only single 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 contents of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (single layer)

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

The LG BP40NS20
had no issues reaching its max speed of 8x.

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 LG BP40NS20 read
our DVD+R and DVD+RW discs at its maximum speed of 8x.

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

Again the LG
BP40NS20 read our test DVD-R/RW discs at 8x.

DVD±R DL discs:

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DVD+R DL:

The LG BP40NS20 read
our DVD+R DL test disc at 8x reading speed and completed the task in required
17 minutes and 44 seconds.

Blu-Ray discs:

---

The LG BP40NS20 supports the reading of
pressed single layer Blu-Ray discs at 6x and BDMV at 4.8x.

BD-ROM SL:

The
LG BP40NS20 reached a max speed of 4.77x on this test and the task was
completed in 26 minutes and 28 seconds.

BD-ROM DL:

The
drive was able to reach a max speed of 6x but the speed dropped on the second
layer. It took 47 minutes and 7 seconds to finish.

BD-R SL:

On
this test the LG BP40NS20 reached the max speed of 6.04x. It took 20 minutes
and 47 seconds to finish.

BD-R LTH:

The LG
BP40NS20 can read back LTH media at 6x. It took 21 minutes and 7 seconds to
finish reading our test media at a max speed of 5.07x.

BD-RE SL:

Again
the LG BP40NS20 shows a great performance, it was able to reach 60.3x read
speed, and it took 20 minutes and 51 seconds to finish the task.

Summary:

The LG BP40NS20 has
shown itself to be an excellent and reliable reader.

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

The specifications
of the LG BP40NS20 state that the drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at 24x.
Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

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For our data
writing tests, we simply burned a full disc using CD-Speed's 'create data disc'
function and burnt 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 Opti Drive Control. The discs
were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test,
we used Opti Drive Control's Disc Quality Scan and
combined this with a 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
an Optiarc AD-7200A 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 used 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:

An excellent
result.

The result is very
good.

The result is ok.

The result is acceptable.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable
discs:

---

This is not the
result that I expected from this media, however there is no slowdown in the
Transfer Rate Test.

Summary:

Both CD-R and
CD-RW writing quality are generally very good for the LG BP40NS20.

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

The specifications
of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 8x 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:

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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 amounts 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 an Optiarc AD-7200A 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
DiscSpeed and Opti Drive Control at 4x scanning 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 their 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 Opti Drive Control 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 iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive
Control to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A
with firmware 1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

An excellent
result to start my tests.

This result is
simply good, however I feel that there is room for improvement with this media.

Another excellent
result.

We finish this set
of tests with another excellent result.

DVD+RW media compatibility and
write quality:

---

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

Below are the
results obtained.

The disc has a
perfect TRT and only a few PIF errors, but the PIE count is very high even for
rewritable media. Overall this burn is poor.

Summary:

The LG BP40NS20 writes
DVD+R with mostly excellent writing quality, however things look different when
it come to DVD+RW media and some improvements could be made in a future firmware
update.

With our tested
DVD+RW media, writing quality was excellent.

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

DVD-R media compatibility and
write quality:

---

In these tests we will
be using a Lite-On iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive Control to
measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware
1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

The result is very
good, however I didn’t like the fact the drive was only able to burn the disc
at 4x.

Again an excellent
result for this media.

The result for
this media is poor, maybe things might improve with a  future firmware update.

This is a very
good result, however I feel that it could have been better.

DVD-RW media compatibility and
write quality:

---

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

Considering this a
re-writable disc, the result is very good.

Summary:

The DVD-R writing
quality was generally very good, again I believe that there is room for
improvement with a future firmware update.

With our tested
DVD-RW media, writing quality was excellent.

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

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

---

The LG BP40NS20 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 6x.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we
used Opti Drive Control to burn our test disc. We then used a Lite-On iHAS624
along with Opti Drive Control to test the disc’s quality; we then finally ran a
read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A.

The disc has a
perfect TRT, also the PIF count is within acceptable limits.

Summary:

The LG BP40NS20 gives
very impressive quality on +R dual layer media.

Let’s move on
to the Blu-ray test....

Blu-Ray test

Verbatim BD-R 4x

---

Let's start these tests by showing the burn
process on the LG BP40NS20

The USB2
connection didn’t allow the drive to reach its max speed of 6x, and that gave
us an average speed of 3.54x and 25 minutes and 56 seconds to complete.

As we can see the quality of the burn is good, and
also we don’t have any slowdowns on the transfer rate test.

Verbatim 2x LTH        

---

Again I will start this test by showing the
burn graph.

The LG BP40NS20 burnt the disc  its rated speedand it took 46 minutes
and 1 second to finish.

Again the disc quality showed a good burn, and
test was finished with a perfect TRT.

BD-RE

For this last test I used a Verbatim 2x
BD-RE disc, and here is the burn graph.

As we can see, the
drive needed 45 minutes and 32 seconds to completed the burn.

Again the LG
BP40NS20 has shown very good performance even with this heavily used –RE disc,
and also the perfect TRT gives the final okay.

Conclusion

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As we can see the LG BP40NS20 is a very
good Blu-ray burner, unfortunately I didn’t have many media tests, but these first
results are showing what the drive is capable of achieving.

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

Real world tests:

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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 are unlike our standard tests, which we try to
keep consistent throughout the whole review team, so that our reviews are as comparable
as possible. This page gives the reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced
and real world tests that other review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

---

Real world tests
are designed to simulate what normal users might use their drives for in
everyday use. For example, writing discs with a burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we
used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According
to EAC the LG BP40NS20 does not support caching, but it supports Accurate
Stream and C2 Error Info.

Below are the
results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The LG BP40NS20 performance
is very slow, even in burst mode.

Nero Burning Rom:

In the following tests we will burn discs from the main
media types with Nero Burning Rom.

CD-R:

For our data
writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 683MB using Nero Burning
ROM software. The 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. (24x)

The LG BP40NS20 burnt
our test CD-R at 24x in 5 minutes and 22 seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

DVD R:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to
burn a data compilation containing 4446MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The Lite-On eSEU206
burned our test DVD R at 8x in 10 minutes and 36 seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

DVD DL:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom
to burn a data compilation containing 7.8GB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The LG BP40NS20 burnt
our test DVD R DL at 6x in 26 minutes and 52 seconds.

Let’s compare with
other drives in our table below.

BD-R

For this next test I will be burning a 4x
Maxell Printable Blu-Ray disc, that contains 21.70GB of data, using ImgBurn.

The burn process was completed in 27
minutes and 1 second at a max speed of 4x.

For this test I will also post the quality
scan of the disc and the Transfer Rate Test. These results are only here as a
reference.

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping
tests:

Most modern DVD
burners don’t have Video riplock and in most cases will read a pressed
DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives use a CSS riplock when it
comes to extracting data from the disc. If you attempt to rip a pressed
DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then the ripping speed may be
locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

Of course, running
this test on a slimline drive, we can expect the results to be much slower than
running the tests on a modern full sized internal DVD writer. However, we felt
that this would be an interesting and useful test.

We should point
out, that ripping and compressing a DL DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite
CPU intensive. The more power your system has, the less likely your system
power will affect the results. The PC used in this review is equipped with a
fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast hard drives. We checked to make sure
our review PC was not having an impact on the results.

For this test we
will use Fengtao Software's DVDFab.

BD-ROM:

BD-Video single layer “Underworld”. It took 32 minutes
and 59 seconds to finish ripping the disc to the hard drive.

BD-Video double layer “Quantum of Solace”. It took 63 minutes
and 41 seconds to finish ripping the entire disc to the hard drive.

DVD-ROM:

DVD-Video single layer “Dario Argento's Phantom of the
opera”

DVD-Video double layer “Iron man”

Thanks to Fengtao Software
– For providing a full DVDFab licence.

The LG BP40NS20 isn’t
video_ts riplocked. The result is very good for single layer DVDs and excellent
when it comes to dual layer DVDs considering that this is a slimdrive.

To compare with
other drives, we present the table below.

This concludes
our LG BP40NS20 review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• USB Powered
• Excellent write
  quality with DVD±R media.
• Excellent CD-R
  writing quality.
• Sleek and
  stylish design
• Excellent
  reading reliability.
• Supports 3D,
  BDXL and MDISC.
• Very good
  software bundle.

Negative:

• Needs
  improvement for writing rewritable media.
• Slow audio
  extraction speeds

Conclusion:

---

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

The main
positive points:

The LG BP40NS20 is
a very impressive drive, it comes with a good software package, but most
importantly it comes loaded with the latest technology. The drive can burn BDXL
discs at 4x, it supports burning of MDISCS, and if you have the right hardware
you can also enjoy 3D movies.

Portability is one
more thing that makes this drive a great choice, light weight, and it only
requires two USB ports to power the drive. The Drive is also very stylish.

Burning quality is
generally excellent on CD-R/DVD-R/+R and BD-R, also the LG BP40NS20 is a very
good reader.

The main
negative points:

The only negatives
for the drive are the slow read speed when it comes to audio extraction, also improvements
with rewritable media would be more than welcome in a future firmware update.

To sum up, this is what we would
say:

“The LG
BP40NS20 has shown excellent performance. The drive supports reading and
writing of all formats, including MDISC and BDXL.”

Because of the
many features that the LG BP40NS20 has, and the very good burn and read quality,
I decided to award the LG BP40NS20 with the “Safe Buy” award, and give the “Excellent”
rating.

Thanks to:

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