Dear all,

I am happy to announce that the BTC DRW1004 has been chosen the Preis/Leistungs Sieger (Price/in a 16 DVD burner review of Germany's ComputerBild magazine.

Overall, the BTC DRW1004 was rated 2nd after the (almost twice as expensive) Plextor PX-708A.

NEC was 3rd, Sony 4th, Asus 5th, Fujitsu-Siemens 6th, Iomega 7th, LG 8th, Freecom 9th, Speer 10th, Traxdata 11th, MSI 12th, Toshiba 13th, Philips 14th, Lite-On 15th, Ricoh 16th.

Marco
BTC Europe Support

I would not give too much on ComputerBild. They are not the most professional magazine here in germany.
In my eyes there are only few magazines you can trust. The best one is C'T, but unfortunately they didn't test the DRW1004IM yet.
But nonetheless congratulations

With the "Bild-Zeitung" the parent company behind "Computer-Bild" you have a very strange phenomena here in germany. It's the most read paper here, but if you ask people, noone will admit reading it

Well congratulations.

I don't know what's tested in this review, but it's worth celebrating.

Do I hear beer!!

Hi Marco

Just want to congratulate you. The award is well deserved

Cheers,
Peter

I just got my new C'T-Magazine a few hours ago and they tested some DVD burners again. No BTC drive, but a DIX-all DRW416 which looks exactly like a DRW1004IM, has exactly the same specs and even uses the same flasher. What a surprise

The drive was equipped with firmware 0039, so its +RW writing speed was limited to 2x.

The written discs were tested with a "CATS-Pro-DVD-Analyzer" at the Audiodev labs. They showed that the burner had big problems when writing to Minus-Media. The error rates with Verbatim and Maxell media were pretty high and Plus-Media showed a very high jitter rate.

The drive had no problems reading discs with a high jitter rate, but was the worst reader when it came to reading scratched media. It was also unable to read any protected audio CD even Copy-X which didn't disturb any other burner they tested yet.

This test is not a recommendation for the drive. So there's still a lot to be done for the manufacturers.

Hello again joerg

I can only say that I have not experienced any problems reading scratched discs. The BTC does this task a lot faster than my Ricoh based burner (5125A). I't might not be as fast as a 16X DVD-ROM drive but hey, it's a burner. Haven't tried any Audio protection schemes yet though. Maybe the latest firmware 043 have changed this - the test was after all based on the 039 firmware.

Cheers,
Peter

I can only say that's heard weird to me(i mean test results)
I own an EMPREX drive(BTC 1004IM Firmware 0.36)and i'm mostly
burning minus media and i got problems only once out of a hundred with a sentinel -r 4x.I used cheap and noname media(princo,choice,miga,primedisk)as well with more expencive(tdk,maxell,mmore,that'swrite).All of them burnt perfectly with nero 6 and played in my pc's drives but only tdk and princo played also perfectly in my home dvd(BLUESky DV 2400).Perhaps the newer firmwares made things worse.

I just quoted and (badly) translated the article in C'T. I cannot say anything about reading scratched media - I don't have any. But their results with the written DVDs had many similarities with my experiences. Maybe the new firmwares are better, but it's too late for me to test now.

About the test in C'T magazine, it was firmware V0039, not the latest one. It does makes a difference.

And besides, whatever you might think about ComputerBild, they had the media tested by an official laboratory in Sweden who used good equipment. If the BTC drive would have produced errors, they would have found it.

That having said, I also realize and know from experience that winning or losing in these kind of tests is often a matter of luck: products are never 100% perfect and they all have their good and bad points; with luck I mean that they happen to test the parts that your product is good at and the competition is bad at; also, it's a matter of timing; if they'd done the test 2 weeks later, then there could have been different firmwares out for each of the products, and the test results could have been much different.

But I'm still happy that we won the Price/Quality Award, it does say something about the product.

Marco
BTC Europe Support

I admit that there is currently much luck if you want to burn DVDs. You need a good writer and good media.
You might be unlucky and get a burner that causes trouble because something during manufacturing went wrong. But you can also get bad media which causes a bad burn either.

For this reason, I think I will still wait a little with buying a new burner. We had the same problem with CD burners a few years ago and nowadays I can buy the cheapest media along with the chepaest burner and still won't get any coasters.
I guess, this will also be possible with DVD sometimes.

Which firmware did Computer-Bild use when testing this drive? I'm surprised, that they try to make some serious tests now. I guess the discs were checked in the same lab, CT used for their checks.
Usually I would expect some tests about reading speed and that's all and I think you agree with me, that this is not enough to test a DVD burner.

Joerg,

According to the review, ComputerBild checked the CDRs with their own laboratory's (30.000 Euro) CDCS-4.2/L machine (brand is Koch) and the RWs were tested by a specialistic laboratory Audiodev in Malmo (Sweden).

Regarding your choice to wait for a while, this is the kind of trade-off you always make in the PC industry: are you're willing to wait for the technology to become more mature (and often cheaper) or do you want to have state-of-the-art right now (and pay more and at the same time be the possible victim of early adopter's child diseases). It's a choice everybody has to make for themselves.

Marco
BTC Europe Support

The quality of written DVD-R media do indeed depend on the firmware version of the BTC drive - or any drive for that matter. Out of 10 Princo medias I have burned 1 good and 9 coasters with firmware 043 (latest). However after downgrading to version 039 I have now successfully burned 5 Princo medias and no coasters. Though firmware updates usually are for the better this is not the case with Princo DVD-R and the latest firmware for the BTC drive.

PDU,
Pls. let me know the code written on the inner circle of the Princo discs that you have. There seem to be 2 types of them. We tuned the firmware before for these media and thought we'd fixed the problem (V0039), but later we got another batch and tuned it to that new batch. Apparently, both types need different write parameters.

So please let me know the code. Tks.

Marco
BTC Europe Support

Yesterday I had a look at the DVD-writer test in ComputerBild.

It's strange that for ComputerBild
the Read-/Write-Speed is more important than the Read-/Write-Quality

Read-/Write-Speed: 40%
Read-/Write-Quality: 34% (that includes reading scratched discs)
Others: 26% (installation, service, special features etc)

According to the test results the BTC DRW1004 is only average
in the Read-/Write-Quality section, but better than the LiteOn LDW-401s,
that has got incredible bad results in both Read-/Write-Speed and -Quality

Personally I don't give much on ComputerBild tests, but nevertheless
Congratulations for the ComputerBild Award

It makes the name BTC more known in Germany and other European countries,
and BTC has well deserved a better reputation based on its product quality.

Andy

May I also invite you all to submit all your "copy-a-movie-and-play-them-on-the-home-DVD-player" experiences on the other thread (The Great Home DVD Player Survey).

The purpose of this thread is 1st to find out where those reports come from that state that the BTC DRW1004 would have compatibility problems with certain home DVD Players and 2nd, to use as a reference for all of us in finding out which home DVD Players can support which type of media.

Tks.

Marco
BTC Europe Support

Hi Marco

4XH6924U0495 is printed on inner ring of the Princo medias in question. I will send you some more usefull info whan I get home from work. Do you want this by e-mail instead of messing up this thread?

Regards,
Peter

I agree with Marco. No matter how many "negative" points you may have against the mentioned test, it doesn't change the fact that the BTC drive won the award.

Marco,
How about starting a new thread for posting MID codes, bug reports, request for firmware updates etc. for the BTC 1004? That might a valuable resource for BTC in order to make the BTC drive even better - and I will definately send a signal to all members of this forum that BTC takes user comments seriously. I know many users allready appreciate your effforts in this forum- I sure do . Since there are allready quite a few threads regarding the BTC 1004 writer it might be benefifcal to all of us in the long run.

It might even be a good idea to start 3 different threads. One for posting MID codes of successfull media, one for nonsuccessfull media and finally one for requests, bugreports "und so weiter"

Best regards,
Peter Duun

Peter (PDU),

I'm all for it. The only thing I'm worried about is that we end up with so many reports that people will start to wonder why the BTC DRW1004 has so many bug reports ; )

But then again, in my opinion, we have a good product, and we're willing to face the criticism in order to get ahead and show our commitment to our products and the people who buy them.

Besides, I can't stop you guys from making threads (or threats) even if I'd wanted to ; )

Marco
BTC Europe Support

Hi Marco

Do you want me to create the threads (not threats) or would you prefer creating them yourself? If you want me to do it please give me a few guidelines as to how you want things setup/organized.

Just a thought: some might find it more trustworthy if you appear as the thread creator

Cheers,
Peter

Is it possible for a drive to distinguish between these different types at all? At least I have not heard anything good about Princo at all

At least everyone sees, that BTC cares. If you have not given that great support for this drive and explain some "behind-the-scene" problems with DVD-writing at all, I would probably still tell everyone not to buy this drive. But I see the users problems are taken serious and BTC tries to help where possible.

Hi Marco

4XH6924U0495 is printed on inner ring of the Princo medias in question. I have pasted in the output from DVD Identifier. Hope this helps sorting out the right write strategies for the next firmware.

Unique Disc Identifier : [DVD-R:PRINCO]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disc Type : [DVD-R]
Manufacturer ID : [PRINCO]
Disc Application Code : [Unrestricted Use : Consumer Purpose]
Recording Speeds : [1x - 2x - 4x]
Blank Disc Capacity : [2.298.496 Sectors - 4.489MB - 4,38GB]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
** INFO : Hex Dump Of 'Media Code'-Block Listed Below
** INFO : 4-Byte Header Preceding 'Media Code'-Block Discarded
** INFO : Format 0Eh - Pre-Recorded Information In Lead-In
0000 : 01 40 c1 fd 9e d8 52 00 02 d9 0e 10 66 77 70 00 .@....R.....fwp.
0010 : 03 50 52 49 4e 43 4f 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .PRINCO.........
0020 : 05 cc e8 88 88 80 01 00 06 0b 13 11 77 67 80 00 ............wg..
0030 : 07 aa 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 02 1b 0b 0e 08 08 00 ................
0040 : 09 55 09 10 0b 80 22 00 0a 20 00 00 00 00 10 00 .U....".. ......
0050 : 0b 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0060 : 0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0070 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0080 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0090 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00a0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00b0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00c0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00d0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00e0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00f0 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[DVD Identifier - http://DVD.Identifier.CDfreaks.com]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did the same with my Nashua discs, reverting to 39 solved some problems but made the drive MUCH slower. Its a shame they dont have the old firmware's online.
Had to search rpc1.org for old firmware.

JvdPol,

Don't forget that people who have no knowledge of computers also use our website. If we put all the old firmwares or other versions online, it wil only confuse them.

That is why you can always contact me through support@btceurope.nl for assistance, old firmwares, DOS versions of firmwares, etc.

Thanks for your understanding !

Marco
BTC Europe Support