I apologize if these types of topics are overdone or beaten to death, I've went through and read the topics that I thought would be relevant to my questions, but I couldn't find a straight answer.

I just got my BenQ 1620, and I have the B7P9 firmware on it already (which I guess isn't bad). Now the general concensus seems to be to flash B7T9, and I guess I should go through the B7L9 FW first. But now I'm reading that there's a B7V9 FW (with RPC)? I'm not finding much on the V (unless I missed the posts completely), should I go with the V or should I just stick with T?

Also, since I'm still fresh with all this DVD-R jargon and stuff, which results in better speeds/burns? I'm seeing that some FW will let me get better speeds...but are there cons to flashing with certain FW?


Thanks in advance!

b7t9

For me B7T9.
For a long time, i had great burns with B7P9, but for some reasons, over time, P9 became not so good especially with MCC 003(Verbatim) media.
So I've tested T9 with great success

Then i've flash to U9 and V9 to see what it was all about. Not so great with my drive.
Several coasters. But some members report great success with those firmwares.

Decided to go back to T9. End of problems!
By the way, i've never flash to L9 for ''cleaning" purpose.

Best advice i can give you, is to try differents firmwares by yourself. BenQ has made it easy for buyers to go back on older firmwares if you decide to go back.

B7T9 is my personal favourite too, *if* you want to stick to the 1620 firmwares
Or, if you want to go with something a little more flamboyant (but less likely to overspeed) crossflash to BBHA.

@El Mariachi: sorry for that last thread, I was a little harsh.. plz accept my sincere apology

use whatever firmware that will work best with the brands of dvd media that you choose to use.

b7t9 likes my mcc and prodisc media so it's a winner till benq comes out with a better one

Many owners with multiple 1620s have reported that different 1620s like different firmware with different media. The simple way to determine the best firmware is to start with the latest, burn some of the media you plan to use, and scan. Then do the same for 2-3 prior firmwares. Compare the scans and determine the best firmware. This won't work for media that vary significantly from batch to batch, like Ritek.

Unfortunately, the 1620s vary enough from batch to batch that there is no best firmware based on other's experience.

Stay with B7P9...

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

Ya, that's usually my philosophy, too. I was running G7P9 on my OEM DW1620 for a long time. Just a few days ago...I suppose just for fun...I decided to crossflash and load-up RPC1 B7V9 from The Dangerous Brothers. I only use Taiyo Yuden media. Burns look the same...great quality.

I'll 2nd Chas0039's comments by saying it depends on the media ... and in some cases ... you may prefer to use different firmware for different media.

For example, I switch between B7U9 (for MBIPG101 R04 @ MBIPG101 R05 write strategy) and B7V9 (for YUDEN000 T02 @ YUDEN000 T03 + WOPC off) depending on which media I want to burn. I get decent results on MBIPG101 R04 in both firmwares, but B7U9 has given me the best results which sometimes are <100 PIF totals and PIE totals @ 3-4k range. YUDEN000 T02's definitely burn better (for me) in B7V9 - esp. with WOPC off and burning at YUDEN000 T03 strategy.

The lower quality media I use (MBIPG101 R04, CMC MAG E01, DAXON AZ2) all perform much better in B7U9 (esp. all @ MBIPG101 R05 write strat) for some reason. And, I've found B7U9 doesn't handle WOPC off as well as B7V9 does.

The higher quality media I use (YUDEN000 T02) performs much better and consistently at B7V9.

I've tried B7P9, B7T9, B7U9, & B7V9's. I was hoping I could isolate the write strategies so I could simply use one firmware platform with varying the write strategies per media I use ... but, I don't have the patience to do any more fiddling around ( ... well, for now, that is ... ).

For the most part, I've settled on B7V9 - mainly because I 'value' my YUDEN000 T02 burns more than I do the stuff I throw onto the cheap stuff.

And, keep in mind, I'm doing all this to try consistently produce sub 200 PIF totals and sub 10k PIE totals if possible. I get disappointed when i get more than those. So, needless to say, it all comes down to your own tolerances. Some people may be fine with 1,000 PIF's, some may not tolerate more than 100 PIF's, and some may simply not really care as long as "it works" or "it copies back to the harddrive", etc.

Enjoy the burning and testing out firmwares, and it'll lead you to where you need to be. Can we all get those near-perfection burns that are evidenced by the myriad scan postings on this site (most esp. TYG02's)? Possibly, but, we may all have a different path to get there.

Also, keep in mind the peripheral factors contributing to burn quality / drive performance ... defragmenting harddrives, number of applications runnning in the background, how 'fresh' the computer is (ie. been on all day long and RAM is drained out), system temperatures affecting drive temp's, which software is being used (people say certain software can yield better results than others), adware / viruses, etc.

I have tried other firmwares and always reverted back to B7T9 Which seems to outperform the other firmwares.

Same here.
With the Ricohjpn R01's and R02's I use,
the B7T9 fw seems to work best, but I'm still hoping for a new release from BenQ.

yes me too, I've tried the other fw's but t9 seems to be very consistent!!!

Lol ... T9 gave me the highest PIE totals and big spikes vs. U/V's on YUDEN000 T02 - ie. 12x burns ...

T9: 27,000-40,000 PIE ttl / 25-50 PIE max -&- 850-1,400 PIF ttl / 8+ PIF max
U/V: 10,000-20,000 PIE ttl / 9-18 PIE max -&- 250-450 PIF ttl / 3-6 PIF max

Hahah ... I guess it just depends on the burner ... AND, most especially, which media you're using in it.

B7P9 and B7T9 are favourites of mine and many others here, as you can see.

yes, but don't forget that all BenQ's are not alike which means that what works for you might not work for someone else!!!!