I burned 2 discs on BenQ DW1620 with firmware B7W9 @ 8x using ImgBurn and they both could not be scanned on the BenQ drive with DVDInfoPro, so I try to scan them on my Sony DWQ58A and both discs have quality rating of 0%. I tried burning another disc at 16x but it started at 6x and a few minutes later the speed went down to 4x. This disc got 85% quality rating scanned on my BenQ drive.

I checked the B7W9 firmware with MCSE and MCC03RG20 is supported according to the list. My drive is OEM and had G-series firmware before I flashed it with the retail B7W9 firmware. Is this a common problem with OEM drives?

Btw, I also have Verbatim 16x DVD+R (MCC04) and I always get quality rating of 98% with them so I don't think my drive is defective. Is there any way to improve the quality of my Verbatim 16x DVD-R? I would like to switch to -R if the quality is comparable to MCC04 because I heard -R are generally better than +R. Should I do the switch or stick to +R? Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forum. First, there is no difference between OEM and retail hardware. Second, the general find is that it is easier to get a better burn on most drives with +R not -R but, of course, everyone has their own experiences.

MCC 004 is much better on most burners. I generally find that MCC 03RG20 is better on LG burners and Pioneer 111 and 112 at 8X.

You should try scanning on CDSpeed at 8X and see what you get; post the scan. I would also try burning at 8X or 12X. This is much better for the 16X media on your drive. In general, I would stick to MCC 004.

MCC03RG20 should burn well in your 1620 at 8x. I'd suggest scanning with CD-DVD Speed and start with 8x as chas mentions.

This was burned at 8x using default MCC03RG20 write strategy on B7W9 firmware. FYI, I actually made a couple of coasters when burning with this setting:


This was burned at 12x using TYG02 write strategy:


I am not sure why my writer is not good with MCC03RG20. This media code is listed in the B7W9 firmware when I checked with MCSE with burn speed up to 16x. But when I try to burn it at 16x, the speed goes up to 6x then slowly goes back to 4x. I think my writer did not recognize the MCC03RG20 media.

I did some search and I found out it burns fine on some people's DW1620 but there are also cases of DW1620 owners having similar problem as me. Did I get a bad batch or is there something wrong with my wirter or firmware?

Here is a scan of Verbatim 16x DVD+R (MCC004) just for comparsion:

PIFs are fine, PIE is a bit high, but then it's not that uncommon with MCC02RG20/03RG20. Part of the issue may be that MCC media is outsourced to CMC, Prodisc, and MBI, and each burns a little different. Some burners handle each of the varieties pretty well, while some burners do well with one and not so well with another. My guess is that yours may be Prodisc, my Prodisc-made MCC02RG20 burns with PIE elevated a bit as well and one of my older burners does horribly with them, but they perform fine for the most part. Looks like your particular batch does better with the TYG02 strategy. What's the code printed on the inner hub of these discs? Starting with 'ZD' indicates CMC-made if I'm recalling correctly.

It's ZD5518-DVR-J47F4. The scan of my +R looks so much better than the -R scans and now I am not sure what to do with my -R discs. Should I upgrade my Benq DW1620 to a new Pioneer writer?

I wouldn't worry too much about it, maybe stick with the TYG02 strategy and burn at 8x with the rest of that spindle. I also had a strange circumstance where a batch of my own CMC-made (ZD-coded) MCC03RG20 that would scan with much lower PIE in my Liteon than my Benq, outside the usual variation between the two drives. Your scan with the TYG02 strategy isn't too bad, the PIE is low in the second part of the scan where I'd be more concerned about high error levels. They should be fine.

Ok thanks a lot for the help. It seems like a lot of people are recommending -R over +R but for some reason I am getting a much better result with +R.

I have always found that +R was much better than -R, especially with Verbatim and TY.