BenQ Australia DW1620 Pro

Reliability is a key concern when creating discs, and the faster transfer rates get, the more prone to errors disc creation becomes. Because of this, BenQ has implemented technologies that aim to make every single burn as reliable as possible, especially when the laser nears the edge of the disc, where there is a higher amount of disc wobble.

Other technologies combat tilt and signal quality issues during burning. Signal issues, in particular, are important when burning to double layer discs, as a lot of light is needed to pass through the semitransparent top layer of a double layer disc.

Maintaining consistent signal strength across all areas of the disc is crucial, and this drive uses special power optimisation circuitry designed to achieve this.

So with all this technology lurking inside, how did this drive fare when we put it through its paces? Well, it produced consistent writing performance across DVD+R and DVD+R DL media, and was especially strong with DVD-R media. It was one of only two burners (at the time of writing) with the capability to burn to our 8X DVD-R discs at 12X. At this speed, it burnt a full DVD (including lead-in and out) in the review at 6 minutes and 11 seconds.

For enthusiasts, the drive ships with book-type management software, which changes the format of all created DVD+ media to DVD-ROM to make it more compatible with older DVD players. In our tests, DVD+R DL media was burnt this way and had no problems when inserted in several older DVD drives. This drive also ships with some video software that allows you to capture from DV and VCR sources, if you have FireWire or AV-input on your PC.