Mitsumi DW-7802TE
Firmware: 1.00
The 7802TE from Mitsumi is a multimode burner that can write both formats at 4x. It writes DVD+RWs at 2.4x and DVD-RWs at 2x. Burning our DVD+R in exactly 14 minutes, Mitsumi boasts the shortest burning time for one-time writeable DVDs, although the difference in our test fell mostly inside one minute.
Regrettably the Mitsumi burner failed at reading the scratched 5th Element DVD; error correction seems to be powerless against heavier scratches. As expected, reading the two other DVDs proved to go without any problems; the whole process took an average amount of time.
The 7802TE took slightly more time than its competitors to read our homemade test DVD with all formats, but not as long as Sony's DRX-510UL, which obviously takes too much time to do these tasks.
10 minutes to read our SVCD is once again average, whereas 15 and 16 minutes to grab our audio CD or its copy is definitely too long. HP and Philips are based on the same hardware and can do that much faster. At 22 to 24 seconds, the 7802TE needed as much time as several of its competitors to detect a CD. Overall satisfactory, but shorter times would be preferable.
Our CD copy was, as expected, finished in slightly more than 5 minutes, which with 646 MB corresponds to the specified write speed of 16x. The result of a check of the burned DVD+R on the hi-fi DVD players was unsatisfactory: With the devices from Cyberhome, Redstar, Toshiba and Yamakawa, the DVD+R did not function, although the DVD-R did - the 510UL from Sony and the 4040B from LG also showed the same weakness.
At 20-30 seconds, the Mitsumi device needed as much time as its competitors to give the user access to various data DVDs. The DVD-R from Imation was the only disc it didn't seem to like, because it took 42 long seconds before Windows Explorer did anything.
