Red-Hot Stuff: 11 DVD Burners Reviewed

Philips DVDRW416

Firmware: 1.C0

The DVDRW416 is an old-school plus-standard device that is sold in a well-equipped retail version. Because Philips is a member of the DVD+RW Alliance, it decided not to support the minus standard. The technical data are not unusual: 4x DVD+R, 2.4x DVD+RW, 16x CD-R, 10x CD-RW and 40x CD.

The Philips burner is the only device to finish writing to a DVD+R at 4x in less than 14 minutes. Philips even managed to write the DVD+RW slightly faster than its rivals.

Philips shines less brightly in error correction, because the drive could not read the partly scratched 5th Element DVD. On the other hand, the burner read Pink Panther and Cast Away (DVD-5 or DVD-9) without a murmur and after an average processing time. It also ranks in the midrange when reading the test DVD that we recorded.

The DVDRW416 can also be used as a replacement CD burner: It finished our prepared test disc with 646 MB after about 5 minutes. It finished reading the audio CD and the read process for an SVCD to prepare a copy within an acceptable time; here Philips is in the median.

We refuse to accept 23 to 25 seconds for accessing a just-inserted CD - that is simply too long. Gigabyte and NU show that that can go considerably faster. It takes 20-22 seconds to access a DVD, an average figure compared to its rivals. Weighing in its favor is the fact that the DVD+Rs created by the Philips burner could be played back in every one of the nine hi-fi DVD players.

  • Very informative review. Tedious reading and loading it though...It would have been nice to see a chart or graph at the end of the article with all the drives together. This loading page after page after page sucks big time. too much other crap. Otherwise, I did find what I was looking for. Thanks Tom's Hardware!
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