Reading performance

For these tests we will use Nero CD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• DVD-ROM 16x
• CD-ROM 48x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing the Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The HP DVD-1040e reached 46.87x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e proved to be one of the fastest drives at reading our test CD-ROM. Access and seek times were excellent.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The HP DVD-1040e reached 46.67x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e was one of the fastest drives with our CD-R test disc.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The HP DVD-1040e reached 32.48x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading CD-RW media.

100 minute CD-R:

As we can see above, the HP DVD-1040e had no problems reading our 100 minute test CD-R. The drive reached a maximum read speed of 52.32x and showed excellent access times.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the HP DVD-1040e, again we used Nero CD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is about 75 minutes in length (74:45:27 min).

The HP DVD-1040e reached 47.16x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The HP DVD-1040e performed excellent when reading our audio test CD.

Audio Extraction:

Unfortunately the external drive is not supported by Exact Audio Copy, so we couldn’t perform the tests.

Advanced audio – DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we used the “Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used a CD-R media from JVC

The extraction quality was excellent and performance was good. However, the drive was reported as to slow for “copy on the fly” above 16x speed.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

Pressed DVD Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double Layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it’s useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you’re going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD Video (double layer OTP)

The HP DVD-1040e is not riplocked and read our double layer test discs at 12x

The HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading pressed DVD-Video media.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD+R and a Verbatim 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The HP DVD-1040e was well above average when reading DVD+R media and DVD+RW media.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Verbatim 16X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4.4GB of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

DVD-RW

There are hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Once again the HP DVD-1040e was about average when reading DVD-R media and DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The specs of the HP DVD-1040e state the it supports reading and writing of DVD-RAM media with up to 12x speed. Unfortunately we had no 12x DVD-RAM media available and we had to perform the tests with a 5x certified media.

The HP DVD-1040e read our DVD-RAM disc at 5x using a CLV reading method.

Summary:

The HP DVD-1040e has a very good reading performance and proved to be a reliable reader throughout our tests.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……