Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9 DVD Burner

Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive sports a specified read speed of 16X for DVD’s and 48X for CD’s.

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Canon Digital Camera Solution Disk ver 9.0 that is 73:12.38 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The drive had absolutely no trouble reading the Canon disc. To see how this compares to other drives, look below:

Due to the 48X CD-ROM read specification, the MD-16XDVD9 was the fastest reader of all the drives with the exception of the Lite-On SOHW-1633S. The Mad Dog seek times were better than the Lite-On writers, but slightly slower than the NEC and BenQ drives.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Canon Digital Camera Solution CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

There were no problems reading the CD-R disc copy and it had no problems reaching near 48x. The usual comparison table is found below.

The Mad Dog read the CD-R faster than all the other tested drives except for the Lite-On SOHW-1633S.  Once again the MD-16XDVD9 had better seek times than the Lite-On writers, but not the BenQ and NEC drives.

CD-ReWritable discs:

We made a copy of the original Canon disc, this time we used a Verbatim High Speed (12X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The drive reads CD-RW discs slightly above 32x speed, to see how this compares to other drives; look below:

The Mad Dog is average in this test, both for speed and seek times. It can’t compete with the drives that read CD-RW discs at full speed, such as the BenQ DW822A.

Audio ‘“ Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9, we again used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is approximately 74 minutes long (74:02:70).

The drive has an Audio CD read limitation and could only read the disc slightly faster than 34x. Let us compare the result with other drives:

The MD-16XDVD9 ranked last in Audio CD reading speeds. It did however, once again outperform the Lite-On 1633S in seek times.

We performed additional Audio tests using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According to EAC, the Mad Dog supports both Accurate stream and C2 error reporting, which is good. It also supports caching, which is a negative and makes extraction more complicated and insecure.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The drive performed well in the burst mode and secure mode tests.

Advanced audio ‘“ DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds we perform one last audio test. This time we used the ‘Advanced DAE Quality Test” feature in CD-Speed.

The extracting quality is very good, but it lacks support for reading data from the lead-in and lead-out. This may affect its’ abilities to read protected audio discs. The Advanced DAE Quality test also indicates that it should not be used as the reading drive for on-the-fly Audio CD copying at greater than 12x.

DVD reading performance:

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

DVD ‘“ DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with single and dual layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it is 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.

Single Layer DVD Video

Double Layer DVD Video

From this test, we can see that this drive can only read DVD-Video discs at 5X speed maximum. How this compares to other drives can be seen in the table below.

The MD-16XDVD9 ends up among the slowest drives due to the limited reading speed of only 5x. For comparison purposes we also tested a data DVD-ROM disc and found that it can read single layer data DVD-ROM discs at 16X.

DVD ‘“ DVD+R(W):

For this test we used a Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD+R and a RICOH 4X DVD+RW with about 4.4GB of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R was read at full 16X speed without any problems! Excellent results. The reading speed was locked to 8x for DVD+RW. You can compare these Mad Dog speeds to other drives using the table below:

It was the fastest drive for DVD+R reading performance! For DVD+RW reading, it was one of the slowest drives.

DVD ‘“ DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 4X DVD-RW disc filled with approximately 4.4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

Results look very similar to the DVD+R / DVD+RW read tests. Excellent DVD-R read speeds.

Once again we find that the MD-16XDVD9 is the fastest drive for reading DVD-R discs, but lags behind for the DVD-RW disc.

Overall Reading Performance thoughts:

Seek times are very good. CD-ROM, CD-R and CD Audio read performance is excellent. CD-RW reading is average. Reading capabilities for SL data DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD+R discs are superb. DVD±RW discs are limited to 8X read speeds, however most other drives can read these disc types slightly faster than the MD-16XDVD9. DVD-ROM Video reading is limited to 5X CAV, we would like to see this ‘riplock” limitation removed so that these discs can be ripped at full 16X speed with stock firmware, just like DVD-ROM data discs.

But now it’s time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R discs…