Optiarc AD-7200A DVD Burner Review

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Author

Dee
Senior Administrator and Reviewer
Article posted 05 Mar 08 22:12

Conclusion

Positive:

  • Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
  • Excellent/very good DVD±R/RW writing quality and performance.
  • Excellent DVD±R writing quality.
  • Can burn selected DVD±R media faster than its rated speed.
  • Very good reading performance and reliability.
  • Reads pressed DVD Video SL/DL and recordable media at 16x/12x.
  • DVD-RAM read and write at 12x
  • Supports automatic BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+DL.
  • Very good Audio CD ripping performance and quality
  • No CSS riplock.
  • Can overburn CD-R media.
  • Can read and write mini DVD media.

Negative:

  • No BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) for DVD+R/RW media.
  • Can’t read or write to 100 minute CD-R media.

 

Conclusion:

 

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

The Optiarc AD-7200A is a blisteringly fast drive as far as writing DVD R media is concerned, recording the fastest ever DVD+R burn in our reviews. Not only were the 20x DVD R burns fast, 18x and 16x burns were also extremely fast.

The Optiarc AD-7200A wrote our tested DVD±R/RW/DL media with excellent/very good quality and is a huge step forward from the Optiarc 717x series drives.

The Optiarc AD-7200A was able to burn all our tested CD-R media with excellent/very good quality and media compatibility was excellent.

The Optiarc AD-7200A was also able to burn selected DVD±R/DL media at faster than its rated speed.

Audio CD ripping performance and quality was very good indeed.

The Optiarc AD-7200A is a reasonably well built drive. Noise levels, even at 20x are not intrusive.

 

The main negative points:

There are not that many negative things to say about the Optiarc AD-7200A.

DVD+R/RW BitSetting would be nice and would enhance compatibility with some older standalone DVD players. This is not a big problem, as there are many firmwares available from the CD Freaks community that support this feature.

We would also like to see support for 100 minute CD-R media.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Optiarc AD-7200A is blisteringly fast when writing DVD±R media and writing quality across all media groups is generally excellent. It’s a must have drive”

We were very impressed by the Optiarc AD-7200A writing quality and performance. We decided to award the drive our “CD Freaks Editor’s Choice Award”.

We found the best price available in the UK at the time of writing the review, to be at E-Buyer. £15.71 Inc VAT.

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

 

SVP Communication – The United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Medea International – United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Verbatim – United Kingdom for providing the media used in this review.

 

Daxon Technology Inc – Taiwan for providing the BenQ media used in this article.

 

 

Pleomax for providing the media used in this review.

Ricoh Europe – For providing the media used in this review.

 

 

For providing the Memorex media used in this review. Memorex is one of the largest providers of all types of media for larger parts of the world

10 Comments

guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 06 Mar 08 13:01
I'd no 7200A, I'd a 7203A DVD+RDL: excellent DVD+R/-R: very good - excellent CD-R: TY(12x, 5y old) not readable CD-RW: noname (from Feurio, 10x, 5y old) not readable DVD+RW: Verbatim 8x (MKMA03) not readdable, I've only 1 test medium Philips041 with performance problems when formatted on other drive (Pioneer 106 / Benq 1650) you say: simply excellent .... take a look at c't 03/08 magazine
Dee
Posts: 11995
Posted on: 06 Mar 08 18:31
Simply look at the results.
jcusimano2
Posts: 1111
Posted on: 20 Apr 08 19:02
This burner is an excellent quality burner I had one shipped from the UK to the US :S
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 08 May 08 15:21
I'm getting even less PI & PIF than on your tests while burning DVD+R DL (Verbatim of course). Averagely 14000 PI (~0.49) & 640 PIF (~0.02). I used a Lite-On LH-20A1H to check the results. That's really an amazing good quality burner.
whitegandalf81
Posts: 3
Posted on: 30 Oct 08 00:16
Burned DVDs (Verbatim +R 16x) are not readable and playable on my LG standalone player.
imnotcrazy
Posts: 6
Posted on: 23 Jan 09 05:43
it worked fine when i first got but now it says that the drivers are corrupt or missing and when i try to update them it says that i have all the latest ones can anyone help me
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 09 Mar 09 08:01
i related my cd wr 7200a but it does not work . what i can do for it ?
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 27 Apr 09 11:48
it keeps picking up on an Audio CD but that's it. The drivers that it is using says cdrom, but i can't update the drivers to anything else. Does anyone have any ideas? I'd really appreciate some help...
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 11 May 09 20:04
Desejo orientação. Meu Optiarc AD-7200A não grava mas lê. Comprei em Dec132008, funcionando bem. Desde abril 2009 apresenta este problema. Obrigado. Moisés Dias
guest
Posts: 15284
Posted on: 17 May 09 02:10
"Posted by md (guest) on Monday 27 April 2009 11:48 it keeps picking up on an Audio CD but that's it. The drivers that it is using says cdrom, but i can't update the drivers to anything else. Does anyone have any ideas? I'd really appreciate some help..." --mine is doing the same thing...after i restored my computer. it worked perfectly before, now when i try to burn a cd in real player, it can't detect a burner. wtf! i tried to get firmware, but the drive won't let it work. I NEED HELP! I also notice in my device manager, i have two primary ide's...is that supposed to be???

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