Philips DVDR1660 DVD-Writer Review

Philips was kind enough to send us the Philips DVDR1660. This drive supports 16x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/DVD-RW and 8x/4x DVD+R DL/DVD-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written. Further this drive also features the SolidBurn and OverSpeed techniques.

Philips has a long history for developing optical drives and has in the past joined up with BenQ for manufacturing and developing optical drives. This strategy alliance seems to gain both BenQ and Philips. BenQ has the production facilities, while Philips designs chipset/electronic components as well as being on of the main DVD+R/RW developers.

Company information:

We are sure that most of you know Philips already, but let us take a look at some of the company information found at www.philips.com. 

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is one of the world’s biggest electronics companies and Europe’s largest, with sales of EUR 29 billion in 2003. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 165,300 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, semiconductors, and medical systems.

Global Leader

Royal Philips Electronics is tenth on Fortune’s list of global top electronics corporations. We are active in about 60 businesses, varying from consumer electronics to domestic appliances and from security systems to semiconductors.

We are a world leader in digital technologies for television and displays, wireless communications, speech recognition, video compression, storage and optical products as well as the underlying semiconductor technology that makes these breakthroughs possible.

We have world class solutions in lighting, medical systems (particularly scanning and other diagnostic systems) and personal and domestic appliances where our investments in design and new materials are critical to success.

Translated into figures, we produce over 2.4 billion incandescent lamps every year, and some 30 million picture tubes.

Around 2.5 million heart procedures (scans and interventional procedures) on X-ray equipment are carried out each year using our technology.

One in seven television sets worldwide contains a Philips picture tube, and 60 percent of all telephones contain Philips products.

Thirty percent of offices around the world are lit by Philips Lighting, which also lights 65 percent of the world’s top airports, 55 percent of major soccer stadium, and 30 per cent of hospitals.

The strength of Philips’ global operations is reflected in its (value-based) leadership position in many of the markets in which it is active:

Company strategy:

‘BEST”

- BUSINESS EXCELLENCE THROUGH SPEED AND TEAMWORK ‘“

The BEST program is Philips’ chosen path to achieve business excellence. It describes a set of methods and tools by which we continuously improve our efforts. Previous successful initiatives are incorporated in the program to make sure we learn as much as possible from our successes in the past.

Business Excellence

We are all committed to improving processes in-line with the company’s strategic targets. To this end, Philips has adopted BEST to reach this goal. It is our ambition to be one of the best companies in the world: the best to trade with, work for, and invest in.

Our Measures:

• Customers are fully satisfied by the quality of Philips’ products and services
• Employees develop and use their full potential
• Shareholders get a premium return on their investment
• Suppliers choose to work with us as this generates superior value for both
• The larger community appreciates our contribution to the quality of life

Speed and Teamwork

Speed and Teamwork lie at the heart of the BEST initiative. Each and every individual within Philips knows that only by fully cooperating and working together we are able to perfect our business processes. That’s why we focus on:

• Working smarter and reducing the cycle-time of processes
• Working in teams and learning from the best practices of others

The tools and approaches in the BEST initiative all are based on these two focal areas and all fit in the improvement cycle:

“Plan – Do – Check – Learn”

If you are interested in reading more company information, please visit www.philips.com.

Drive specifications:

Now let us take a look at the specifications of the Philips DVDR1660, found at Philips’ UK website:

What’s inside the box?

In this section we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the drive and its technology.

Front

Back

Top

Bottom

Left Side

Right Side

Below you will see the contents of the retail box:

• The internal DVDR1660 drive itself
• Nero OEM Suite CD-ROM:
  • Nero Burning Rom 6 SE v6.6.0.17F
  • Nero Vision Express 3 v3.1.016
• Screw set
• How to… for Internal ReWriters using Nero 6.6 (Guides)
• Rebate info and code for Nero 7 Premium

Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself:

On the bezel we found an eject button, an emergency eject hole and a LED (green – for read and write – we prefer a different LED colour though for writing). The logos include the CD-RW Ultra+ logo, the Philips company logo, the model-series logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+R DL logo, a DVD Forum DVD-R/RW logo, and the SolidBurn logo.

Top

On top of the drive and on the right side, we can see the ventilation system/feature called Air Flow Cooling System (AFCS) and Anti-Dust Cooling System (ADCS).

On the top side of the drive we found one sticker and we can read it was made in China ‘“ December 2005.

Underside

On the back of the drive starting from the left, we can see a digital audio connector; analogue audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or master; IDE connector and finally the power connector.

We installed the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero InfoTool:

From the screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt.Rainier and a larger buffer size. Our drive came shipped with firmware P1.3.

Another shot from Nero Burning ROM:

But let us continue this review and see how it really performs.

On the next page we will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive features…………