Introduction

When DVD drives were first introduced in the early 90's most of us were very skeptical as to how well these would perform. Sure they gave quite a number of benefits, DVD movies being on top of it. However our main question was whether they'd be a real killer to out run CD-ROMs for good. Well now we're in the 21st century and there's no sign at all of anything as such. Nevertheless the popularity DVD drives are receiving is far greater than what CD-ROM drives initially got when they were introduced. So what does the future promise us? Will we see a shift from CD-ROM's to DVD ROMs in mass scale? In my opinion we should see this change very soon.

At present times DVD specific software bundles aren't very common as CD ROM titles since they are still comparatively more expensive than CD ROMs. Though things may seem a bit bleak for DVDs right now change can be expected very soon seeing that DVDs are on the road to hit the critical mass stage. However there are a few DVD software titles that you could get your hands on if interested. The same cannot be said with regard to DVD movies though, since almost every single new movie released today comes out in DVD format. So one need not worry about a limited library of movies since they are as freely available as a VHS cassette.

The latest additions to the DVD drive arena are the DVD-R and the DVD-RAM drives. They store data on special recordable DVD discs, which are widely available in the market today. However DVD-R's are waaaay….. out of the price range of any home user and they are mainly aimed at high-end companies. We recently bought one for $4500, now that's a price consumers most certainly won't want to pay J However DVD-RAM drives though much more expensive than DVD drives, are a lot cheaper than DVD-R's. The great advantage of having a DVD RAM drive is that they are capable of providing 5.2GB of storage space provided that both sides of the DVD is used. Considering the fact that a standard DVD RAM disc is capable of holding 2.58GB of storage space when compared to the 650MB storage space of a CD-R this surely is a significant improvement. However there's one small catch right now though, for now DVD RAM discs cannot be read by a standard DVD ROM drive. So considering the aspects of price and the question of versatility I would recommend that you go for a DVD drive rather than thinking of buying one of these (Even if you could afford it).

So getting back to the review at hand, today we'll be looking at Afreey's 12X DVD drive. Current day fastest DVD drive is the Pioneer 16X DVD drive. However as you'll see in the benchmarks we carried out, this drive is as fast as the Pioneer drive and in some instances even faster. So lets check the specs of the drive…

Features

* Data Transfer Rate - DVD:16200KB/S ; CD:6000KB/S

* ATAPI/E-IDE Interface

* Support ULTRA DMA 33 & PIO MODE

* Support Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME

* Compatible with All CD Formats

* High Speed Audio Extraction

* Vertical Mount Function

* Plug & Play Ready

* Multi-Read Function

* Complies with MPC3

* Low Vibration & Low Noise

* Emergency Manual Eject

Specifications

As you can see the drive has two LED's; the one on the right lights up when you enter a DVD ROM and the other is to signal that the drive is busy. Nothing new here though… So going on... installation of the drive is no different to installing a conventional CD-ROM drive. (Only if you already know how to install one that is) Simply locate a free 5.25" drive bay and secure the drive in with the supplied screws. Thereafter secure the IDE cable and the Audio cable to their appropriate locations . That's all there is to the installation. When Windows loaded it automatically detected the drive and loaded the appropriate drivers. Afreey Inc. supplies a diskette as well for Windows 95 users. However take my advice, if you're still using Windows 95 get a life and upgrade your machine. I don't know how Win95 will handle DVD movies, and to be honest I really don't want to find out either.

The drive also comes with InterVideo. Inc's WinDVD 2000 v2.2 Unfortunately I had trouble with this software. The movie works fine, however I get a small rattling noise coming from the speakers. Initially I thought it was my speakers, but then switching over to ATI's DVD player (v6.2) the sound worked fine. After doing some research I found out that this software has trouble with some chipsets, so I'm guessing this is the case with mine.

The Region code issue-

Almost every DVD ROM comes with Region Code enabled. This only allows the drive to play movies of a specific region as encoded on the disc. So you might think why spend hundreds of dollars if you can't play all DVD titles. Well the good news with regard to Afreey's 12X DVD drive is that it can be Region Lock free. There are a few software cracks out there as well which you could use to crack this issue, however I have never really tried them out.

Benchmarks

In order to test the DVD performance of the drive I used the "Starship Troopers" DVD. (C'mon people, it's an okay movie now isn't it). This DVD utilizes 4.16GB of Data. Initially I conducted the tests without DMA mode disabled. The DVD Speed 99 used here, tests the drive's Transfer Rate, Seek Times, CPU Utilization and Spin Up / Down. For those who are unaware what Spin Up/ Down means here's an extract taken from the documentation available with the software.

"For high speed drives it is necessary to spin down the drive to lengthen the life of the optical parts.The spinup test measures how long it takes before the drive can read data after it has stopped.Faster drives will have higher spinup/down times."

DVD Speed 99 - DMA mode Disabled	DVD Speed 99 - DMA mode Enabled

I guess it goes unsaid that DMA mode has to be used at all cost. The performance increase is almost five times compared to when DMA is not enabled. It's quite a known fact that no drive will ever attain the speeds specified by the manufacture, which is evident in these tests. Nevertheless the drive's DVD performance is very commendable indeed.

You also might notice the difference in the reading mechanism in each test. CLV means Constant Linear Velocity. This is a drive reading mechanism, which is used by almost every CD ROM drives. The disc spins faster when playing the inner side of the CD and slows when at the Outer surface.

CAV means Constant Angular Velocity. As you might know High speed drives causes a great degree of vibration as well as noise. I remember when I used to use a 48X Creative CD-ROM. As soon as it starts it sounds like some kind of a monster and the drive vibrates so much you fear that it might even damage the CD. Anyway what drives today to overcome to this issue is they implement this CAV technique. What it does is it keeps the drive rotating at a constant speed and with the help of a buffer, it compensates for the lost speed.

I recently stumbled over a review of the Pioneer 16X drive (Currently the fastest DVD Drive), and what amazed me was even though Afreey's drive is only 12X its performance is better than the Pioneer drive. These were the test results of the Pioneer drive, and as you can see Afreey's 12X drive has the edge over it.

Speed

Average : 8.42X·

Start : 4.98X

End : 11.11X

Seek Time

Random : 82ms

1/3 : 93ms

Full : 167ms

CPU Usage : 6%

Now Afreey's 12X drive retails at $85 while the Pioneer 16X drive retails around $116. Now that's a saving of $31. So why spend more when you could get equal performance with this drive. In some cases it even has a slight edge over the Pioneer drive. The bottom line is that this drive is 4X slower than the Pioneer drive and yet it has the ability to give a good run to the Pioneer drive; now that's truly amazing and really commendable. The contrast in CPU usage is negligible between the drives, yet its still an edge. Note the CPU usage when DMA is disabled, it's truly astonishing to see what a significant difference this function could do.

I have been watching quite a few DVD movies since I got this drive, and up until now never did it give any trouble. The movie plays right throughout without any glitches or hookups. I have posted a few images I captured through the WinDVD 2000 software provided free with the drive. While this has nothing to do with the drive's performance I thought I'd just include some for your viewing pleasure. Remember you need to disable hardware acceleration before you could capture images.

DMA Disabled

DMA Enabled

DMA Enabled

As shown in the specs of the drive the specified CD ROM speed is 32X. However the drive averages only 27X, which is 5X lower than what's specified. Nonetheless as you can see the drive reaches almost 36X at the end, going beyond what is said in the drive's specs. What's important though is the average speed the drive reaches, as that's the speed you'll most likely get on a day-to-day basis.

So as a final comment if you're currently looking for a DVD drive with really good performance yet at an bargain price, then Afreey's 12X DVD drive is as good as it gets. A sure recommendation from all of us down here at Technoyard.