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.