BenQ 1655 Firmware suggestions

[Bullitt]

Guys, I need a suggestion

I picked up a BenQ 1655 the other day and am quite pleased with it.
Burns are very good quality, almost on par with my plexwriter. However, I am running into some problems burning TY02 media at anything higher than 8x. My plexwriter eats this stuff up @ 12x without missing a beat.

What are the better 3rd party firmwares out there that will adjust the writing strategies to crank up the speeds?

 

[TechHead]

What problems? Have you used QSuite 2.1 to enable overspeeding? Also, try disabling WOPC.

 

[Bullitt]

I have enabled Overburn and got pretty crummy results. The speeds varied from a 10.1 down to high six's giving overall speeds of, well... 7.5x.

I've upgraded the firmware, lemme give that a shot on how fast this thing can go...

disabling WOPC and running Qcheck, it claims a 16x write. 5:59 from start to finish TY02 media.

When I do that, I get some really bad PIF errors (about 800) in the first 15% of the burn. It doesnt seem to affect the quality of the output, but I'm just not used to seeing that.

It also happens with MCC004 media (verbatim 16x +R's) so I dont believe it to be a bad batch of media. MCC004 media took 5:54 from start to finish.

Verbatim 16x

Sony 8x (TY02)

 

[TechHead]

Not bad at all! How's the readability?

 

[Bullitt]

I'm _really_ pleased with this burner using MCC004 (Verbatim 16x +r) stuff.

I'm a tad concerned with the TY02 stuff since I've got over 100 blanks left. The couple I've burned @ 8x had some artifacting, but thinking about it, its probably a factor of the compression I did to get dvd-9 -> dvd-5. The end result is I'm not _unhappy_ with the BenQ, but Its no Plextor. Then again, I paid $55 for the benq. Its not a bad deal. My other concern with the BenQ + TY02 media is right at the 200MB point where I can hear the burner slow down and the speed tests show that point. I've tried 8x and 16x and the dip is still there.

If I'm gonna burn @ 16x, the MCC004 stuff really makes the grade in my experience. The TY02 stuff burned well @ 16x but not as well as the MCC004. However, I'm getting more performance than what I paid for so I shouldnt bitch too much.

I'll just burn media at their rated speeds since this drive is in a second headless box that I assembled just for media encoding/burning.

The following shot is from a dvd I just watched burned @ 16x using TY02 (read-speed down to 8x for the quality test) where I noticed the artifacts. Its the 2nd from the bottom disk in a spindle. Firmware is BCDB (latest from BenQ)

The firmware made a pretty good enhancement to the BCAB version which was shipped with mine. Its more noticeable with the TY02 than with the MCC004, but I'll credit BenQ with a good job.

For s@#$ and grins, here's a CMC Magnetic burn. Don't laugh, its the first media I bought BEFORE I READ THE FAQ. I paid $4 for a spindle of 40 on black friday a year ago...
These things are crap, won't play on any settop box I have access to (mainly Sony and LG devices). The scan looks pretty good up until the media quality control suckage makes itself known.