Reviewer: G@M3FR3@K
Provided by: Yamaha Europe GmbH
Firmware: version 1.0d
Production date: April 2002
The Yamaha CRW3200E (24/10/40) is Yamaha's latest CD-RW drive and has been around for a couple of months now.
The drive we're going to review however, has been manufactured in April of this year (2002) with the latest
firmware (1.0d). Therefore this review will give you a fresh new look on this 'old' writer. We asked Yamaha why
they haven't released a new (read: faster) writer yet and we received this reply:
"..Our opinion is that the speed of CD-writers isn't any longer an argument. The advantages between a 24x
drive and a 32x drive are not so big. Unfortunately speed is still the main criterium in press reviews of
cd-writers. For us it is more important to offer the best quality. Our drives are working with the Partial-CAV
writing method which offers the best possible writing quality without "links" due to the constant increasing of
speed while writing. Other manufacturers using Zone-CLV writing method are producing links everytime when the
laser has to pause in order to increase the speed (by the way: in some reviews, editors found out that our 24x
P-CAV drive is faster than a 32x Z-CLV drive of a competitor). Furthermore we created with "Audio Master Quality
Recording" a feature which is the perfect solution for users which want to have the best possible sound-quality of home-burned Audio-CDs.
In summer 2002 we will launch the successor of CRW3200, which will offer higher speeds (faster than 40x), the
feature which can print graphics on the unused part of the data-side on a CD (see picture on the right) and improved
Audio Master Quality Recording.."
So big things are planned for this summer... Faster than 40x writing probably means that Yamaha will introduce
a 48x recorder but of course we're speculating here. Like mentioned this future drive will also have the option to
write images on the unused part of the CD-R as introduced during the CeBit conference this year. Very interesting!
Now let's continue with our review. The Yamaha CRW3200E, like mentioned before, is a 24/10/40 drive and it's the
first writer that we're going to review that writes in the so-called P-CAV mode. In this review we'll take a look
at if the drive can compete with other drives using the more popular Z-CLV writing method and if it's indeed faster.
We'll of course also test the drive's abilities to read discs and its claimed supported technique's (and this drive
supports quite a few). Read on to see what we have to say about this drive.
Test Machine:
For the tests we'll be using the following configuration:
Hardware:
- Processor: AMD Athlon 700Mhz
- Motherboard: ASUS K7V
- RAM: 256MB (PC133)
- Harddisk: Maxtor 30GB 7200rpm (UDMA 66)
System set-up:
As you can see the Yamaha CRW3200E was set-up as MASTER on the Secondary IDE Channel and identifies itself as "YAMAHA
CRW3200E". DMA (Direct Memory Access) and Autorun were enabled for every device. All drives (including
the Yamaha CRW3200E) support UDMA33.
Used Software:
The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We'll be using the following software
to perform the various tests:
- Ahead InCD v3.28.0
- Ahead Nero Burning Rom v5.5.8.2
- Ahead Nero CD Speed v0.85e beta
- Ahead Nero InfoTool v1.01
- Elaborate Bytes CloneCD v4.0.0.1
- Exact Audio Copy v0.9 beta 3
- G&M CDR Identifier v1.63
- Software Architect's WriteCD-RW! Pro v3.04
Let's take a look at the package of the Yamaha CRW3200E...
First things first as we check out the contents of the Yamaha CRW3200E package. In the box Yamaha send to us we
find the following things:
- The recorder
- Manual (four languages: EN, GE, FR, SP)
- Software Guide for Nero Burning Rom 5.5
- IDE 40-pins flatcable
- Audio cables
- Mounting screws
- One extra jumper cap
- CRW3200 Software Disc containing:
- Ahead's Nero Burning Rom
- Ahead's NeroMix
- Ahead's InCD
- One blank 24x 700MB Yamaha CDM80HY CD-R
(manufactured by Taiyo Yuden Company*) - One blank 10x 650MB Yamaha CRWM74BHS CD-RW
(manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals*)
A nice and complete package as we see it. Nero Burning Rom is always nice since, like we said many times before,
it's our personal favourite. The package of the Yamaha CRW3200E even included an extra jumper cap in case you misplace
the one on the drive itself. Now that's complete! For people that are unfamiliar with Nero Burning Rom, Yamaha has
included a small manual on how to get started covering the most basic actions (burning a data CD, an audio CD, etc.).
The Drive:
Finally we have a drive that doesn't look boring... On the front of the Yamaha drive we find the Yamaha logo,
the supported speeds (24/10/40), the 'SafeBurn' logo and the 'High Speed CD ReWriteable' logo. Besides that we have
the usual headphone jack, a volume control, busy/write LED's and of course an eject-button. Note the colour of the
Yamaha LED: it's purple or blue (depending on the state the drive is in).
One the back of the drive we find the usual IDE and power connectors, the MASTER/SLAVE jumpers and the SPDIF
(analog/digital) output connectors.
Now let's take a look at the features of the Yamaha CRW3200E...
First things first as we check out the drive specifications as mentioned on the Yamaha
website:
Drive Specifications:
| Write/Re-Write Speeds: | CD-R : 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X, 12X, 16X (CLV), 18X-24X (Partial CAV) CD-RW : 2X, 4X, 8X, 10X (CLV), 4X-10X (Full CAV) |
| Buffer Size: | 8 MB (3,224 sectors) |
| Interface: | Enhanced IDE (E-IDE)/ATAPI |
| Access Time: | 150 ms (random) |
| Supported Formats: | CD-DA, CD-TEXT, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-Bridge (Photo CD) Video CD, CD-I, Mixed Mode CD-ROM (CD-ROM+CD-DA), CD EXTRA, CD-MRW |
| Recording Modes: | Disc at once (DAO), Session at once (SAO), Track at once (TAO), Packet Writing, Audio Master Quality Recording |
| Audio Master Mode: | Linear speed: 1.4m/s (4X write speed), capacity CD-R: 63 min. (650 MB CD), 68 min. (700 MB CD), Disc at once (DAO) |
| System Requirements: | Pentium II class or higher, 300 MHz or faster / 64 MB (Windows XP: 128 MB) / Windows 95 (OSR2 or later) / 98 (SE) / ME / 2000 / XP |
| Disc Loading: | Front auto loading |
| Dimensions WxHxD: | 148 x 42.6 x 198.1 mm |
| Weight: | 0.9kg |
Overall nice features indeed. The drive supports all recording formats and even offers 'Audio Master Quality Recording'
which we'll get back to later. Let's go a little deeper into some of the supported features:
Buffer (Underrun Protection):
The claimed buffer size of the Yamaha CRW3200E is 8MB. Let's check this with Nero Burning Rom (v5.5.8.2):
technique to prevent buffer underruns. It's a complete process to guarantee an optimum burn result. Part of the
SafeBurn system is the generous 8MB buffer size and 'Optimum Write Speed Control', which automatically adjusts
the writing speed depending on the type of media you're using. As you can see in the screenshot above, this option
can be disabled in Nero Burning Rom but we wouldn't recommend it. Here's another screenshot showing the Yamaha
changing the write speed:
As Nero already reports the Yamaha CRW3200E supports the Mount Rainier industry standard. We'll test the drive's
Mt. Rainier abilities later on in this review. Here's a small introduction of the CD-MRW format. Click on the
Mt. Rainier logo to read our article on the Mt. Rainier format:
"...Mount Rainier enables native OS support of data storage on CD-RW. This makes the technology far easier to use
and allows the replacement of the floppy. This is done by having defect management in the drive, by making the
drive 2k addressable, by using background formatting, and by standardizing both command set and physical layout.
The new standard is promoted by Compaq, Microsoft, Philips, and Sony and is supported by over 40 industry leaders:
OS vendors, PC-OEM's, ISV's, chip makers, and media makers.
The purpose of the proposal made by the Mount Rainier group is to make CD-RW easier to use for data storage and
interchange. The changes proposed will enable the operating system support of dragging and dropping data to CD-RW
discs. Formatting delays will also be eliminated and the use will be comparable to using a hard disk or a floppy..."
Audio Master Quality Recording:
According to Yamaha, audio CD's burned using standard methods display considerably higher jitter values than CD's
which are pressed. The Audio Master feature reduces the jitter values up to 30% in order to achieve the best
possible sound quality on audio tracks on CD-R discs. This results in significant audible clarity in the treble and
central range, full bass reproduction and convincing interpretation in terms of space.
With Yamaha's Audio Master Quality Recording you should get audibly better sound than with an audio CD burned as
standard at 24x using drives by other manufactures. With Audio Master it's easier for a CD-player to read information
from a back-up disc and back-ups could thus also be played in very picky CD-players like in your old car hi-fi system.
The pictures below illustrate the differences between normal writing and writing with Audio Master using an
oscilloscope:
image (using Yamaha's Audio Master). You can see this by looking at the circles. The less clear the image, the
higher the jitter factor.
The Audio Master feature does have one negative point: the memory capacity of a 650MB or 700MB CD-R is respectively
63 or 68 minutes. This is because the 'pits' and 'lands' on the disc are sharper and take up more space than with normal
writing.
CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode:
Another feature that the Yamaha CRW3200E supports is called 'CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode'. This is a special
feature with which you can edit audio tracks recorded on the CD-RW disc without having to delete the entire CD first.
This means that individual tracks can be added or deleted from the disc. The only program to make use of this feature
is Nero Burning Rom. When you choose to start a new audio compilation we have a new tab. You can see this tab in the
picture below. Please note that this option is only available for the Yamaha drive. Other recorders we've
reviewed like the TEAC CD-W540E and the
Mitsumi CR-480ATE do not have this option:
option ('Modify an existing Audio CD-RW disc'). Although the 'CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode' is a great feature it does
have some limitations:
- When you want to add a track between let's say track 4 and 5 you first need to delete all tracks
after track 4, add your new track and then re-add the tracks you just deleted. When you start the write process the TOC
and selected tracks will be deleted and a new lead-in and lead-out will be written:
- You can only delete consecutive tracks (see the Nero message below). Therefore it's for instance not
possible if you have an audio CD-RW disc with 7 tracks to only delete track 4 because you first have to erase track 5, 6
and 7. You can then of course re-add these tracks when setting up your compilation.
- Because the disc is written in TAO mode (Track At Once) it's not possible to add
CD-text to the disc (only possible in Disc At Once mode).
As we see it, the easiest way to take advantage of the 'CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode' is to just add tracks to an
existing audio CD-RW disc. This way you don't need to delete tracks first.
Write Method:
Next we will take a look at which writing methods the Yamaha uses to write CD-R's. We used
Nero CD Speed to do a test write. Below you can see the
produced graph:
The yellow line indicates the rotation speed (rpm) of the CD-R.
In the produced graph you can see that the Yamaha CRW3200E uses the P-CAV method when writing a disc. P-CAV stands
for Partial Constant Angular Velocity and, as you can see in the picture below, is a lot
faster than the Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) method that other 24x recorders are
using:
The average writing speed of the Yamaha CRW3200E with a 74min/650MB CD-R is 23.55x (see the picture on the
left). When we compare this with other Z-CLV 24x recorders we see that the Yamaha is indeed the fastest 24x
recorder:
-the Waitec MEGALUS (22.70x),
-the Lite-On 24102B (22.75x), and
-the Plextor PX-W2410A (22.76x)
Please note that when doing the same tests with a 80min/700MB CD-R these speeds will be more apart.
Now we'll start testing the reading of normal/unprotected data discs. Let's see how fast the Yamaha drive can read data
and if it can really reach the claimed 40x. For the tests we used Nero
CD Speed and repeated the tests several times to make sure the results were accurate.
The data read tests are divided into four sections:
Transfer Rate Test - Original/Pressed Discs:
For the transfer rate tests we used a pressed CD-ROM containing PlexTools v1.05 which was exactly 74 minutes (333.000
sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
In the left screenshot you see that the Yamaha has an average reading speed of 29.46x. As you can also see the
drive doesn't reach 40x. A disappointing result.
The seek times with original/pressed media were pretty good as you can see in the screenshot on the right.
In the table below we compare the achieved times with other drives we've previously reviewed. Please note that the
other drives are all 40x readers except for the TEAC CD-W540E, which is a 48x reader and is therefore mentioned
separately. This drive does have the fastest seek times:
For the transfer rate tests with CD-Recordable Media we again used the PlexTools v1.05 disc only this time we read from
a back-up disc. The disc used was a 'That's Write' CD-R certified up to 16x writing and manufactured by Gigastorage. Here's
the ATIP information from CDR Identifier:
- ATIP: 97m 28s 12f
- Disc Manufacturer: Gigastorage Corp.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)
The back-up disc was of course also 74 minutes (333.000 sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
This result is more like it. This time the Yamaha CRW3200E has no problems reaching 40x and achieves an average reading
speed of 30.50x.
The seek times are also slightly better than with original/pressed discs as you can see in the picture in the right.
A very good result.
In the table below we compare the achieved results to some of the reviews we've done previously. The TEAC CD-W540E is
again mentioned separately since it's the only 48x capable reader and it wouldn't be fair to compare it with 40x readers.
To test the transfer rate with CD-RW discs we again used the "PlexTools v1.05" disc only this time we read from a
CD-ReWriteable disc. The disc used was a 'Verbatim' CD-RW certified up to 10x writing and manufactured by Mitsubishi. Here's
the ATIP information from CDR Identifier:
- ATIP: 97m 34s 23f
- Disc Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Chemicals Corp.
- Reflective layer: Phase change
- Media type: CD-ReWriteable
- Recording Speeds: min. 4X - max. 8X
- Nominal Capacity: 656.40MB (74m 43s 00f / LBA: 336075)
The CD-RW disc was of course also 74 minutes (333.000 sectors) long. Below the produced graph with Nero CD Speed:
The Yamaha CRW3200E really produces an excellent result here and can read CD-RW discs at full speed (41.11x!).
It's even faster with CD-RW discs than with original/pressed discs and CD-R discs!
The seek times however, are a bit disappointing. They're not the best we've seen as you can see on the right.
In the table below we compare the achieved results to some of the reviews we've done previously. The TEAC CD-W540E is
again mentioned separately since it's the only 48x capable reader and it wouldn't be fair to compare it with 40x readers.
Overall we can say the Yamaha CRW3200E is not the best reader we've seen when reading original/pressed discs but it
performs a lot better with CD-Recordable discs and especially CD-ReWriteable discs. With these discs the Yamaha CRW3200E
is the fastest 40x reader we've reviewed. The seek times of the drive were pretty average, sometimes very fast and
sometimes a bit slower.
So far for the data reading part. Now let's check the audio reading (DAE) speeds...
During our data read tests we saw that the Yamaha CRW3200E can reach 40x without much problems. Now let's see if the
same goes for audio. Besides our audio read tests we'll of course also do some more advanced tests using
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and
Nero CD Speed.
Features:
First we checked the features the Yamaha CRW3200E supports using EAC:
The supported 'Caching' feature isn't really a 'good' thing and the same goes for the unsupported 'C2 Error Info' feature.
Below some more information on these terms:
- 'Caching':
If your drive caches the audio that was just read, it would be a problem to read this data again in order to compare both
extractions to find out if they match. - 'Accurate Stream':
This means the drive won't jitter, thus no jitter correction has to be done anymore. - 'C2 Error Info':
Some newer drives are able to return C2 error information beside the actual audio data. In that case EAC doesn't need
to read all data twice anymore, which will result in a big speedup.
Digital Audio Extraction:
For the Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) tests we started Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and simply extracted the files in
uncompressed WAV format to our harddisk. The disc had 16 tracks and a total playing time of 77 minutes and 3 seconds. We
used both the 'Burst' mode and the 'Secure' mode:
- 'Burst Mode':
Burst mode is the fastest mode available. The audio sectors are just read without any error-detection and
error-correction. - 'Secure Mode':
The extracted audio is checked for correctness and if errors occur, EAC will try to recover them.
The Yamaha CRW3200E has no problems reaching a DAE speed 0f 40x in burst mode. When we compare the achieved results with
some of the drives we've previously reviewed we see that the Yamaha performs very well when using the bust mode but falls
a little behind when using the secure mode. Please note that the TEAC CD-W540E is actually the only 48x capable reader:
with the fastest 40x drives.
Advanced DAE Quality Test:
To conclude our DAE test we did the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test' with
Nero CD Speed. This test is a very hard and intense test for any reader. Here are the results:
recorders (which are the absolute kings when it comes to DAE). We again have a problem with reading the CD-Text from
the disc, just as we had when we did our TEAC
CD-W540E review:
Burning Rom containing CD-text. We played back the disc with the Yamaha and a CD-Text capable player:
in a Sony (CDX-L400X) car stereo to see if it would display the CD-Text. The disc worked without problems.
We wonder why the 'Nero CD speed Advanced DAE Quality Test' again reported that the Yamaha couldn't read CD-Text...
An additional note here: according to Erik Deppe, creator of Nero CD Speed, a new CD Speed version will be released
within a few weeks being the first non-beta version. So keep your eyes on www.cdspeed2000.com!
In the next step we'll see how well the Yamaha CRW3200E can read a (heavily) scratched disc.
It happens to all of us sooner or later: a disc is scratched and cannot be read properly anymore... In this test we
took a CD-Recordable and (heavily) scratched it with some fine sandpaper. We then did a surface scan with
Nero CD Speed and you can see the results below. First off let's
start with the ATIP information from the used CD-Recordable:
- ATIP: 97m 15s 11f
- Disc Manufacturer: Ritek Co.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Long strategy; e.g. Cyanine, Azo etc.)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 74f / LBA: 359849)
Now for the achieved results. We read the disc with the Yamaha and then read the same disc with a TEAC CD-W540E
(firmware 1.0B), a Mitsumi CR-480ATE (firmware 1.0E) and a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM (firmware 1012) for comparison.
We'll let the figures speak for themselves. Please note that damaged sectors can still be read. The important
percentage is the one of the unreadable sectors. Of course the less, the better:
It can only report if a sector is good (readable) or bad (unreadable).
read the most part of the disc. The Mitsumi and TEAC achieved about the same results (one drive can read some sectors
while the other one couldn't and vice versa) but the Mitsumi had just a little less unreadable sectors.
That concludes the reading part. Now it's time to see how the Yamaha CRW3200E performs when writing discs...
As mentioned before during this review, the Yamaha CRW3200E uses the P-CAV method when writing discs. In the
following write tests we'll see what this means in real terms. We already know that P-CAV is faster than Z-CLV
but how much are we talking about? To answer these questions we set up a basic write process using the latest
Nero Burning Rom version (v5.5.8.2). We used the DAO (Disc
At Once) method for writing the disc. The disc was finalized and set-up as a non-multisession disc.
We first want to do a test with Yamaha's 'Optimum Write Speed Control' (see page 3: Features) disabled to
see if it would write at 24x to a 16x certified disc. In the screenshot below you can see the result:
Test'. In the screenshot below you can see that the disc is read very badly and even has errors on it, causing the test
to abort:
screenshot below you can see that the Yamaha CRW3200E reduces the write speed to 16x before starting the actual
writing:
if the disc is of a better quality this time:
to buy this writer or if you already have it: leave 'Optimum Write Speed Control' enabled!
An interesting point to note here is that although the Yamaha CRW3200E failed to write at 24x with 'Optimum Write Speed
Control' disabled, we could write the same discs with the TEAC CD-W540E at 32x without any problems...
Comparing:
Next we did some more tests comparing the Yamaha CRW3200E to some of our previous reviews. Please note that we left
'Optimum Write Speed Control' enabled for the Yamaha drive. Please also note that some reviews were done on different
machines using different CD-Recordables so the achieved writing times can be a little off. You can see an overview of
the achieved results in the table below:
we compare it to other 24x recorders like the Plextor PX-W2410A and the Lite-On LTR-24102B. However, the TEAC CD-W540E
beats the Yamaha (and every other drive) almost every time due to its very aggressive Z-CLV write method (see
page 3 of the TEAC review for a screenshot).
Writing Audio:
The next and final step was to check how fast the Yamaha CRW3200E could write audio and to test its 'Audio Master
Quality Recording' feature. Does it really sound better than 'normal' audio recording? Let's find out.
We created a WAVE image and CUE-sheet of an audio disc with Exact Audio Copy and then loaded the CUE-sheet
into Nero. The audio disc used was about 59 minutes long. Please note that because 'Audio Master Quality Recording'
takes up more space on a disc than normal writing you cannot fit 74 minutes on an 74 minute CD-Recordable (and the
same also goes for 80 minute discs of course). The memory capacity of a 650MB or 700MB CD-R is respectively 63 or
68 minutes.
When starting a new write process you can choose the 'Audio Master Quality Recording' mode from the available
write methods. Please note that you cannot choose the write speed since 'Audio Master Quality Recording' is limited to
4x writing:
the buffer underrun technique of the Yamaha (SafeBurn) was not enabled:
couldn't tell the difference. Maybe if you have bat ears you'll be able to hear it but we simply couldn't.
Conclusion:
So what can we conclude from all of the achieved results? Well first of all the Yamaha CRW3200E is the fastest 24x
recorder around. It's faster than most other recorders using the Z-CLV writing method. The TEAC CD-W540E is the only
writer that's faster almost every time. Not very strange when you know that the TEAC uses a very aggressive strategy
for writing discs (it starts writing at 20x while most drives start writing at 16x).
When writing audio the Yamaha CRW3200E offers the mentioned 'Audio Master Quality Recording' mode but unfortunately
we couldn't tell the difference. What does this mean? Well maybe our ears aren't that good Or maybe it's just that
the CD-players we tested aren't very picky. However if you have a sensitive CD-player like a car stereo which has
problems playing CD-Recordables, 'Audio Master Quality Recording' might just be what you were looking for.
In this part of the Yamaha review we'll start testing the reading and writing of copy-protected data discs.
Copy-protections are used on almost every game nowadays so it's important a writer can handle the various protections
out there. For the tests we used CloneCD version 4.0.0.1 from Elaborate
Bytes. As you might know if you've read our CloneCD v3.5
preview, CloneCD now uses Profiles for each type of disc. In this review we created a separate Profile for each
protection with the common settings used in the old CloneCD versions. E.g. for SafeDisc we only selected the 'Fast
Error Skip' setting.
As an extra 'service' or help you can download the Profiles we have used in this review. Click on the Profile
images to download the used Profile. Store these files in your CloneCDProfiles folder on your harddisk. Alternatively
you can view and download all used Profiles by clicking here.
Now let's start by giving you a screenshot of the supported drive capabilities of the Yamaha CRW3200E with
CloneCD:
the copy-protection used on our game discs we scanned every disc with the latest ClonyXXL version 2.0.0.6. ClonyXXL
can be obtained from home.arcor.de/bejot.
We'll test the following, most common, copy-protections and compare the achieved read times with other drives
we've previously reviewed. After the tests we'll conclude the reading of protected data with our usual
conclusions:
For this test we'll use a game called 'Desperados' protected with LaserLock 2. As a comparison we read from both the
original disc and from a back-up (CD-Recordable) disc. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following
settings (all other options like SubChannel Data reading were disabled). You can click on the image to download the
used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
- Intelligent Bad Sector Scanner:
- Sector Skip: 100 (default)
In the screenshots below you can see the Yamaha CRW3200E successfully reading the original LaserLock disc:
Yamaha CRW3200E reading LaserLock Original
not the fastest drive we've seen but it's also not the slowest drive. In the table below we compare the achieved
results to some of our previous reviews:
For this test we'll use a game called 'Beavis and Butthead: BungHole in One' protected with the normal (read: old)
SafeDisc protection. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like
SubChannel Data reading were disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
Below you can see the achieved result of the Yamaha CRW3200E. As you can see the drive is lightning fast and even
beats our previous 'champ' the Mitsumi CR-480ATE!
Yamaha CRW3200E reading SafeDisc
this is not a very big difference but it is faster. Let's compare the achieved results to other drives we've
reviewed. Please note that some reviews were done on different machines so the achieved read times can be a little
off:
For this test we'll use a game called 'The Sims: House Party' protected with SafeDisc version 2.10.030. The CloneCD
Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like SubChannel Data reading were
disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
Yes we're using the same Profile as for the normal SafeDisc version. As the name of the Profile suggests, this
Profile has 'Amplify Weak Sectors' (AWS)
disabled. We'll get back to this in a moment. First a screenshot of the Yamaha CRW3200E reading the SafeDisc
2 disc:
Yamaha CRW3200E reading SafeDisc 2
Let's compare the achieved results to other drives we've reviewed. Please note that some reviews were done on
different machines so the achieved read times can be a little off:
SafeDisc 2 back-ups depend on whether or not the drive support 'Correct EFM Encoding' which is needed to write 'regular
bit patterns'. For more info on SafeDisc 2 read this article.We re-read the disc again only this time at 4x just to make sure that the created image was good. We used
the same SafeDisc Profile as before:- Read Speed: 4x
- Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
We wrote the disc with the default settings enabled ('buffer underrun protection and 'always close last session' on).
Like said before, 'Amplify Weak Sectors' was disabled in the Profile. The Yamaha CRW3200E succeeded in making a
partially working back-up. We tested the back-up in the following drives:- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: failed
- TEAC CD-W540E: failed
- Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
- Yamaha CRW3200E: success
Next we tried to write the same image with CloneCD's 'Amplify Weak Sectors' option enabled. This CloneCD feature
is supposed to help writers like the Yamaha produce better (read: working) back-ups of SafeDisc 2 protected discs. For
more info on this new feature read this article.
We created a new Profile with the same settings as the previous Profile, except this Profile has 'Amplify Weak Sectors'
enabled. You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Fast Error Skip ON:
- Read Retries: 0
- Error Correction: Software
- Amplify Weak SectorsWith CloneCD's 'AWS' enabled the Yamaha CRW3200E succeeded in making a working back-up. We tested the back-up
disc in the following drives:- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: success
- TEAC CD-W540E: success
- Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
- Yamaha CRW3200E: success
Protected Data - SafeDisc 2.51.xxx:
Besides our SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests we need to take a look at the latest SafeDisc 2 version 'called' SafeDisc
v2.51. This is a new version of the regular SafeDisc 2 and has caused quite a few problems for a lot of writers (which
didn't have problems with the normal SafeDisc 2). For this test we'll use a game called 'Serious Sam 2: The Second
Encounter' protected with SafeDisc v2.51.021:
our normal SafeDisc and SafeDisc 2 tests. The 'Hide
CDR Media' option was enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing
from the following drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: failed
- TEAC CD-W540E: failed
- Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
- Yamaha CRW3200E: successThe same result when as we got with the 'normal' SafeDisc 2 tests. The Yamaha can create a working back-up but it only
works in the recorder and some other drives but the back-up fails in picky readers like the Toshiba. Now let's re-write
the same image but now with the 'AWS' option enabled using the 'SafeDisc 2(.51) [AWS]' Profile. The 'Hide CDR Media'
option was again enabled in the CloneCD tray to test playing from the CD-RW drives. The results when playing from the
following drives:
- Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1502: success
- TEAC CD-W540E: success
- Mitsumi CR-480ATE: success
- Yamaha CRW3200E: successAnd again, with 'AWS' enabled the Yamaha CRW3200E can create a working back-up of the SafeDisc v2.51 protection. A
very good result since most drives will fail to make a back-up that works in a drive like the Toshiba (they're know to
be very picky when playing SafeDisc 2 back-ups). In the table below we compare the achieved results to other drives
we've reviewed. Please note that some reviews were done on different machines so the achieved read times can be a
little off:
The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all other options like 'Fast Error Skip' were
disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Read SubChannel Data from Data Tracks
- Read SubChannel Data from Audio TracksIn the screenshots below you can see the Yamaha CRW3200E successfully reading the SecuROM disc:
Yamaha CRW3200E reading SecuRom
SecuRom 2. The drive is again very fast.Protected Data - PlayStation/LibCrypt:The final protected data test we'll do is with a LibCrypt protected PlayStation disc called 'Final Fantasy VIII'. We used
the first (of four) disc(s) of this game. The CloneCD Profile and the drive were set-up with the following settings (all
other options like Fast Error Skip were disabled). You can click on the image to download the used Profile:
- Read Speed: Max
- Read SubChannel Data from Data Tracks
- Read SubChannel Data from Audio Tracks
- Don't Repair SubChannel DataIn the screenshots below you can see the Yamaha CRW3200E successfully reading the PlayStation disc:
Yamaha CRW3200E reading PlayStation
very small and about 3 seconds, the same as with the SecuRom protection. In the table below we compare the achieved
results for the last time to other drives we've reviewed:
SafeDisc errors (the drive reads them without even slowing down once!) and it even works well with CloneCD's 'Amplify
Weak Sectors' option. We were amazed by this because even without this CloneCD option, the created back-up worked in
the recorder, even when dealing with SafeDisc v2.51.021. Besides its good SafeDisc handling the Yamaha drive can read
and write the full SubChannel Data and therefore had no problems with SecuRom and the PlayStation (LibCrypt) discs.
The only time the Yamaha CRW3200E wasn't the fastest reader was with the LaserLock protection. This protection is hard
to read for a lot of drives so this is no major surprise.
In this part of the review we'll take a look at the Yamaha CRW3200E's CD-ReWriting abilities and its Mount Rainier
(CD-MRW) support. For the packet writing tests we used Ahead's InCD
version 3.28.0 and for the CD-MRW tests we used SAI's WriteCD-RW!
Pro version 3.04.Packet Writing:
We formatted a Mitsubishi Chemicals 650MB CD-RW disc which was delivered with the Yamaha package. We used InCD to
format the disc and noticed that the drive has two write methods to choose from:
Yamaha CRW3200E InCD Page Settings
Angular Velocity) means the write speed is gradually increased and CLV (Constant Linear
Velocity) means the drive uses a fixed write speed and doesn't change it. Also note that the option 'Format
disc to CD-MRW' (Mt. Rainier) has been disabled in the screenshot. We will do the CD-MRW tests with a different
software package and get back to this later.In the table below we compare the achieved write times to other drives we've previously reviewed. For the re-write
tests we created a file folder containing various files and which had a total size of 400MB (419.742.820 bytes). For
the Yamaha CRW3200E we've measured both the CLV (standard) and the CAV write modes:
the CLV mode and the CAV mode were the same. We tried several times but got the same result every time. Which mode should
you use? Well as we see it, it doesn't make a lot of difference but we're not sure if there was something wrong with our
system or perhaps with InCD.Mount Rainier Tests:
The Yamaha CRW3200E is one of the first drives to support the 'next generation' packet writing format, Mt. Rainier.
In this part of the review we'll test the Yamaha's Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities and compare them to two other drives
which also support this format, the Mitsumi CR-480ATE and
the TEAC CD-W540E.
Mount Rainier article. In the table below you
can see an overview of the achieved results:
our 304MB test folder containing various files it constantly crashed. We discovered that the Yamaha choked on very large
files (20MB+) and crashed the system. We tested the same discs with the TEAC CD-W540E and Mitsumi CR-480ATE drives and
they could write the data without problems.Conclusion:
The Yamaha CRW3200E performs very well with CD-ReWriteable media and is the fastest drive we've reviewed, compared
to other 10x CD-RW recorders. It was a little slower when formatting the disc when using CloneCD but not much.
Unfortunately we had a problem when using InCD and the Yamaha's CLV and CAV write method. Normally the CLV write
method should be faster than CAV but in our case the write times were the same.The Mt. Rainier (CD-MRW) abilities of the Yamaha CRW3200E definitely need some more tweaking. The drive could write
the disc without problems when using smaller files but crashed when using data files bigger than 20MB. We did the read
test from a formatted disc by first copying the data using a different recorder, waiting until it had finished formatting
and inserting it back into the Yamaha drive.On the next page we've summed up our tests results with various media...
In this part of our Yamaha CRW3200E review we'll test how fast the drive can write different CD-Recordable media.
Of course we tested every disc afterwards if errors had occurred. We used a 700MB avi-file and used Nero Burning Rom to
write this file in DAO (Disc At Once) mode. Every disc was finalized and set-up as non-multisession.
We left 'Optimum Write Speed Control' enabled during these tests. In the table below we've summed it all up for
you:
all discs nowadays can be written at 10x and the write times are only important when dealing with a recorder that has
higher re-write speeds (12x and up).Conclusion:
The Yamaha CRW3200E could write almost all discs at their certified speed. We left the 'Optimum Write Speed Control'
enabled during all tests because we feel that disabling it can cause coasters as we already discovered during the '
Writing Tests' in this review. When this option is disabled the Yamaha will disregard the recommended speed and just
write the discs at full speed (24x).To conclude our review we will take a look at how far the Yamaha CRW3200E can overburn and if it can handle 8cm
CD-R's...
We're almost done with our Yamaha CRW3200E review and we'll, as always, conclude with our 'special discs' tests.
These include an overburning test and a test to see if the Yamaha can write 8cm CD-R's. First off, the overburning test:Overburning:
We used Infiniti 99min/900mb CD-R's for our tests that were certified up to 32x writing. We used
Nero CD Speed to do an overburn test. We set the 'Test
capacity' to 99 minutes and started the test. You can see the achieved results below:
minute CD-R's? In the picture below a screenshot of the Yamaha drive reading a 98 minute disc with Nero CD Speed:
43.91x.8cm CD-R Tests:
To conclude our Yamaha CRW3200E review we tried to write 8cm CD-R's manufactured by Plasmon. The discs can hold a
maximum of 23min/200MB and were certified up to 12x writing. Here's the ATIP information and a picture of the disc
itself:
- ATIP: 97m 27s 19f
- Disc Manufacturer: Plasmon Data Systems, Ltd.
- Reflective layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine)
- Media type: CD-Recordable
- Recording Speeds: min. unknown - max. unknown
- Nominal Capacity: 201.86MB (23m 00s 00f / LBA: 103350)
We set-up up Nero Burning Rom to burn a compilation of about 200MB and started the write process. In the screenshot
below you can see the Yamaha successfully writing the 8cm disc:
That concludes our Yamaha CRW3200E review. Let's go to our final words and conclusions.
- Supports 24x P-CAV writing
- Supports 10x CLV re-writing
- Supports 40x CAV reading
- Fastest 24x recorder
- Supports 'Mount Rainier' format
- 8MB buffer
- SafeBurn Anti-Coaster Technology
- Nice design (purple/blue LED)
- Nice and complete package
- Good features:
- Audio Master Quality Control
- CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode
- Optimum Write Speed Control
- Good DAE speeds (40x)
- Good DAE quality
- Excellent read speed with CD-ReWriteable discs (up to 41x!)
- Excellent read speeds with copy-protected discs (using CloneCD)
- Supports UDMA 33
- Supports DAO-RAW writing
- Supports overburning (up to 94 minutes)
- Supports writing of 8cm discs
- Supports reading and writing of CD-Text
- Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data
- Supports CloneCD's 'Amplify Weak Sectors' option
- Could partially back-up SafeDisc v2.51.021
Negative Points:
- Reading of original data discs was not that good
- 'Correct EFM Encoding' not supported
- Cannot fully overburn (up to 99 minutes)
- Mount Rainier abilities need some tweaking
- Drive is rather noisy when reading and writing discs
Overall we can say the Yamaha CRW3200E is a good and decent drive. It's of course not the fastest drive around
anymore since the first CRW3200E models were already produced last year but it does what it promises. The drive
has great features which ensure a good quality back-up and supports, in our opinion, the most important features a
drive should have like DAO-RAW writing, overburning, CD-Text, SubChannel Data reading, UDMA33, etc.The Yamaha CRW3200E had some nice surprises for us, especially when reading certain copy-protections. It was the
fastest SafeDisc (2) reader we've reviewed so far. Besides that it also works pretty well when copying this popular
and common copy-protection. Without CloneCD's AWS function the drive could make a back-up that worked in the recorder
itself. With AWS enabled the drive made perfect back-ups, working in every drive we tested (even in very picky drives
like the Toshiba SD-M1502 and the TEAC CD-W540E).The Yamaha CRW3200E read performance with CD-ReWriteable discs was also very good but the performance with original
and CD-Recordable discs could have been a little better. The drive's seek times were pretty average. When reading audio
(DAE) the drive could reach full (40x) speed without problems. The Yamaha's CD-MRW (Mt. Rainier) abilities caused some
problems and definitely need some more tweaking via a firmware upgrade for instance.Can this drive still compete with other (read: newer) models? Well if you're looking for a drive with great features
(Audio Master Quality Control, SafeBurn, CD-RW Audio Track Editing Mode, etc.) and 24x is enough for you we'd say yes it
can... However when you look at the drive's price ($104 on PriceWatch.com),
this is a little high, perhaps even too high...
