Remember that an end user doesn't need an Internet access to run a protected application. It is needed only for the developer when he sets the protection. 

However that may be, any protection is a fine system and needs careful testing. And taking into account that a CD-R is a source of potential problems with reading/recording our lab iXBT.com together with Protection Technology carried out a large-scale test of most modern (and not very) CD-RW drives, CD-ROM, DVD and combo drives for compatibility with the StarForce CD-R protection. 

Testbed:

• Duron 1100 Mhz 
• 512 Mb PC133 SDRAM Samsung 
• Soltek 75KAV (KT133A) 
• 40 Gb HDD Maxtor ATA100 7200rpm 
• ATI Radeon LE 32 Mb DDR 
• SCSI Tekram 395UW 

Each CD-RW drive records a StarForce CD-R at the recommended speed of 12x. No secret that some drives do not support 12x write speed: - only 8x and 16x. In this case we made the conditions tougher for the StarForce CD-R and recorded it at the closest speed higher than 12x. As a rule, it was 16x. But there were some exceptions as well. For example, for the ASUS DVR-104 DVD-R/RW drive the maximum speed was 8x. 

After the burning process each recorder had to read not less than 5 test discs recorded on the other drives. The speed and quality of recording were measured with the Nero CDSpeed 0.85e beta and CDROM Drive Analyzer 2.31 test utilities. 

Quality of the recorded discs was estimated with the help of the professional test station CDCATS SA3 the access to which was provided by the Urals Electronic Plant. 

The CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives were to read the recorded media. 

CD-RW drives used for recording and reading the CD-R StarForce:

Nero CDSpeed

CD-ROM and DVD drives used for reading the recorded CD-R StarForce:

Nero CDSpeed

The data on testing the discs with the CDROM Drive Analyzer 2.31 and printouts of the CDCATS SA3 test station will be published later, on a separate page. 

The tables given above will also be updated as new drives arrive in our lab. 

Conclusion

• TEAC CD-W552E (firmware T016) - this latest drive from TEAC reads data on a very high quality level, but it refused to record any data on the disc. The recorder can't identify the disc as suitable for recording. 
• DVD-ROM LG GCC-4120B Combo (firmware 2.02) - it identifies blank StarForce CD-R media only every two times; its reading is unstable and slow. 
• CD-ROM CyberDrive CD486D (firmware 150J) - it reads StarForce CD-R discs quite slow, the speed doesn't make operation comfortable.

The StarForce CD-R is highly compatible with most modern (and not very) CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and DVD+RW/-RW drives. Quality of the StarForce discs is also very high - it's high enough to entrust your data to this media type for long protected storage. 

Here you can find results of testing the StarForce CD-R recorded on the Plextor PX-W1210TA CD-RW drive at 12x. 
 

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