I have acquired a V1.0 Xbox with a Samsung DVD drive (Manufactured 8/21/02), and I took this opportunity to compare it to a V1.1 Xbox with a Phillips DVD drive.

I first compared the CD ripping speeds to the hard drive. For this test I use the Eminem Show (Explicit Version), the total CD length is 77:30.

First I compared the ripping speeds from tracks located at the beginning, middle and end of the CD.

Track 2 (Length 5:24)
Phillips 1:42
Samsung 1:12 (29.4% faster)

Track 10 (Length 4:50)
Phillips 1:16
Samsung 1:08 (8.1% faster)

Track 19 (Length 4:27)
Phillips 1:01
Samsung 1:00 (1.6% faster)

Entire CD (Length 77:30)
Phillips 20:37
Samsung 19:04 (7.5% faster)

The only other test I performed was to test how fast a game loads. In this instance I chose Shenmue II (from Xbox logo loading screen to disclaimer screen that is game is a work of fiction).
Phillips 0:18
Samsung 0:15 (16.7% faster)

As most of us already know the Samsung will read all CDR and CDRW disks, while the Phillips will read CDRW and some CDRs.

The Samsung drive does seem to have one flaw, unlike the Phillips drive, it has trouble easily running the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVD. Apparently this issue exists with many Samsung stand alone DVD players and PC-DVD drives. This is easily remedied by turning on your Xbox and ejecting the drive, place the DVD in the drive and turn the Xbox off (causing the Xbox to close the DVD drive door). Next turn on the Xbox and during the boot-up sequence it should load the DVD normally.

Overall the Samsung drive appears to outperform the Phillips drive in each test, showing an approximately 2-29% improvement in performance. While this may not translate to real noticeable improvements in game play, any performance gains would be to your advantage.

Will u sell me one of your drives...philips or samsung...I can pay money...but I also have xbox parts...just need a new dvd drive

man, i got the crappy thompson drive. alot of my game freeze cause the stupid drive having problem reading off the game.

Thomson drives are awesome, I don't have trouble with mine. But I still wish I got the Samsung...

i got a thompson too, but i game like 24/7 and its started making strange noises and slowing down so now i just rip all my games to the hdd. save the dvd drives last hours of life lol.

I can't believe I just saw somebody call Thompson drives awesome. . . .*is shocked*

QUOTE (KazuyaWaruasobi @ Feb 1 2003, 07:21 PM)

I can't believe I just saw somebody call Thompson drives awesome. . . .*is shocked*

Ha, I don't have any trouble with mine. It runs every disc I throw at it. So maybe it's just that MY Thomson is awesome, and everyone else's suck!

QUOTE (plehem12 @ Feb 1 2003, 07:44 PM)

QUOTE (KazuyaWaruasobi @ Feb 1 2003, 07:21 PM) I can't believe I just saw somebody call Thompson drives awesome. . . .*is shocked* Ha, I don't have any trouble with mine. It runs every disc I throw at it. So maybe it's just that MY Thomson is awesome, and everyone else's suck!

Ya..that's wut i though...and now I have a 1year old thomson that doesn't work cause it is just worn out

I also have a Thompson. I can't do the Mode 3 Trick for Live with Unreal Champ. without using a dummy disc to boot the MS BIOS first, or it gets tired halfway through loading the main menu, and it barely ever plays CD-RW's, unless it was ISO'ed using GDFIMAGE and its either a brand new or Full-Erased CD-RW. I really need a Phillips or Samsung.

Here are results ripping music from a CDRW & CDR on the Phillips and the Samsung. As you will see individual tracks were nearly identical, however copying the whole CD at once yeilded different results. (Both CD and CDRW were copied from the original Eminem Show CD using Nero)

CDRW- Value Disk (X4 recording speed)

Track 2 (5:24)
Philips 1:44
Samsung 1:09 (33.7% faster)

Track 10 (4:50)
Philips 1:16
Samsung 1:07 (11.8% faster)

Track 19 (4:27)
Philips 1:01
Samsung 0:59 (3.3% faster)

Entire CD (77:30)
Philips 20:48
Samsung 17:39 (15.1% faster)

CDR - Imation Brand (X48 recording speed)

Track 2
Philips 1:43
Samsung 1:10 (32% faster)

Track 10
Philips 1:15
Samsung 1:07 (10.7% faster)

Track 19
Philips 1:10
Samsung 0:59 (15.7% faster)

Entire CD
Philips 21:21
Samsung 17:43 (17% faster)

The Samsung entire CD test for the original disk seemed a bit high compared to the CDR & CDRW tests, so I repeated it and got different results.

Here is new test results
Entire CD (Original Version)
Philips 20:37
Samsung 18:48 (8.8% faster)

I'm not sure why I got a different result, but I believe it may have something to do with the hard drive perfomace. The first time I got came from the first time I ripped and entire CD at once. The last time came from the fourth time I ripped an entire CD with the Samsung. I'm still not sure why the time for coping the entire original CD is over a minute longer than for the CDRW & CDR tests, especially since the times for ripping the individual tracks were so simular.

QUOTE (ahp @ Feb 1 2003, 10:06 AM)

As most of us already know the Samsung will read all CDR and CDRW disks, while the Phillips will read CDRW and some CDRs.

Can anyone give me a link or a list of CD-R brands (and speed/size) that generally work with the Philips drive (I realize different drives do different things)? Thank you very much.

My Thompson plays CD-R, CD-RW (at least both worked to boot evolution x), and I never have a problem with any DVD media. I only use Princo DVD-R's though.

Just checking if anyone can give me any idea what type and speed of CD-R media (or RW...but I want to key in on R) will generally work in a Philips drive...thanks much.

I don't have too much experience and I only got my philips drive a week.
Here is a list CD-R DOES NOT work:
Digital Research, (bad bad one, screach easily take off the whole layer)
Imation, (lots of them out there, good for pc, no go on philips)
Fujisu, made in Japan edition (everyone saying it's very best quality, blue)

Here are some WORKed on my philips:
Sony: make in taiwan, cheap green one
No name, nothing printed, 200 spindle, very hard to figure out which side is the recording side, got from officemax, looks very very cheap but works perfect. Good thing I have 200 of them.

I'm going to try some black CDRs and post back.