I must admit that I have not had a ton of experience with many of the Memorex products in recent years, I am hearing some pretty good things about their 16X Dual Format Double-Layer DVD Recorder.

OK, it may not totally stand up to the Pioneer DVR-A08 in all areas concerned, the Memorex recorder is still something to take another look at. Utilizing the Dual-Layer technology for maximum results, I would certainly say that this DVD recorder deserved better marks that it has been getting.

The Memorex 16X Dual Format Double-Layer DVD Recorder is a fine product that combines top-notch performance with exceptional software. It did reveal a few compatibility problems in the lab and can’t burn DVD-R media at 16X, but its many strengths more than compensate for these deficiencies.

Although still far behind the Pioneer DVR-A08’s 4X results, our test drive produced the fastest 2.4X DVD+R DL recording times we’ve measured to date, burning an entire 8.5GB disc image in 38:56. Its 48X/48X/24X CD performance placed it 1 second behind the first-place Lite-On drive on our CD-R burning test, and it ripped a 74-minute audio CD to MP3 files in a jaw-dropping 2:33—once again, the fastest time we’ve recorded lately. Using its bundled Nero software, the 16X Dual Format translated 30 minutes of DivX content into an MPEG Video CD image in 20 minutes flat, the best time in the roundup. The drive also scored well in our 16X DVD+R recording test, burning a 4.37GB disc image in 6:24. But not surprisingly, it did relatively poorly on our DVD-R benchmark test, because of its lack of support for 16X DVD-R recording.