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The specifications of the LG GSA-5163D state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 40x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

Let us first take a look at the CD-R write technology used by the LG GSA-5163D:

As we could see, the LG GSA-5163D uses Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 40x, this gives an average speed of 31.74x. This seems to be a bit slower than other drives, let us take a look at two other drives below.

The Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 48x. This gives an average speed of 36.38x.

As we could see the Plextor PX-712A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy to reach it rated speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 36.43x.

And as a last test we wrote a disc containing 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc" enabled.

The LG GSA-5163D used 3 minutes and 17 seconds to write the disc at 40x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

The LG GSA-5163D is far from the fastest drive due to the lower writing speed of 40x Z-CLV.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 8 different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results:

CMC Magnetics is not known for making the best CD-R discs, but this result is pretty good. Disappointing that the drive slowed down to 32x though.

Simply perfect.

Good quality with Mitsubishi/Verbatim media as well.

An excellent result, probably partially thanks to the new batch of Traxdata discs provided by Conrexx.

A good result, as expected with Taiyo Yuden.

No problems with this Prodisc media either.

We did not expect the best result from these discs, but the result is acceptable - but of course not as good as with other media types.

No problems with this disc type either.

CD-ReWritable:

The LG GSA-5163D supports a CD-ReWriting speed of 24x, let us see how this compares to other writers. Let us start with taking a look at the writing strategy it uses:

The LG GSA-5163D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.57x. This seems to be about average compared to other drives, but let us include some other results for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-107D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.47x.

The Plextor PX-712A, with its P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) write speed of 24X for Ultra Speed CD-RW discs is among the faster writers due to its high starting speed of 21.12x.

And we did also write a disc in Nero Burning ROM, the compilation we made was 650Mb large and we wrote the disc with the Disc At Once write method.

The LG GSA-5163D used 3 minutes and 34 seconds for writing the disc at 24x, let us compare this to some other writers:

Pretty close to the fastest drives, despite the Z-CLV writing technology. Let us take a look at the writing quality with two CD-RW discs:

There are at least no C2 errors, but it's still not the best result we have seen with this disc type.

Low quality discs, and as we could see the result is not good, it wrote this disc type at only 16x as well.

Summary:
Well, it's only 40x Z-CLV writing, compared to 48x CAV/P-CAV for some other new drives. But it writes very well at 40x and the quality with all tested discs is very good. CD-RW writing on the other side could be improved.

But after all, it's a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…