Disc Writing Technology:

Now let's take a closer look at the writing technology of the LG GSA-H42N:

CD-Recordable:

The LG GSA-H42N uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X, this gives an average speed of 35.74x.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N is one of the fastest drives we have tested when it comes to writing CD-R media.   

32x CD-Rewritable: 

The LG GSA-H42N uses Z-CLV 3-Zone (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW media at its maximum speed of 32x, this gives an average speed of 28.99x.

For comparison we have made the following comparison table:

As you can notice from the graph, our LG GSA-H42N is a very fast performer with a time of 3m:02s.

18X DVD+R Writing speed:

The LG GSA-H42N uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at the maximum supported speed of 18x. This gives an average write speed of 13.68x and a writing time of 5 minutes 03 seconds.

18X DVD-R Writing speed:

The LG GSA-H42N uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at the maximum supported speed of 18x. This gives an average write speed of 13.69x and a writing time of 5 minutes 09 seconds.

Let’s take a look at our comparison table:

As you can see from our graph the 18x speeds are at the top along with the competition.

8X DVD+RW writing speed: 

The LG GSA-H42N uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.89x and total writing time is 7:55 minutes.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As you can see from our graph the LG GSA-H42N’s 8x speeds are a little slower than the competition.

6X DVD-RW writing speed: 

The LG GSA-H42N uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 6.01x and the total writing time is 10 minutes and 06 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table:

As you can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N posts a very good time.

10X DVD+R DL writing speed:  

The LG GSA-H42N supports 10x writing speed on DVD+R DL media.

The LG GSA-H42N uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R DL media at 10x which gives an average write speed of 9.00x and a total write time of 13 minutes and 27 seconds.

4X DVD-R DL writing speed:  

The LG GSA-H42N does supports 8x writing speed on DVD-R DL media but we did not have 8x DVD-R DL media at the time, so we are using a Ritek P01 4x DVD-R DL.

The LG GSA-H42N uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL media at 4x. The average speed is 3.89x and the total writing time is 27 minutes and 31 seconds

For comparison we have made the following table:

As you can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N posts good times when writing both DVD+R DL 10x and DVD-R DL 4x.

12x DVD-RAM writing speed:

The LG GSA-H42N uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-RAM at its maximum write speed of 12x. This gives an average write speed of 10.01x and a total write time of 5 minutes 40 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table:

As you can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N posts a great burn time of 5m:40s when writing DVD-RAM at 12x.

5x DVD-RAM writing speed:

The LG GSA-H42N supports 12x writing speed on DVD-RAM media; we will also test 5x seeing this is more readily avaliable. To test the drives maximum write speed, we enable “Streaming.”

The LG GSA-H42N uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-RAM at its maximum speed of 5x. This resulted in an average write speed of 4.57x and a total write time of 12 minutes and 22 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As you can see from our chart the LG GSA-H42N posts a slower burn time by using the P-CAV writing stratigy at 5x.

Book type (bitsetting):

The LG GSA-H42N supports bitsetting, and as default will write DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media with DVD-ROM book type, the drive does not remember your Book Type setting so you will need to change it every time.

With Nero CD-DVD Speed, we can see that the "Book Type" column in the Drive Settings area that all disc types are currently bitset to DVD-ROM. When a disc is inserted in the drive, the Disc Settings area will show the Book Type. Screenshot above shows that there is a DVD+R disc in the drive and it shows that "Current book type" is set to DVD-ROM.

We can also check if our discs are really written with DVD-ROM Book Type is by clicking on the Disc Info tab. This should look something similar to the following screen shot:

On the next page let’s take a look at the Reading Performance…

Features & Technology

Reading Performance