detail information

To round off this review we will run some advanced tests on the Lite-On LDW-411S. These tests are: making backups of protected data and audio discs as well as some special discs test.

Copy protected data discs:

For this test we will use the new CloneCD 4.3.1.7 version and Blindwrite 4.5.7 for the newest protections, to make a backup of games containing some of the most popular copy protections. In the screenshot below we could see that the Lite-On LDW-411S supports all available write and read features in CloneCD:

The Lite-On LDW-411S supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which basically means that it can write uncorrected data and subchannel data. Below are our results for all the tested games:

Motoracer 3 is protected with Tagé¨s, a protection that uses a very special sub channel protection. So far no drives have been able to backup this game successfully.

Flé¥klypa grand prix is a Norwegian game that is protected with CD Cops, again a very special protection that is added during the manufacturing process. So far no drives have been able to make a 100% working backup, a few drives in combination with a few media types may make a backup that works in a few drives.

Desperados: Wanted dead or alive is protected with Laserlok, a protection that takes very long time to read for most drives, but most drives is able to make working backups of this game.

The Diablo 2 expansion set is protected with SecuROM version 4.62.00 0100, a widely used protection scheme. Writers able to read and write subchannel data correctly should be able to backup this Game.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice city is protected with a newer version of SecuROM: namely version 4.84.69 0071. Very few (if any) writers could reliably make working backups of this protection.

Max Payne is protected with the very popular Safedisc protection; the version used on Max Payne is version 2.30.33. If a writer supports 'Almost correct EFM encoding of regular bit patterns" it will be able to backup this protection without problems. If it does not support this you need to enable the 'Amplify weak sectors" option in CloneCD. This is a software trick to make most writers able to backup most safedisc protected games with weak sectors.

Serious Sam is also protected with the very popular Safedisc protection; the version used on Serious Sam is version 2.51.21. If a writer supports 'Correct EFM encoding of regular bit patterns" it will be able to backup this protection without problems. If it does not support this you need to enable the 'Amplify weak sectors" option in CloneCD. This is a software trick to make most writers able to backup most safedisc protected games with weak sectors.

Command and Conquer: Generals is another game protected with the very popular Safedisc protection, the version used on Command and Conquer: Generals is version 2.80.10. If a writer supports 'Correct EFM encoding of regular bit patterns" it may be able to backup this protection without problems. If it does not support this you need to enable the 'Amplify weak sectors" option in CloneCD. This is a software trick to make most writers able to backup most safedisc protected games with weak sectors. Note that some writers may still have problems with this version.

The protection on The Sims: Superstar expansion pack is also safedisc protected, this time it's version 2.90.40. Very few writers are able to reliably make a working backup of this protection. . If a writer supports 'Correct EFM encoding of regular bit patterns" it may be able to backup this protection without problems. If it does not support this you need to enable the 'Amplify weak sectors" option in CloneCD. This is a software trick to make most writers able to backup most safedisc protected games with weak sectors. Note that some writers may still have problems with this version.

The table below shows the backup capabilities of the Lite-On LDW-411S writer:

Settings for Blindwrite; Enhance Weak sectors and autoplay are disabled.
Settings for CloneCD: Read subchannel data and write them uncorrected. Fast Error Skip: enabled. Intelligent bad sector scanner: enabled and set to 100-error skip. First we tried to write with AWS(Amplify Weak sectors) disabled, if that did not work we wrote again with AWS enabled.

We thought the new CloneCD 4.3.1.7 was supposed to fix the safedisc 2.8 And safedisc 2.9 issues, but it appears not as the drive was unable to make working backups of these discs with CloneCD. Although it's a good reader it's not the fastest reader we have seen, but not the slowest either, for writing it's quite good as it supports 'Correct EFM encoding of regular bit-patterns" and thus is able to make working backups of all current safedisc protected discs without the need of any software tricks.

Copy protected Audio:

For our protected audio test we used the Exact Audio Copy program. We inserted the protected audio discs and if the drive was able to recognize the disc we tried to extract the music tracks to the hard drive. First let us look at the discs we had available for this test:

Westlife: World of our own is protected with Cactus data shield 100.

Natalie Imbruglias White lilies Island. This disc is protected with Cactus datashield 200

Shakira: Laundry service, which is protected with Key2Audio version 2.

And finally Celine Dion: A new day has come, that is protected with key2audio version 3

Results:

*The drive had a few timing problems, so we suggest that you use the secure mode in EAC to try to avoid these problems.

Even if the drive had a few problems it was able to extract the audio to the hard drive.

Overburning:

To test the overburning capabilities of the Lite-On LDW-411S we used the overburning test in Nero CD/DVD-Speed. According to Nero CD/DVD speed the drive can overburn to more than 99 minutes:

To make sure that it actually works we wrote a 99 minutes disc in Nero Burning ROM:

And the recording went successful as the above picture shows. We did also test the quality of the written disc in K-Probe:

Even if there were some problems at the end the result is among the better we have seen. The problem at the end is caused by the Ritek 99min discs we are using along with the fact that 99minutes is outside the standards. We did also try the reading abilities of the drive:

The drive had no problems with reading the 99min disc and did so at full speed.

8CM CD-R and pocket card CD-R discs:

Now we will try to read and write to 8cm CD-R discs and pocket card CD-R discs from Memorex.

8cm CD-R disc:

It had no problems with reading or writing to the 8cm media.

Pocket card CD-R:

And the pocket card CD-R discs did not cause any problems either, but the reading speed was lowered for this disc.

Now, that concludes our Lite-On LDW-411S review, head on to the last page to read our conclusion…

Re-Writing performance

Conclusion