detail information

Positive:

• Very good to excellent writing quality on most tested media
• Supports DVD±R 16x writing around 6:00 on most tested media
• Supports CD-R/RW writing at 48x/32x
• Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW writing at 8x/6x
• Supports reading DVD±RW at 12x
• Support LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling
• Can write some DVD+R DL media at higher than certified speed
• Support for HyperTune/Overspeed
• Supports Bitsetting for DVD+R/+RW/+R DL
• 'Two sheep" writer
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Supports DVD-RAM at 5x
• Full featured software bundle
• Support for disc PI/PIF error scanning
• Good community support and 3^rd party utilities that work with the drive

Negative:

• Verbatim 32x certified CD-RW media supported at 16x only
• Questionable writing quality on some tested CD-R/W media
• Reads CD-RW media at only 32x
• Questionable writing quality on 8x DVD+R DL media
• Green LED for both reading and writing
• Limited Overburn length for 80 minute CD-R

Conclusion:

Let's summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points:

Lite-Ons offering with the SHM-165H6S performs with good to excellent write quality on just about every media type tested with a few exceptions. The drives support for DVD-RAM and LightScribe Direct to Disc Labeling technology truly makes this drive a \'Super AllWrite Drive'.

Bitsetting on DVD+R/W/+R DL is supported and ensures good compatibility with set top DVD players.

Lite-On has included a software bundle with this drive that will have nearly every \'DVD' need covered for a beginning user as well as some of the more sophisticated needs of the more advanced user.

The main negative points:

There are few negatives to mention. The Lite-On SHM-165H6S produced 8x DVD+R DL burns that other drives had problems reading. There could be write quality improvements made for some tested media. There is also a reported DVD-R Leadin bug that allegedly makes DVD-R video discs unreadable in some standalone players, however we did not encounter this issue with the tested drive and firmware but there are many reports and evidence supporting the claims.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'In their recent series drives, Lite-On has made considerable progress in compatibility and write quality. The Lite-On SHM-165H6S is a good choice if you are looking for a drive that supports all available DVD/RAM/CD media available at this time also providing LightScribe Disc Labeling capability. As with any drive, media choice and the variability of individual batches is an important consideration when making any drive choice. With this as a given we do not hesitate recommending this drive for your burning needs."

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we find the drive listed from $45.90 (May, 2006).

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread .

Thanks to:

For providing the Verbatim media used in this review. Verbatim provides high quality media all over the world and strives to be the standard for DVD hardware reviewing.

 For providing the Memorex media used in this review. Memorex is one of the largest providers of all types of media for larger parts of the world.

 For providing the Maxell media used in this review. Maxell is one of the world's leading producers of optical and magnetic memory media.

Advanced Media/Ritek-USA for providing some of the RiDATA media used in this review. RiDATA is an official Ritek brand and thus you are guaranteed to get quality Ritek manufactured discs when buying RiData media.