detail information

DVD-RAM:

The Lite-On SHM-165P6S is a so-called Multi recorder, meaning is also supports the DVD-RAM format.

This drive is one of few drives that also support the DVD-RAM format, lets us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can see it got differences from the other DVD+R/RW/R DL and DVD-R/RW/R DL discs.

We can see a very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These tick marks are "address information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header Field") which are embedded onto the disc. This is header information in front of data sector area, and is the same format as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM's disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
• UDF 1.02
• UDF 1.50
• UDF 2.00
• UDF 2.01
• UDF 2.50

By formatting a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a removable hard drive and all writing will be done in the 'background processes". Meaning you do not have to wait for it to finish - you can start or work with other applications while the DVD-RAM is working without noticing any 'hangs" or CPU slowdowns.

Lets us take a look at the media we are going to use in these tests:

Verbatim branded DVD-RAM media certified at 5x:

Physical Format Information (00h)

0000 - 16 0F 04 42 00 03 10 00 00 26 5F 5F 00 00 00 00 - ...B.....&__....
0010 - 80 20 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 22 00 00 00 00 - ..........."....
01F0 - 00 00 00 00 52 0A 00 7D 36 36 36 77 33 33 33 1A - ....R..}666w333.
0200 - 1A 00 00 11 22 00 85 88 88 00 84 87 88 02 83 86 - ...."...........
0210 - 87 02 82 85 86 0A 0C 0E 0F 0A 0C 0E 0F 09 0B 0D - ................
0220 - 0E 09 0B 0D 0E 4D 61 74 73 75 73 68 69 74 61 20 - .....Matsushita.
0230 - 45 6C 65 63 74 72 69 63 20 49 6E 64 75 73 74 72 - Electric.Industr
0240 - 69 61 6C 20 43 4F 2E 2C 4C 54 44 2E 0D 20 20 20 - ial.CO.,LTD.....
0250 - 20 20 20 20 20 4D 30 31 4A 35 30 30 36 0D 20 20 - .....M01J5006...
0260 - 20 20 20 20 20 01 01 7D 04 78 34 34 34 7D 87 85 - .......}.x444}.. 

0000 - 16 0F 04 42 00 03 10 00 00 26 5F 5F 00 00 00 00 - ...B.....&__....
0010 - 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0020 - 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
01F0 - 00 00 00 00 52 0A 00 7B 34 34 34 77 2F 2F 2F 1A - ....R..{444w///.
0200 - 1A 00 00 11 22 05 02 00 00 05 02 00 00 06 03 01 - ...."...........
0210 - 00 06 04 02 01 0A 0B 0B 0C 0A 0B 0B 0C 09 0A 0B - ................
0220 - 0B 09 0A 0B 0B 52 49 54 45 4B 20 4D 30 32 00 00 - .....RITEK.M02..
0230 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0240 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0250 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0260 - 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 82 00 74 33 33 82 7E 7F 00 - .........t33.~..

But now the interesting part - writing and reading DVD-RAM media.

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x without verification

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x with verification

Traxdata DVD-RAM 3x without verification

Traxdata DVD-RAM 3x with verification

Nero Transferrate test of the Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM

For those not familiar with DVD-RAM, you might think that something went wrong during the write process, when the verification option is turned on - since the 5x media was written at approximately 1.80x and the 3x media written at approximately 1.21x. But do not worry - that is pretty normal for DVD-RAM discs, the reason for the 'low" speed is - the drive constantly reads back the data after writing it to verify that it's written correctly. We can also call it a 'bullet proof" writing/verify technique - with no data loss/errors.

Another advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be formatted/erased/written at over 100.000 times before it will/can cause/report any errors.

To round off this section we have included two quality scans:

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x

Traxdata DVD-RAM 3x