detail information

Test machine:

For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

⋅         Motherboard: ASUSTeK A8N-SLI DELUXE (nForce 4 SLI chipset)
⋅         Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice) 800 MHz FSB.
⋅         RAM: 2 GB Corsair TWINX 2CL DDR
⋅         GFX: Leadtek Winfast 6600 TD (PCI Express nVidia)
⋅         Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy 2
⋅         Hard disk: 1X 200GB Seagate Barracuda (SATA): 1X 120GB Maxtor (SATA).

System set-up:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S was connected as Secondary Master and identified itself as LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-16H5S. DMA (Direct Memory Access) and autorun was enabled for all devices.

NOTE: This motherboard has 8 IDE channels; although the screenshot states the Lite-On SHW-16H5S is connected to a Primary IDE channel. It is in fact connected as Secondary Master

And another screenshot from Nero InfoTool below:

From the screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt. Rainier support and a larger buffer size. Our drive came shipped with firmware version LS0T

Installed Software:

Windows XP Professional is installed on the computer along with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. We will be using the following software in this review:

• Nero Burning ROM version 6.6.0.18 and V7.0.1.2
• Nero CD/DVD Speed V4.10
• Nero InfoTool v4.00
• Slysoft CloneCD v5.2.5.1
• Exact Audio Copy v0.95 beta 2
• K-Probe v2.5.1
• SureThing Deluxe 4.3 labeler

Features and techniques:

Disc Writing Technology:

In the following tests, we take a look at the disc writing technology used by the Lite-On SHW-16H5S.

For these tests we simple burned a disc with Nero CD-Speed's 'create data disc" function.

CD-Recordable:

The Lite-On uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48x. This gives an average write speed of 37.10x, and as we can see, it took the Lite-On SHW-16H5S 2 minutes 38 seconds to write the disc.

Below we have 3 other drives for comparison.

The Samsung SE-W164C uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48x. This gives an average write speed of 37.22x.

The Samsung TS-E552U uses P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 40x. This gives an average speed of 34.39x.

The LG GSA-5160D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 40X. The drive wrote the last zone at 40.41X and this gives an average speed of 31.70x.

 For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from the table, the Lite-On SHW-16H5S is very fast when it comes to writing CD-R's.

CD-Rewritable:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW at its maximum speed of 24x, with an average write speed of 22.50x and a total write time of 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

Below are some other drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW media at its maximum speed of 32x, with an average write speed of 24.90x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 3 seconds

The Samsung SE-W164C uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW media at its maximum speed of 32x, with an average write speed of 28.32x and a total writing time of 3 minutes 35 seconds.

The NEC ND-3540A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) writing technology to write at 32X for CD-RW discs, the average speed is 29.75x.

The NU DHW-164 uses P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) writing technology to write at 24X for CD-RW discs, the average speed is 23.16x.

For a better overview we present the following comparison table:

As we can see from the table, the Lite-On SHW-16H5S performed about average when writing CD-RW's.

16X DVD+R Writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at the maximum supported speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.96x and a writing time of 5 minutes and 59 seconds.

16X DVD-R Writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at the maximum supported speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.93x and a writing time of 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

Below are some write graphs from some other drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at the maximum supported speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.59x and a writing time of 6 minutes and 1 second.

The NEC 3540A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at 16x. This gives an average writing speed of 11.81x and a writing time of 5 minutes and 58 seconds.

The Philips DVDR16LS uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at 16x. The average speed is 11.33x and total writing time is 6 minutes and 8 seconds. The average speed is lower and the writing time is higher than it could have been due to the Walking OPC generation 2 using some time to constantly adjust the writing quality, we could see this as constant dips in the speed curve.

The LG GSA-5160D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R at 16x. The average speed is 11.60x and total writing time is 6 minutes and 12 seconds.

The LG GSA-4163B uses P-CAV, (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at 16x. The average speed is 12.90x and total writing time is 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

Below, we made a comparison table:

*1 - Actual writing speed was max 14x due to USB-Bridge limitations.
*2 - Actual writing speed was max 13x due to USB-Bridge limitations.

From the table above, we can see that the Lite-On SHW-16H5S is above average when it comes to burning DVD±R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.74x and total writing time is 7 minutes and 35 seconds.

Below are three drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.81x and total writing time is 8 minutes and 43 seconds.

The Samsung SE-W164C uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.52x and total writing time is 7 minutes and 52 seconds.

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.98x and total writing time is 7 minutes and 15 seconds.

We made the table below for easy comparison.

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S was above average when it came to writing DVD+RW at 8x.

6X DVD-RW writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 5.83x and total writing time is 10 minutes and 55 seconds.

Below are three other drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 6.01x and the total writing time is 9 minutes and 53 seconds.

The Samsung SE-W164C uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 5.88x and total writing time is 10 minutes 23 seconds.

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 5.80x and total writing time is 11 minutes 6 seconds.

We present the table below for easy comparison.

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S was around average when writing DVD-RW media

8X DVD+R DL writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S supports 8x writing speed on DVD+R DL media.
Unfortunately we did not have any 8x DVD+R DL media to test the drive at this speed.

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S used CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write the Verbatim DVD+R DL disc at 4x. The average speed was 4.05x and the total writing time was 27 minutes and 42 seconds.

Below are three other drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R DL at 8x. The average speed is 7.00x and total writing time is 18:06 minutes.

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD+R DL media at 8x which gives an average write speed of 6.55x and a total write time of 18 minutes and 40 seconds.

The BenQ DW1640 uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R DL at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average write speed of 7.32x and a total write time of 15 minutes and 36 seconds.

4X DVD-R DL writing speed:

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S used CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write the Verbatim DVD-R DL disc at 4x. The average speed was 4.02x and the total writing time was 27 minutes and 32 seconds.

Below are three other drives for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-110 uses Z-CLV, (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL at 8x. This gives an average writing speed of 7.06x and a total write time of 17 minutes and 55 seconds.

The NEC ND-4550A uses Z-CLV (Zone Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL media at 6x which gives an average write speed of 5.67x and a total write time of 20 minutes and 41 seconds.

The BenQ DW1640 uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL at its maximum speed of 4x. This gives an average write speed of 3.74x and a total write time of 29 minutes and 56 seconds.

We present the table below for easy comparison.

The Lite-On was quite slow when writing DVD+R DL, but was around average when writing DVD-R DL media.

Book type (bitsetting):

The Lite-On SHW-16H5S supports auto bitsetting, via burn applications such as Nero, and supports DVD+R/RW/DL media with DVD-ROM book type.

Here is how you could check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Start Nero CD-DVD Speed and click the Disc info button and you should get the following screen:

DVD+R DL with book type DVD-ROM.

Another quick test is to start Nero CD-Speed and look at the disc information:

This should say DVD-ROM.

Now let us take a look at the reading performance of the Lite-On SHW-16H5S on the nest page….