Test machine

For this review we will use a computer with the following configuration.

Hardware: 

• Motherboard: ASRock K7S8X
• Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2200+
• Memory: 512 MB DDR 400; Infineon
• Video: Gainward GeForce 440MX; 128mb RAM
• Sound: RealTek AC97 Integrated Digital Audio
• Hard disks: Samsung SV0802N 80GB; connected via an ITE IT8212 ATA RAID controller
• Optical Drives: Lite-On LH-20A1P, Lite-On SOHR-5239V, NEC ND-3540A, Lite-On SHM-165P6S

System set-up:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V was connected as Primary Slave and identified itself as LITE-ON CD-RW SOHR-5239V. DMA (Direct Memory Access) and autorun was enabled for all devices.

And another screenshot from Nero InfoTool below:

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Lite-On SOHR-5239V does not support CD+G. The drive came shipped with firmware version 2$0D.

Firmware update:

We checked Lite-On's website and found a later firmware version. 2$0E so we proceeded to update the firmware.

Below we can see the firmware update process from 2$0D to 2$0E in action.

Used 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 CD/DVD Speed 4.7.0.0
• Nero InfoTool 4.1.0.8  
• KProbe v2.5.2
• Exact Audio Copy v0.95 beta 4
• Slysoft CloneCD v5.2.8.1

Drive Technology

Now, let's have a closer look onto the special features of this drive. All these information can be found on the Lite-On website.

SMART-BURN:
(Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for BURNing)

• SMART-BURN is the abbreviation of “Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for BURNing", innovated CD-RW technology by LITE-ON IT, will be introduced to other products in the future.
• Users always want to successfully burn a disc with a higher speed in CD-RW drive. You may know, there are so many brands of CD-R / CD-RW media in the market with irregular quality & still being cost down in the price war.
• If your CD-R / CD-RW media quality is really poor enough or working environment is too hot to induce the Laser Power over margin, the CD-RW drive detected, the burning speed will be forced to decrease to get more reliable Laser working power to secure the life of CD-RW drive & burning quality strategy parameters plus the outstanding running Optimum Power Calibration (OPC) function to provide you the best burning quality.
• The buffer under run error is also no longer happened to your drive anymore, SMART-BURN also can allow drive to be suspended during writing, than continue to burn from last point when enough data get in the buffer.

SMART-BURN features :

• Buffer Under Run Error Free
• Running Optimum Power Calibration
• Automatic Writing Strategy & Burning Parameters
• Automatically decrease burning speed when Laser power over margin due to poor media quality or high temperature

SMART-X:
(Smart Monitoring & Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtraction)

• SMART-X is the abbreviation of Smart Monitoring & Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtraction, which is LITE-ON innovated technology after being verified & improved for a long period before get into mass production.
• People ask "What’s the DAE speed?" , "What’s VCD play speed of the drive?"…etc. People want to know this to choose party drive. As you know, removable optical media is so open & unable to control the media quality. Drive need to burn a disc with higher speed & quality as possible. So the drive needs to be very smart!
• It’s more difficult for drive to rip the Audio & VCD disc than a data disc due to there are only 2 levels error correction for Audio & VCD disc but data disc got 3. For limited un-recoverable error data can be fixed by estimation & calculation due to it’s only for music & movie application. These tolerance ripped data are acceptable & can not be detected by human eyes & ears during playback because there is no pop-noise, interrupt or mosaic on the screen. Of course zero error is preferable for zero tolerance.
• SMART-X technology is the drive will rip the music / VCD data as fast as possible with less error, even on a poor quality media ( like dirty, scratched ) , the drive will estimate if the ripped data will result audio noise, interrupt or mosaic on screen, the rip speed can be reduced to get more correctable data. SMART-X provide you as fast rip speed as possible, on the other, if you just want to listen music or watch movie directly, it’s not necessary for the drive to keep high speed to read data. It will work under lower speed automatically to get better playability & lower acoustic, so smart!

ABS - Auto Balancer Spindle:

• Steel balls as balancer within spindle motor will be settled into right positions during spin up period ( that’s the reason why a little noise during drive spin up to read a disc ) to compensate imbalance of the disc when rotating at very high speed.
• The ABS mechanism can fit from CD-ROM 32x design up to 56x or higher speed that the spindle motor can even works over 10000 rpm with very small vibration generate

Quality Scans:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V can be used to measure/scan burned CD and CD-RW discs for their quality via Nero CD-DVD Speed or KProbe. This can be handy to check and get an impression of which state/condition the burned discs are in.

Quality Scan at 48x

Writing Technology:

52x CD-R writing speed:

The LITE-ON SOHR-5239V uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 52X with CD-R media. The average speed of 39.69x and the total writing time is 2 minutes and 33 seconds.

24x – 32x CD-R writing speed:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) to write CD-Rs at speeds of 24x - 32x. This gives an average speed of 28.98x at 32x burn speed and a total burning time of 3 minutes and 9 seconds.

Up to 16x CD-R/CD-RW writing speed:

The LITE-ON SOHR-5239V uses CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-R and CD-RW media at speeds of 16X and below. The total writing time at 16x is 5 minutes and 21 seconds.

32x CD-RW writing speed:

The Lite-On SOHR-5239V uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write CD-RW media at 32x. The average speed is 25.93x and the total writing time is 3 minutes and 47 seconds. 

On the next page: Reading performance…

Introduction

Reading Performance