detail information
| Posted by | Tor Magne |
| Posted on | 25/01/05 01:33 |
| Number of views | 12653 |
Positive:
- Supports 4x DVD+R9 Double Layer writing
- Supports 16x CAV DVD+R writing speed
- Good writing quality with CD-R discs.
- Mostly good writing quality at DVD-Writing speeds below 12x.
- Good writing quality with double layer media.
- Supports DAO-RAW writing.
- Supports reading and writing of full SubChannel Data.
- Fast and perfect audio extraction.
- Supports bitsetting.
- Media quality scanning features.
- Short drive design makes it easier to fit in small computer cases.
- 'Two sheep" writer - positive when backing up copy protected games.
- Supports reading/writing 99 minutes CD-R discs.
Negative:
- Not the best bundle (missing cables, printed manual and empty discs).
- Only 12x DVD-R writing speed.
- Poor writing quality at 12x/16x DVD-Writing.
- VERY poor CD-R media compatibility!
- Questionable CD-RW/DVD-RW/DVD+RW writing quality, especially DVD+RW media writing quality needs improving.
- Very low reading speed of DVD+/-R/RW media and CD-RW media compared to most other drives.
- High seek times
- Does not support Mt. Rainier.
- Problems reading certain copy protected audio discs.
- Does not bitset DVD+R DL media to DVD-ROM automatically.
- Problems reading cactus data shield 100 protected audio discs.
- We miss the good old 'solid-red" writing LED from previous Lite-On writers, we do not like the blinking green LED of this writer.
Conclusion:
We have been pleased with earlier Lite-On drives, but this one did not
meet our expectations. Read on to find out why.
The main positive points: The drive offers pretty good writing quality with CD-R media and at 8x with DVD media, and it has good media compatibility - even with unknown media. It also offers good DVD+R Double layer writing quality and speed, along with booktype changing possibilities. And as always with Lite-On drives it offers good testing possibilities of written discs by using tools like K-Probe or CD-Speed. Another advantage is the great user community, for example here at the cdfreaks forums where you could get help quickly as well as finding lots of tools designed for Lite-On drives.
The main negative points: We did never expect to see poor CD-R media compatibility with a Lite-On drive as they have been excellent at CD-R media compatibility in the past. But this one just plain fails, almost no discs works at 48x - even though the supported media list we got states that they should work at 48x. And the media compatibility and writing quality at 12x/16x writing speeds MUST be improved, that's for sure! And there are some quality and compatibility issues as well with rewritable media (CD-RW/DVD-RW and DVD+RW). It is also a very slow reader for DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, double layer media and CD-RW media compared to other drives.
To sum it all up, this is the best we could say: 'Some things here and some things there that needs to be fixed, couple it all together and you will see that there are better drives available." What must Lite-On do to achieve an award next time? First; we expect full 16x media compatibility with good writing quality on both + and - formats, increase reading speed for DVD+/-R/RW, CD-RW and double layer discs, and fix the CD-R media compatibility problem. Then their drives would be right up there among the better drives.
You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread. This forum thread may also be used to ask questions around this drive or request additional tests.
Thanks to:
Conrexx for
providing the 
media used in this review. Conrexx technology
is the supplier of Traxdata media as well as other
Ritek media brands for whole Europe.
For providing the That's Write media used in this review. That's Write focus on providing quality
media at reduced prices in Europe.
For providing some of 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 us with Mirror and Miflop Extreme
media. Miflop media aims at providing both cheap
(INFOSMART) and expensive (Taiyo Yuden) quality media.
For providing the RiData media used in this
review. RiData is
a Ritek brand and thus you are sure to get Ritek manufactured discs when buying RiData media.
For providing the Daxon and BenQ media used in this review. Daxon manufacture high quality
media for many large OEM customers lke BenQ and Sony.
For providing the Verbatim DVD+R9 Double Layer media used in this
review. Verbatim
provides high quality media almost over the whole world.
Looking for CD and DVD-Media in Norway? Visit www.norwaydisc.no the Norwegian specialist on CD and DVD Media!
You can back up a whole DVD with all the extra's in 30 to 40 min. Including burn time.
I'm puzzled calling the "Prodye" DVD+R's with Plasmon MID "Low Quality". These discs are top quality, when the drive supports it fully. These discs are actually produced by [url=http://www.3a.net]3A Media[/url] which are great quality media (when properly supported by the firmware!!) . I got results comparable to the well known brands like MCC and Ricoh!
In my book they are low quality comparable the chap ass Hong Kong media and VDSPMSAB media.
[edited by OC-Freak on 25.01.2005 09:31]
But with my custom patches, great results have been achieved already on LiteOn and NEC drives so far (proven by CATS, BenQ Pi/Po/Jitter and LiteOn Kprobe). So it's more LiteOn that doesn't support these media properly then the media itself being crappy.
I've been working with 3A Media for the past 2 years almost and must say they have come a long way, getting a fully working production line with great quality discs from scratch, most of it by trial and error, since Asian companies are not willing at all to share any kind of knowledge.
Cd-r's
Verbatim
Mitsubishi China should be made with MCC technology for verbatim by CMC CHINA.
SAMSUNG cd-r.
Is not made by plasmon.
Good should be manufactured with plasmon stamper or
manufactured probally by Intersonic with plasmon stamper.
Funny that the Daxon Maxell disc's are correctly done. So 2 thumbs for that one.
DVD+R
Conclusion of Ritek media suggests additional tests.
But still it's good you at least mention it.
PHILIPS/CMC. -> you could have copied the coorect info from philips licensing.
(that's something like designed by Philips produced by CMC magnetics.)
Prodye -> 3A made media with Plasmon code as Herrie allready suggests. 3a media is most times quite decent but is very poor supported by most drive manufacturers because it's a european manufacturer !
Then again prodye has been known to also put B graded stuff on the market. So this incombination with the bad compatability might explain the result you are seeing.
The commodore interaxia disc.
Well I could track down the manufacturer for that one.But it's not worth the work. Since most disc's made with interaxia dye technology are not that great.
Also in this case stateing something like made with interaxtia manufactureing technology is better and is probally enough.
Sometimes I have the feeling that the transfer rate test isn't completely taken into account but that could be me who is just a bit more critical as the average user.
Missing media ?
Not really,
Only real media I would like have seen some results off might be RICOH's inversed stack dual layer media.
But ohhwell I know how hard it is to get them and then the fact that the drive isn't on
Ricoh's list so it's ok. that it isn't included.
Another good thing the fact that the name of the manufacturer of the 99 minutes disc was given and the fact that a real disc was burned.
So the end conclusion.
I see that a lot of stuff has improved compared to earlier reviews but still there are some small points on occasions that could be done a little bit better, still this review is allready at a level that only a few other sources can achieve.
Samsung - dunno manufacturer as there is various manufacturers using plasmon stamper/ATIP.
Are 3A the only manufacturer of media with plasmon ADIP?
Transfer rates: as long as speed do not drop too much I consider the result good - as mentioned in the introduction of media quality tests.
).
Let's hope they are faster to send out the 1673S.
which drives you have for your next reviews?
To tell the truth, there is no problems with 16x P-CAV on USB2 and FW due to good profilic firmware from mid december in the case.
Tried the firmware on other profilic cases, but it has copmpatibility issues with some drives (benQ for example), but works great with some
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=124830
For some KProbe tests of 3A Media
[edited by Herrie on 30.01.2005 11:26]
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