detail information

What's inside the box?

On this page we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with, and take a look at the drive and its technology.

Lite-On picked the usual blue style box, known from several of their earlier drives. But let us take a look at the content of the box:

Seems to be a pretty good bundle, but to make sure nothing is left out we list everything in the box below:

⋅         The drive itself
⋅         Audio cable
⋅         4 Screws
⋅         Sonic software installation CD
⋅         PowerDVD installation CD
⋅         Empty 4x DVD-R disc made by Ritek (Code: RITEKG04)
⋅         Empty 8x DVD+R made by Ricoh/ritek (Code: RICOHJPNR02).
⋅         Quick installation/configuration paper
⋅         Safety notice papaer.

A pretty good bundle but we miss an IDE cable as well as a printed manual, we are also disappointed to see that Lite-On included a 4x DVD-R instead of the 4x DVD+RW that earlier drives have been shipped with.

Now it's time to take a look at the drive itself:

A well known front, ok designed - but nothing special. The LED lights red while writing and green while reading, that LED colour combination is our favourite.

As we could see from the sticker on the drive, our drive was manufactured January 2004 at a factory in China.

On the back of the drive there are from the left: pins used for calibrating the drive at the factory; digital audio connector; analogue audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or master; IDE connector and power connector.

We quickly installed the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero info tool:

Our drive came shipped with firmware US0A, firmware US0G will be used in this review (Firmware US0J is used in a few tests, but the majority of the tests are done with FS0G). It does not support DVD-RAM reading/writing and Mt. Rainier, but few drives support this. We would also prefer a larger buffer than 2Mb. But except this it seems very good.

And another shot from Nero Burning ROM:

We do not really find anything alarming here either, but a larger buffer and Mount Rainier support would have been nice.

Now it's time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Lite-On SOHW-812S:

CD-Recordable:

As we could see the Lite-On SOHW-812S uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 40x. This gives an average speed of 31.67x. Seems pretty good, but let us compare this with two other 8x DVD-Writers:

The NEC ND-2500A also uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 32X. The drive wrote the last zone at 32X and this gives an average speed of 27.16x.

As we could see the Plextor PX-708A uses P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy to reach it rated speed of 40X. This gives an average speed of 33.38x.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

It uses the same amount of time as the Lite-On LDW-811S and the NU DDW-082 to write a disc at 40x - but lags behind the Plextor PX-708A with a few seconds.

CD-ReWritable:

The Lite-On SOHW-812S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) writing technology to write at 24X for Ultra Speed CD-RW discs, the average speed is 22.63x. This seems like a step backwards for Lite-On, compared to earlier Lite-On drives. But let us compare this to two other drives capable of ReWriting at 24x speed:

The Pioneer DVR-107D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.47x.

The Plextor PX-708A, with its P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) write speed of 24X for Ultra Speed CD-RW discs is among the faster writers due to its high starting speed of 20.01x. For a better overview we present the following comparison table:

Although it's only seconds in difference, it's among the slower 24x CD-Rewriters and we do not understand why Lite-On went from P-CAV to Z-CLV writing technology.

8X DVD-Writing speed:

8x DVD+R writing strategy

8x DVD-R writing strategy

The Lite-On SOHW-812S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write at 8x. This is the first time we have seen difference between writing speed for DVD+R and DVD-R. For DVD+R the first zone from 0-0,1Gb is done at 4x speed; the next zone from 0.1Gb to 1.2Gb at 6x and the last zone from 1.2Gb to 4,4Gb is done at 8x speed. This gives an average speed of 7.39x. For DVD-R the first zone from 0-0,35Gb is done at 4x speed; the next zone from 0.35Gb to 1.6Gb at 6x and the last zone from 1.6Gb to 4,4Gb is done at 8x speed. This gives an average speed of 7.05x. It's quite strange to see that 8x writing for DVD-R is slower than 8x writing for DVD+R, but let us compare these results with some other writers:

The NEC ND-2500A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity). The first zone from 0-0,8Gb is done at 4x speed, the next zone from 0,8Gb to 2,2Gb is done at 6x speed and the last zone from 2,2Gb to 4,4Gb is done at 8x. This gives an average speed of 6.80x. The speed is the same for both DVD-R and DVD+R discs.

The Plextor PX-708A also uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity). The first zone from 0-0,7Gb is done at 6x speed; the next zone from 0,7Gb to 4,4Gb is done at 8x speed. This gives an average speed of 7.69x, look below to see a comparison table:

The Lite-On SOHW-812S is not the fastest for 8x DVD+R writing but still is not bad. DVD-R is another history and it's hardly any faster than the NEC ND-2500A.

Features and techniques:

Now it's time to take a look at the features and techniques of this drive:

SMART-BURN is LiteOn's coaster prevention system, it contains the buffer under run protection as well as a media database and measuring system to select the best write speed and strategy for every CD-R and DVDR disc.

SMART-X is a technology, which will make the drive read music and VCD discs at low speeds when only slow streams of data is required (for example when playing the disc) and faster speeds when required (for example when extracting the content of the disc).

Changing book type tool (bitsetting).

This drive also supports bitsetting, which basically means that you may change the Book type of DVD+R and DVD+RW discs to DVD-ROM. Some players do not allow DVD+R/RW media to be played and with this bitsetting trick you may change the Book type to DVD-ROM, now the discs are identified as DVD-ROM discs by the player and will play. You may download the bitsetting utility here. And here is a screenshot from the small program:

The utility is very easy to use:

1: Insert an empty DVD+R or DVD+RW disc in the drive.
2: Select the drive in the dropdown box at the top.
3: If needed click the Query button to see what disc that is in the drive and the current setting of the drive.
4: Click change and choose DVD-ROM from the dropdown menu that appears, ok and you should get a message telling that the booktype change was successful.
5: Now the drive is set to write DVD+R/RW discs with the bitsetting for DVD-ROM. You may now close this program.
6: Use your favourite writing program to write the disc.
7: You may verify if it works by using DVDinfopro or Nero CD speed.

Start DVDinfoPRO and click the Media button, and you should get something like this:

As we could see the disc Book type is now DVD-ROM

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

Which should also say DVD-ROM.

8: The drive will now write all DVD+R and DVD+RW media as DVD-ROM until you restart your computer. After restarting you have to run the bitsetting program again. Notice that it will not always work with used DVD+RW discs, only brand new unused DVD+RW discs.
9: Firmware US0J or newer is required for bitsetting to work properly.

Included software:

Now it's time to look at the included software, and comment it if needed. Notice that we may not use the included software in our performance testing part of the review.

PowerDVD:

The drive includes Cyberlink's PowerDVD Media player to play DVD and VCD movies. PowerDVD is a good and widely used software DVD-player, so Lite-On has made a wise choice when choosing to include PowerDVD with the drive.

The PowerDVD installation CD also contains various user manuals, including manual for the SOHW-812S. The manual is ok and contains a lot of useful information, but could still be improved.

Sonic MyDVD 4.5:

This is the opening window of Sonic MyDVD.

And this is the creation window.

Sonic MyDVD is one of the easier programs we have used when it comes to creating VCD and DVD movies. Although we have not used the program very long it seems like Lite-On made a good choice on including Sonic MyDVD.

Sonic RecordNow DX 4.6:

This is the first welcome screen you get, from here you may select what disc you want to make and will automatically get a wizard to help you through the creation process.

And this is what it looks like when creating a data disc without using the wizard. Although the program does not look like an earlier program we have used, it's still pretty easy to get started with and seems to be among the better programs we have used.

Sonic DLA 3.60:

Sonic DLA (Drive Letter Access) installs, but is invisible until you right click on your writer, now you are able to see the format option.

Here you may select to do a full format or quick format. We did a quick format on a 4X DVD+R disc and it used 19 seconds to format it. And then we wrote 2Gb with data to it in 6 minutes and 56 seconds, this is right where it should be for 4X writing. Actually Sonic DLA is among the faster and better packet writing programs we have used. Notice that it may conflict with: Easy CD-Creator, DirectCD, Nero Burning ROM and InCD.

Note: sometimes you have to manually browse the LiteOn CD and install Record Now DX and Sonic DLA as they are not always automatically installed.

All in all, the software collection bundled with this drive is quite good and among the better bundles we have seen.

Now that we have finished examining the drive and its writing strategies it's time to head on to next page, which is reading performance test…