detail information

DVD+R/-R Double/Dual Layer writing speed and compatibility:

The Samsung SH-W162C supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 6x for DVD+R DL, and 4x for DVD-R DL. Let us first take a look at the media's we will use:

Let's find the manufacturer and media information too, for this we will use Nero CD-DVD Speed:

This media is manufactured by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media. Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.

The media is made by Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Made in Taiwan).  Thanks to Ricoh Europe (Germany) for sending us this media.

The Traxdata media is manufactured by RITEK (Thanks to Conrexx (NL) for sending us this media).

Testing procedure:
We created an ISO Image from a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a total on-disc size of 8146 MB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning ROM 6. Below are the results:

Ricoh Media

Nero reported a successful burn with the Ricoh media in 43 minutes 44 seconds.

Traxdata Media

Nero once again reported a successful burn with the Traxdata media in 43 minutes 49 seconds

Verbatim Media

Nero once again completed the burn successfully with the Verbatim media in 22 minutes and 15 seconds.

Let us take a look at the K-Probe results:

The Ricoh media has performed well. A good result.

The Samsung SH-W162C has struggled with the RITEK manufactured media as many drives do. PI errors are out of specification and the PIF errors after the layer break are alarming. A poor result.

The result is very good, considering this 2.4x certified media was written at 6x.

Now it's time to take a look at some reading tests with various DVD-Writers.

First we will try to read the discs back in the Samsung SH-W162C:

Ricoh Media

Traxdata Media

Verbatim Media

As we can see, the Samsung SH-W162C had no problems reading the discs.

Now let us try the BenQ DD DW1640 drive to read the Double Layer discs:

Ricoh Media

Traxdata Media

Verbatim Media

The BenQ DD DW1640 had no problems reading the discs apart from a slowdown near the layer break with the Traxdata media.

Let's compare the Samsung SH-W162C with some other DL capable drives.

*1 Verbatim DVD+R DL (MKM001)
*2 Traxdata DVD+R DL (RITEK D01)
*3 Ricoh DVD+R DL (RICOH JPN D00)
*4 DataWrite DVD+R DL (CMC MAG D01)

DVD-R DL

As mentioned in the beginning of this review, the Samsung SH-W162C supports the DVD-R DL standard at 4x. Let us first take a look at the media we will use:

Let's find the manufacturer and media information too, for this we will use CD-Speed 4.06:

This media is manufactured by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media. Thanks to Verbatim for sending us this media.

Again, we used Nero Burning Rom 6 to write the DVD Image:

The Samsung used 27 minutes and 20 seconds to write the Verbatim DVD-R DL 4x media at 4x.

To check the disc quality we used the Lite-On SOHW-1693S along with K-Probe.

As we can see from the KProbe scan, the Samsung SH-W162C has written the Verbatim DVD-R DL media with very good quality.

We will now check the read-back curves on two different drives.

As we can see from the above read-back tests; both drives read the DVD-R DL disc without any problems

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility:

We only have 3 standalone DVD-Players available and 1 standalone DVD+RW DVD+R recorder to test the DVD+R DL medias (Book Type: DVD-ROM) and the DVD-R DL media (Book Type: DVD-R):

• Aiwa DVD Player XD-DV370
• Medion DVD/Div-X Player MD7457
• Red Star DVD-Player 230G
• Mustek R100A DVD+R/W Recorder

Compatibility results: 

All DVD Standalone devices played the Samsung SH-W162C burned DVD+R DL media. But only one DVD Standalone device would play the Samsung SH-W162C burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

Summary: Very good quality on DVD+R DL/-R DL and DVD standalone compatibility results, for the DVD+R DL media.

Before we round off this review, let us run the drive through some advanced tests at next page…