Lite-On SHM-165P6S Super Allwrite DVD-Burner Review

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Review:
Lite-On SHM-165P6S
Reviewer: H3rB3i
Provided by: Lite-On BV
(NL)
Firmware: MS0M, MV7U,
MV8Q
Manufactured: November
2005

Lite-On BV was kind
enough to send us one of their latest DVD-writer the LiteOn SHM-165P6S. This
drive supports 16x DVD+R/-R, 5x DVD-RAM, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW writing and 8x/4x
DVD+R DL/-R DL writing technology - allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5GB to
be written. Also, it's nice to see that Lite-On now supports writing of DVD+/-R
and DVD+/-R DL above their rated speed by including OverSpeed and Hypertuning
functionality (an auto-strategy mechanism).

Company
information:

Let us take a
look at some of the company information found at the Lite-On Website:

Lite-On
Technology Corporation's vision is to become a world-class excellent company.
The company will accomplish this not only through leading global R&D and
manufacturing technologies, but also through the quality and distinctiveness of
its products.

To reach
these levels of excellence and become the leading navigator in 3C convergence,
Lite-On plans to generate between five and six billion US dollars in annual
revenue while establishing itself as a global market-leader by mastering all of
its product-line industries. The company's ability to generate profits will
guide the industrial circles in which it competes. While accomplishing these
goals, corporate management will continue its policies of absolute financial
transparency, independence, and impartiality.

The
company's pursuit of excellence does not end there. To create better lives for
people, Lite-On will also continue to develop advanced and integrated digital
products while furnishing customers with innovative values that lead to true,
beneficial relationships. Lite-On wants to be the best strategic partner for
each of its customers.

Led by a
professional team with promise and lofty ethics, Lite-On will also strive to be
an excellent corporation with peak efficiency. The company will provide
shareholders and investors with an appealing return-on-investment. Additionally,
Lite-On will supply employees with an optimum work environment that helps them
learn new skills and grow professionally for the future. Lite-On seeks to become
one of the best corporations that people in greater China can choose for a
career.

Facts &
Figures:

• Lite-On
  Technology reported its global consolidated June revenue of NT$13.7B,
  increasing 4% on a YoY basis.


• Accumulated revenue in 2005
  totalled NT$75.6B, growing 2% on a YoY basis.

If you are
interested in reading more company information, please visit: Lite-On

Drive specifications:

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The official
listed specification of this drive was found on the Lite-On website:

• ATAPI/E-IDE
  Half-Height internal DVD+R / DVD+RW / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R9/ DVD-R9/
  DVD-RAM /DVD-ROM / CD-R/ CD-RW / CD-ROM combination drive


• Support
  Double Layer DVD +/- R9 Recording Function
  


• SMART-BURN
  avoiding Buffer UnderRun Error, Automatically adjusting writing strategy &
  running OPC to provide the best burning quality


• SMART-X
  function adjusts CD-DA / VCD / DVD data extraction to a fastest allowable
  speed according to both data request rate from host and disk quality
  


• ABS®
  system reduce vibration and noise during recording and reading


• Support
  Fixed Packet, Variable Packet, TAO, SAO, DAO, Raw Mode Burning & Over-Burn
  


• DVD read
  compliant: DVD single/dual layer (PTP/OTP), DVD-R(3.9GB/4.7GB), DVD-R
  multi-borders,DVD-RAM,DVD+R, DVD+R multi-sessions, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW
  


• CD read
  compliant: CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM/XA, Photo-CD, Multi-session,
  Karaoke-CD,Video-CD, CD-I FMV, CD Extra, CD Plus, CD-R, and CD-RW


• Supprot
  both 8 cm and 12 cm disc of CD and DVD family


• Conform to
  Orange Book : Part 2 CD-R Volume 1, Part 2 CD-R Volume 2 Multi Speed, Part 3
  CD-RW Volume 1 ( 1x, 2x, and 4x ), Part 3 CD-RW Volume 2 : High Speed, Part 3
  CD-RW Volume 3 : Ultra Speed


• Support
  Fixed packet, Variable packet, Disc-at-once, Session-at-once and Track-at
  '“once


• Supported
  transfer mode: PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 and Ultra DMA mode 4

DVD Family :	Write	DVD+R	16x ( 21600 KB/sec ) maximum by CAV
		DVD+R9	8x ( 10800 KB/sec ) maximum by Zone CLV
		DVD-R	16x ( 21600 KB/sec ) maximum by CAV
		DVD-R9	4x ( 5400 KB/sec ) maximum by CLV
		DVD-RAM	5X(6750KB/sec) maximum by PCAV
	ReWrite	DVD+RW	8x ( 10800 KB/sec ) by CLV
		DVD-RW	6x ( 8100 KB/sec ) by CLV
	Read	16x ( 21600 KB/sec ) maximum by CAV
	Access time	160 ms
CD Family :	Write	CD-R	48x ( 7200 KB/sec ) maximum by CAV
	ReWrite	CD-RW	24x ( 3600 KB/sec ) maximum by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
	Read	48x ( 7200 KB/sec ) maximum by CAV
	Access time	160 ms
Buffer Size :	2 MB ( Max )
PC Required :	Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or higher CPU and 128 MB or higher RAM are required
	HDD must have access time < 20 ms; with a minimum of 650 MB free space
	9 GB free space for creating a DVD image file ( 9 GB for double layer; 5 GB for single layer )
Compatibility :	Microsoft Windows 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP
MTBF ( Life ) :	70,000 POH
S/N Ration :	> 75 dB
Environment :	Operating	5C to 50C; Relative Humidity : 15% to 80%
	Non-Operating	-40C to 65C; Relative Humidity : 15% to 95%
Dimension :	145.0 ( W ) x 41.3 ( H ) x 170.0 ( D ) mm
Weight :	< 0.9 Kg
Voltage Requirements :	+5V +/-5% and less than 100 mVp-p ripple voltage
	+12V +/-5% and less than 200 mVp-p ripple voltage

 

What's inside
the box?

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In this
section we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look
at the drive and its technology.

Front

Back

Left/Right Side

Below you will
see the contents of the retail box:

• The
  internal SHM-165P6S drive itself


• CyberLink
  PowerDVD 5


• Nero OEM
  Suite 3 containing 
  
  
  
  • Drives
    user manual
  
  
  • NeroExpress 6.6
  
  
  • NeroVision Express
    3
    
  
  
  • Nero
    BackitUp
  
  
  • MPEG-2
    SVCD/DVD Plug-In
  
  
  • Nero
    Media Player
  
  
  • InCD4 and
    InCD reader
  
  
  • Nero
    PhotoShow Express
  
  
  • Content +
    Templates


• MPC Audio
  cable


• Screw set
  


• Silver and
  black bezel


• Quick
  installation and front panel replacement guides in several
  languages

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

The came with
three really stylish bezels in a simple and clean design that includes a few
logos, a single green coloured LED, an emergency eject hole and an eject button.
(We would prefer different LED colours to distinguish between reading and
writing operations). The logos located on the tray include a DVD Forum DVD-Multi Recorder R DL
logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+R DL logo, and a
CD-RW Ultra Speed logo.

Top

On the
top-side of the drive we found two sticker and we can read it was made in China
- November 2005.

Underside

On the back of
the drive starting from the left, we can see a digital audio connector; analogue
audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or
master; IDE connector and finally the power connector.

Chipset

We installed
the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero
InfoTool:

 

From the
screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt.Rainier, CD+G support (which is
not really important for us) and also a larger buffer size. Our drive came
shipped with firmware MS0K.

Another shot
from Nero Burning ROM:

 

But let us continue
this review and see how it really performs.

On the next page we
will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive
features…………

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Test machine:

---

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

Hardware:

• Processor '“ AMD Athlon XP
  2400+


• RAM '“ 512 MB DDR 400; Infineon
  


• Motherboard '“ ASRock
  K7S8X


• Graphics
  Card
  '“ Gainward GeForce 440MX; 128mb RAM


• Sound '“ RealTek AC97 Integrated
  Digital Audio


• Hard
  Disk
  '“ Samsung SV0802N 80GB; 30GB Western Digital ST 330621A & Western Digital
  WD 30 00JB 300GB


• Optical
  Drives '“ Lite-On SHM-165P6S; NEC
  3540A

System
set-up:

The
Lite-On
SHM-165P6S
was connected as Secondary Master and identified itself as LITE-ON DVDRW
SHM-165P6S. DMA (Direct Memory
Access) and autorun was enabled for all devices.

Firmware
update:

We checked
Lite-On's website and found a later firmware version. MS0M so we proceeded to
update the firmware.

Below we can
see the firmware update process from MS0K to MS0M in action. Later we updated to
version MV7U, a test version with improved OS/HT functionality. This version has
been used for all tests in this review.

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 v.6.6.1.4


• Nero CD/DVD Speed V4.50 and
  V4.51.1


• Nero Info Tool v3.07


• Slysoft CloneCD v5.2.8.1


• Exact Audio Copy v0.95 beta 4
  


• K-Probe
  v2.5.2
  

Features and techniques:

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Now, let's
have a closer look onto the 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.ategy 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
  :
  
  
  
  1. Buffer
     Under Run Error Free 
  
  
  2. Running
     Optimum Power Calibration
  
  
  3. Automatic
     Writing Strategy & Burning Parameters
  
  
  4. 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 need 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
  toleranced 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
  

Once again
back to Smart-Burn. In the latest version of this tool we can also find two very
interesting and important new functions for Lite-On's 5 and 6S series drives.
These new functions are called OverSpeed (OS) and HyperTuning (HT).

OverSpeed
(OS):

OS can let you burn a disc
one level above its rated speed. So if you have a 8x certified disc, then you
will probably be able to burn the disc at 12x speed when OS is enabled.

HyperTuning
(HT):

HyperTuning is a so called
'auto strategy" technology for DVD+/-R and DVD+/-R DL media. Its technology
enables the drive to learn a write strategy for unsupported media or for media
where you are not satisfied with the quality of the burn when the regular
strategy was used. Further, it can give you better results when you use lower
quality media with a stronger variation of the disc quality itself.


Because the OPC didn't know how to write a disc at higher speed, it is
also required when you want to write a disc using OverSpeed.

8X DVD+R DL
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear
Velocity) to write DVD+R9 DL at 8x. Three zones are used to write DVD+R
Double Layer discs at 8x. The average speed is 6.88x and total writing time is
17:26 minutes.

4X DVD-R DL
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write
DVD-R DL at 4x. The average speed is 4.04x and total writing time is 27:49
minutes.

BookType
(Bitsetting):

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S supports Bitsetting, and will as default write DVD+R DL media with
DVD-ROM BookType.

Here is how
you can check if your discs are really written with the DVD-ROM
BookType:

Start Nero
CD-DVD Speed and click the Disc info tab and you should get something like
this: 

DVD+R DL with BookType
DVD-ROM.

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

This should say
DVD-ROM.

Quality
Scans:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S can be used to measure/scan burned discs for their quality via Nero
CD-DVD Speed. This can be handy to check and get an impression of which
state/condition the burned discs are in.

 

Now it's time
to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Lite-On
SHM-165P6S:

CD-Recordable:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 37.02x and a total
writing time of 2 minutes and 37 seconds.

For comparison
we have made the following table: 

As we can see
from the table, the Lite-On SHM-165P6S performed excellent when it comes to
writing CD-R's.

CD-Rewritable:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses Z-CLV (Zone-Constant Linear
Velocity) writing technology to write at 24X for CD-RW discs, the average
speed is 22.50x and the total time 4 minutes and 9 seconds.

For a better
overview we present the following comparison table:

As we can see
from the table, the Lite-On SHM-165P6S is very slow when it comes to writing
CD-RWs.

16X DVD+R/-R
Writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write
DVD+R at its maximum speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.94x
and a writing time of 6 minutes and 0 seconds.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write

DVD-R at its maximum speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of
11.93x and a writing time of 5 minutes and 54 seconds.

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

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. 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.

8X DVD+R DL
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S supports 8x writing speed on DVD+R DL media.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear
Velocity) to write DVD+R9 DL at 8x. Three zones are used to write DVD+R
Double Layer discs at 8x. The average speed is 6.88x and total writing time is
17:26 minutes.

4X DVD-R DL
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S supports 4x writing speed on DVD-R DL media.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write
DVD-R DL at 4x. The average speed is 4.04x and total writing time is 27:49
minutes.

8X DVD+RW
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear
Velocity) to write DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 7.26x and total
writing time is 8minutes and 22 seconds.

6X DVD-RW
writing speed:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear
Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The average speed is 5.84x and total
writing time is
10 minutes and 43 seconds.

Included software:

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

The disc menu

Nero Express
v6.6 OEM:

Very good
software package - suitable for beginners as well as for experienced
users.

CyberLink
PowerDVD 5:

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…

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Reading performance:

---

For these
tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD's, including
audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive
supports:

• DVD-ROM :
  16x


• CD-ROM :
  48x 

Pressed
discs:

For this test
we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5 install CD
that is close to 75 minutes long, which slightly longer than the CDs used in
previous tests. Below you will see the produced result:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S reached 48.92x. Let's compare the result in the table below:

The Lite-On
SHM165P6S performed very well, reading pressed CD-ROM.

CD-Recordable
Discs:

For this test
we made a copy of the original Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc
we used was a Verbatim 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by CMC
Magnetics. 

Again the
Lite-On SHM-165P6S performed very well on the CD-R read test.

* Some drives
including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually
moving the pickup.

 CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made
a copy of the original Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we
used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (24X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals
Corporation.

As we can see
above, the Lite-On SHM-165P6S only reaches app. 34x, reading CD-RW; now let us
compare it to other drives below.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S performed above average on CD-RW read test.

* Some drives
including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually
moving the pickup.

Audio '“
Digital Audio Extraction:

We used Nero
CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly
larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it's about 75 minutes
long (74:45:27).

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S reaches 48x speed for reading CD-DA discs without any problems. Let
us compare the result with other drives:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S was one of the fastest drives on the Audio-CD test.

* Some drives
including the NU HDW-164 will simply execute the seek command without actually
moving the pickup.

Below is the
results produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive
performed well in burst and much slower in secure mode.

Advanced
audio '“ DAE quality test:

Before we move
on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we
used the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test" feature in CD-Speed. For this test we used
a JVC CD-R DA media.

The digital
audio extracting quality is excellent and the drive is reported to support all
advanced features.

DVD reading performance:

---

Again, we will use
Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of
DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at
16X.

DVD '“
DVD-Video:

For our DVD
reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and Double Layered
DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it's
useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you're going to extract
(rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD-Video Single Layer

 
DVD-Video Double Layer with official firmware
(OPT)

DVD-Video Double Layer with test
firmware (OTP)

DVD-Video Double Layer with test
firmware (PTP)

As we can see
the drive reached 16x on DVD-Video Single Layer and 8x on DVD-Video Double layer
with the official firmware (MS0M). We can also see that the drive reaches 11x
speed on DVD-Video Double layer with the test firmware MV7U. This result is just
included for information since we don't expect faster speeds than 8x in official
firmwares.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S was among the fastest drive on the DVD-Video SL and performed average
on the DVD-Video DL test.

DVD '“
DVD+R/RW:

---

For this test
we used a BenQ 16X DVD+R and a Ricoh 8X DVD+RW with about 4.4Gb of data. Below
are the results:

DVD+R

Note: This
drive only supports 16x reading with 16x certified media, for 8x or 12x
certified media is the maximum read speed 12x.

 
DVD+RW

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S is among the fast drives reading DVD+R (16x certified) and DVD+RW. To
bad that it only supports 12x for not 16x media. Now let us see how it will
perform on DVD-R/RW.

DVD '“ DVD-R/RW:

---

For this test
we used a BenQ 16X DVD-R disc and a Traxdata 6X DVD-RW disc filled with about
4.4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

Note: This
drive only supports 16x reading with 16x certified media, for 8x or 12x
certified media is the maximum read speed 12x.

 
DVD-RW

There are
hardly any differences in the speed, compared to reading the DVD+R/RW
discs.

Once again the
Lite-On SHM-165P6S is among the fastest drives reading DVD-R (16x certified) and
DVD-RW. Again the negative taste for non 16x media.

Overall
thoughts:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S is a good reader.

But now
it's time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R and CD-RW
discs…

---

 

The specifications of the Lite-On SHM-165P6S state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 48x and CD-RW at 24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

---

For our data writing tests, we simply set up a new compilation of 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non-multisession disc with 'finalize disc" enabled. The screenshot below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (48x):

The drive used 2 minutes and 44 seconds to write the disc at 48x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

• NEC ND-4550A used 3 minutes and 5 seconds at 48x
• Philips DVDR1648 used 2 minutes and 50 seconds at 48x
• LG GSA-4167B used 3 minutes and 7 seconds at 48x
• Pioneer DVR-110D used 3 minutes and 34 seconds at 40x
• NU DHW-164 used 3 minutes and 12 seconds at 40x
• Philips DVDR16LS used 3 minutes and 26 seconds at 40x
• Samsung TS-E552U used 2 minutes and 52 seconds at 40x
• LG GSA-4163B used 3 minutes and 15 seconds at 40x
• Philips DVDR1640P used 3 minutes and 17 seconds at 40x
• NU DDW-082 used 3 minutes and 2 seconds at 40x
• Samsung TS-H552B used exactly 3 minutes at 40x         
• Plextor PX-708A used 2 minutes and 58 seconds at 40x

Write Quality:

---

We will test CD-R discs from different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used KProbe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On SOHR-5238S drive with firmware 4S09 and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 averages for good quality discs. After C2 errors, there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Below are the obtained results:

Brand:	Ultron '“ Thanks to Ultron AG (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	SONY Corporation
Code:	97m26s26f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 6: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Capacity:	79:59.09 (703 MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	32x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	3m:13s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.64
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

With its average of 0.64 this disc goes into 'best quality discs" category, but the media was only burned at 32x. 

 

Brand:	RICOH '“ Thanks to RICOH Europe (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Moser Baer India Limited
Code:	97m17s06f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 6: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Capacity:	79:59.74 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	1x-52x
Write Speed:	48x
Write Time:	2m:39s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.49
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

RICOH media '“ manufactured by Moser Baer India Limited and with its average of 0.49 it goes in the 'best quality" category.

 

Brand:	Unbranded Printable. Thanks to SVP UK for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Taiyo Yuden
Code:	97m24s01f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 1: Long Strategy (Cyanine, AZO)
Capacity:	79:59.72 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	48x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	2m:37s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.21
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Media made by Taiyo Yuden have always had a good reputation and with the average C1 errors of 0.21 it goes into the group 'best quality discs" category.

 

Brand:	Traxdata '“ Thanks to Conrexx (NL) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	RiTEK
Code:	97m15s17f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 7: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Capacity:	79:59.70 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	48x (CAV)
Write Time:	2m:37s
C1 Average/Sec:	1.78
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

An other very high quality result.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

---

Due to requests from our readers, we will add a few write quality tests with re-writable media. Settings and testing procedures is the same as used earlier in this review, so you may want to go back and read them if you are unsure. All discs used for these tests have been written to before, but none have been written to more than 5 times.

CD-ReWritable media:

Brand:	BenQ - CD-RW Thanks to Daxon for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon Inc.
Code:	97m22s60f
Disc Type:	CD-RW
Recording Layer:	Phase Change
Capacity:	74:41.50
Certified Speed:	24x
Write Speed:	24x
Write Time:	4m:23s
C1 Average/Sec:	1.67
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

24x CD-RW media made by Daxon, a very high quality result.

  

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation
Code:	97m34s24f
Disc Type:	Ultra Speed CD-RW 16-24x
Recording Layer:	Phase Change
Capacity:	79:59.74 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	24x
Write Speed:	24x
Write Time:	4m:25s
C1 Average/Sec:	7.30
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

The result is very good.

Brand:	Traxdata '“ Thanks to Conrexx (NL) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Ritek Corporation
Code:	97m10s00f
Disc Type:	CD-RW 4-12x
Recording Layer:	Phase Change
Capacity:	79:59.74 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	12x
Write Speed:	10x
Write Time:	8m:50s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.97
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Another very high quality result for a CD-RW media, but the disc was only burned at 10x.

Summary:
The writing quality is excellent on both, CD-R and CD-RW.

So let us head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance…

---

The
specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at 16x and
DVD+RW/-RW at 8x/6x. In this part, we will measure the writing times for various
types of DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs. We will also focus on write quality and
media compatibility.

DVD-Writing performance:

---

In this test
we will measure the time for writing to DVD±R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to
burn an ISO compilation containing 4483Mb of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

DVD+R

DVD-R

Look below for
the results.

The
results are respectable, but let us see how the writing quality is.

Write quality:

---

You should first
notice that this is not a scientific and professional way to test the discs. But
according to our testing done in recent months, we would conclude that there is
a clear link between the quality reported when scanning the disc and the
playability of the disc in different devices. Also notice that different drives
report different amounts of errors. K-Probe was designed to work with
Lite-On
DVD-Writers, so we recommend
using a DVD-Writer from Lite-On. In this test we
use a Lite-On SHW-1635S and
SHM-165P6S DVD-Writer, as already said; remember that scans done with a
Lite-On DVD-ROM or
Lite-On combo drive
can't be compared with the results obtained with a Lite-On
DVD-Writer. Also remember that
different PI/PO ECC sum settings along
with different reading speeds in K-Probe will affect the result, we use these
settings;  PI (Parity Inner) set to summarize 8
ECC blocks,
PIF (Parity
Inner Failures) set to
summarize 1 ECC block, reading
speed: 4X CLV (Constant
Linear Velocity). Setting the PI sum to 8 and the PIF sum to 1
will give a result that we may compare to the standards for DVD+R/RW and
DVD-R/RW.

But what is a good
scan? That is a discussion that we don't think will end soon, as different
drives report different amount of errors, some players are more picky about
media than others, and so on. But as a comparison we present you with a scan
from two pressed DVD discs:

This scan shows the results from a pressed DVD-Video disc
(GoldenEye).

 

This scan shows the
result from a pressed DVD-Video disk (The Green Mile). Notice the error jump
when shifting to the second layer (the error level actually drops from the end
of the first layer to the beginning of the second layer).

If you read below,
you will see that both the pressed DVD-discs are well within the
standards.

Download the
ECMA 267 Standard for
DVD-ROM, the ECMA 337 Standard for
DVD+R/RW and the
ECMA 338 Standard for
DVD-R/RW at http://www.ecma-international.org if you
want to look at the standards for yourself. Here is some data from the
ECMA standards (same for
DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW):

Random
errors:

A row of an
ECC Block that has at least 1 byte in
error constitutes a PI error. In any 8
consecutive ECC Blocks the total
number of PI errors before correction shall not exceed 280.

Here we see that a
PI error is defined as a row in an ECC block having 1 byte
or more containing errors and that the sum of PI errors in 8 ECC blocks
after each other should not exceed 280 PI errors.

But what is a row
and what is an ECC block? Again we
refer to the ECMA standards. We do
not copy and paste everything, but if you're interested, look in the
ECMA standards. A row is
182 bytes long where the last 10 bytes contain PI (Parity Inner)
information. An ECC block is 208 rows
long where the last 16 rows contain the PO (Parity Outer)
information. This gives us a maximum possible PI error amount of 208 errors per
block and for 8 blocks after each other this sum is of course 8 times higher,
giving a maximum possible amount of 1664 PI-8 errors. In practical use, a disc
with 1664 PI-8 errors is unreadable.

According to our
tests the specified max PI-8 sum of 280 for good discs seems to be a good
guideline, as some readers have problems reading discs when the PI-8 errors is
over 300 and most players starts to have problems when the PI-8 error level
reaches 600 or more.

But what are the
PIF errors that K-Probe
reports? They are Parity Inner Failures, meaning errors left after PI
correction. Only the ECMA 337 standard
describes the Parity Inner Failures. So how is a Parity Inner Failure defined?
Here is what the ECMA 337
states:

'If a row
of an ECC Block as defined in 13.3 contains
more than 5 erroneous bytes, the row is said to be 'PI-uncorrectable"."

In theory, an
ECC block may in the worst case have
208 PIF since every ECC block is 208 rows
long. But the ECMA 337 standard goes further and
specifies the max amount of accepted PI Failures (uncorrectable errors) allowed on a
good disc:

'In any
ECC Block the number of
PI-uncorrectable rows
should not exceed 4."  

This means that when
the PIF sum is set to 1,
the maximum error value should not exceed 4. The theoretical maximum value for
PIF is 208
errors.

But what makes a
disc unreadable? A POF (Parity
Outer Failure) error will make the disc unreadable, but K-Probe
does not display the POF's.

Notice that there
are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, jitter, tracking errors and so on
that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc '“ but for this we do not
have measuring equipment available.

Also, another note
is that we have scanned the discs at 4X CLV speed, by lowering
the speed to 2X(DVD-R/RW)/2.4X(DVD+R/RW) or 1X
the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs. We scanned at 4X
CLV due to lower speeds
taking too much time.

To see if there is a
connection between the reported amount of errors and readability of the discs we
also include the reading curve from a NEC ND-3540A DVD-Writer. The reason why we
have changed the reader is that some companies disliked that we used a modified
firmware to obtain 16x reading speed. So to please them, we are now using a
drive that reads DVD+R/-R media at
16x as
default. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs,
but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Easier explanation on how to read the test
results.

---

Maybe this got too
technical, and you are wondering what to look for in KProbe reports?

Use this as a
guideline for good discs:

• PI (Parity
  Inner): No larger areas
  on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do not worry too much about high
  single spikes that exceed 280.


• PIF (Parity Inner
  Failures): No larger areas
  on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about high
  single spikes that exceed 4.

And as always; lower
is better

And look at the
reading curve; if it looks clean with no dips it should be good, a small
slowdown near the end is accepted.

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

---

In these tests
we will be using the SHM-165P6S along with KProbe to measure the disc quality.
We will also be using the NEC ND-3540A with firmware 1.W7 along with CD-Speed
for our read-back tests.

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon Inc.
Code:	DAXON AZ3
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:38s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.18
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

Very good
result!

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon Taiwan for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon
Code:	Daxon AZ2
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (CLV)
Write Time:	8m:07s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.14
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.06

Very good
result.

Brand:	Plextor '“ Thanks to Plextor for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Taiyo Yuden Company Limited
Code:	YUDEN 000 T03
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:12s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	21.62
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.01

Plextor media
with Taiyo Yuden media code, a few drives burn this media with much lower PI-8
errors but the result is ok.

Brand:	Ricoh '“ Thanks to Ricoh Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Ricoh Company Limited
Code:	RICOH JNP R02
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	1x-8x
Write Speed:	8x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	8m:13s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	11.54
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

The result is
good.

Brand:	Ricoh '“ Thanks to Ricoh Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Ricoh Company Limited
Code:	RICOH JNP R03
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	1x-16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:1s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.79
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.03

A very high
quality burn.

Brand:	RiDisc Xtreme '“ Thanks to E-net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	RiTEK Corporation
Code:	RITEK P16
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:0s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	9.82
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.21

RiDisc Xtreme
with Ritek media code, the result good.

Brand:	Datasafe '“ Thanks to E-net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics
Code:	CMC MAG E01
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x
Write Time:	8m:35s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.00
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.14

A very good
result for this media.

Brand:	Datawrite '“ Thanks to E-net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Prodisc Technology Inc.
Code:	ProdiscR04
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:08s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	12.15
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.04

Another good
result.

DVD+ReWritable media:

---

Brand:	Ricoh '“ Thanks to Ricoh Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	RICOH Company Limited
Code:	RICOH JPNW21
Disc Type:	DVD+RW
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x
Write Time:	8m:22s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	47.13
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.58

High PI-Errors
for this DVD+RW media, but the result is ok.

A very bad
result for this DVD-RW. Writing for this media needs to be improved even when
the transfer rate test shows an excellent result.

To sum it
up: So
far the Lite-On SHM-165P6S writes DVD+R with good quality and writing on DVD+RW
media needs to be improved. Let's find out how the drive will do on DVD-R/RW
media.

On the next
page you will find the DVD-R/RW writing
results...

---

DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

---

In these tests
we will be using the Lite-On SHM-165P6S along with KProbe to measure the disc
quality. We will also be using the NEC ND-3540A with firmware 1.W7 along with
CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon Inc.
Code:	DAXON 016S
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	5m:58s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	31.08
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.07

The result is
OK.

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon Taiwan for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon
Code:	DAXON008S
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	8m:24s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	45.64
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.06

The result is
acceptable.

Brand:	Datasafe '“ Thanks to E-net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Code:	MCC 03RG20
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:1s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.42
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.05

Datasafe
media, with Mitsubishi media code and the results are very good.

Brand:	Datawrite Titanium '“ Thanks to E-net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	TDK
Code:	TTH02
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:24s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.87
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.05

The result is
very good.

Brand:	Taiyo Yuden unbranded '“ Thanks to SVP (UK) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Taiyo Yuden
Code:	TYG03
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	6m:09s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	50.65
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

The PI errors
are a bit high this Tayio Yuden media.

DVD-ReWritable media:

---

Brand:	Traxdata - Thanks to Conrexx Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	RITEK
Code:	RITEK W06
Disc Type:	DVD-RW
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	6x
Write Speed:	6x
Write Time:	11m:13s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	7.83
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.07

Very good
results!

Brand:	Verbatim - Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 01RW 6X01
Disc Type:	DVD-RW
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	6x
Write Speed:	6x
Write Time:	10m:43s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.45
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.01

The K-Probe
results indicates a very high quality burn for this DVD-RW, but the Nero CD/DVD
Speed transfer rate results show us problems starting at the 4GB
mark.

To sum it
up:
Overall, the write quality is acceptable on DVD-R and DVD-RW media.

Head on to
next page and read about DVD+R DL compatibility and write
quality...

---

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

---

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S 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 8x/6x.

Testing
procedure:
We created an ISO Image from
a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a total on-disc size of 8135
MB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning ROM 6. Below are the
results:

Verbatim media

Nero completed
the burn successfully with the Verbatim media in 27 minutes and 00 seconds.

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

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim (D) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 001
Disc Type:	DVD+R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	2.4x
Write Speed:	4x
Write Time:	27m
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.71
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

A very good
result!

Let us compare
the Lite-On SHM-165P6S results with some other DL capable drives.

*1 Verbatim DVD+R DL
*2
Traxdata DVD+R DL
*3 Ricoh DVD+R DL
*4 DataWrite DVD+R DL

DVD-R
DL

As mentioned
in the beginning of this page, the Lite-On SHM-165P6S supports the DVD-R DL
standard at 4x. Again, we used Nero Burning Rom 6 to write the DVD
Image:

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S used 27 minutes and 49 seconds to write the Verbatim DVD-R DL 4x.

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim (D) for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 01RD30
Disc Type:	DVD-R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	4x
Write Speed:	4x
Write Time:	27m:49s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	5.05
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.03

A very good
result for this media.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility:

---

We only have
one standalone DVD-Player available to test the DVD+R DL media (BookType:
DVD-ROM) and the DVD-R DL media (BookType: DVD-R) with:

⋅        
Cyberhome CH DVD-402

Compatibility
results: 

The DVD
Standalone device played both the Lite-On SHM-165P6S burned DVD+R DL media, but
failed to playback the DVD-R DL media.

We would like
to mention, that the compatibility issue with standalone DVD Players/Recorders
and the DVD-R DL media format is caused by incompatibilities with the standalone
devices used in this review, and not the Lite-On SHM-165P6S or media format
used.

Summary: The writing quality
could need some improvements.

---

DVD-RAM:

---

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S is a so-called Multi recorder, meaning is also supports the DVD-RAM
format.

This drive is
one of few drives that also support the DVD-RAM format, lets us look at the
recording side of the disc, and as you can see it got differences from the other
DVD+R/RW/R DL and DVD-R/RW/R DL discs.

We can see a
very fascinating pattern of darker spots. These tick marks are "address
information" ("Pre-mastered Pit Header Field") which are embedded onto the disc.
This is header information in front of data sector area, and is the same format
as HDD and MO.

A DVD-RAM's
disc can be formatted in the following formats:

• FAT32
  


• UDF 1.02
  


• UDF 1.50
  


• UDF 2.00
  


• UDF 2.01
  


• UDF 2.50
  

By formatting
a DVD-RAM disc with FAT32 it will act like a removable hard drive and all
writing will be done in the 'background processes". Meaning you do not have to
wait for it to finish '“ you can start or work with other applications while the
DVD-RAM is working without noticing any 'hangs" or CPU slowdowns.

Lets us take a
look at the media we are going to use in these tests:

Verbatim branded DVD-RAM media
certified at 5x:

Physical
Format Information (00h)

0000 - 16
0F 04 42 00 03 10 00 00 26 5F 5F 00 00 00 00 -
...B.....&__....
0010 - 80 20 00 10 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 22 00 00 00 00 - ..........."....
01F0 - 00 00 00 00 52 0A 00
7D 36 36 36 77 33 33 33 1A - ....R..}666w333.
0200 - 1A 00 00 11 22 00 85
88 88 00 84 87 88 02 83 86 - ...."...........
0210 - 87 02 82 85 86 0A 0C
0E 0F 0A 0C 0E 0F 09 0B 0D - ................
0220 - 0E 09 0B 0D 0E 4D 61
74 73 75 73 68 69 74 61 20 - .....Matsushita.
0230 - 45 6C 65 63 74 72 69
63 20 49 6E 64 75 73 74 72 - Electric.Industr
0240 - 69 61 6C 20 43 4F 2E
2C 4C 54 44 2E 0D 20 20 20 - ial.CO.,LTD.....
0250 - 20 20 20 20 20 4D 30
31 4A 35 30 30 36 0D 20 20 - .....M01J5006...
0260 - 20 20 20 20 20 01 01
7D 04 78 34 34 34 7D 87 85 - .......}.x444}.. 

0000 - 16
0F 04 42 00 03 10 00 00 26 5F 5F 00 00 00 00 -
...B.....&__....
0010 - 80 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0020 - 10 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
01F0 - 00 00 00 00 52 0A 00
7B 34 34 34 77 2F 2F 2F 1A - ....R..{444w///.
0200 - 1A 00 00 11 22 05 02
00 00 05 02 00 00 06 03 01 - ...."...........
0210 - 00 06 04 02 01 0A 0B
0B 0C 0A 0B 0B 0C 09 0A 0B - ................
0220 - 0B 09 0A 0B 0B 52 49
54 45 4B 20 4D 30 32 00 00 - .....RITEK.M02..
0230 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0240 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0250 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................
0260 - 00 00 00 00 00 01 01
82 00 74 33 33 82 7E 7F 00 - .........t33.~..

But now the
interesting part '“ writing and reading DVD-RAM media.

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x without
verification

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x with
verification

Traxdata DVD-RAM 3x without
verification

Traxdata DVD-RAM 3x with
verification

Nero Transferrate test of the
Verbatim 5x DVD-RAM

For those not
familiar with DVD-RAM, you might think that something went wrong during the
write process, when the verification option is turned on - since the
5x media was written at approximately 1.80x and the 3x media written at
approximately 1.21x. But do not worry - that is pretty normal for DVD-RAM discs,
the reason for the 'low" speed is '“ the drive constantly reads back the data
after writing it to verify that it's written correctly. We can also call it a
'bullet proof" writing/verify technique '“ with no data loss/errors.

Another
advantage with DVD-RAM is that the discs can be formatted/erased/written at over
100.000 times before it will/can cause/report any errors.

To round off
this section we have included two quality scans:

Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x

Traxdata DVD-RAM
3x

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Advanced tests: HyperTuning (HT), OverSpeed (OS) and Online HyperTuning
(OHT)

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Via their
SmartBurn tool Lite-On also supports Overspeed and Hypertuning, which is a so
called autostrategy function for this drive. See here a short explanation taken
over from Lite-On's SmartBurn tool:

Anyway this is
a very young technology and still under strong development and there are
important improvements with almost each new available firmware test version.
Because of this we decided not to test this drive with these features enabled.
Instead we will just show you a few write graphs of burns with these new
functions enabled.

 
BenQ DVD+R 8x (DAXON AZ2) burned at 12x with HyperTuning and
OverSpeed enabled

BenQ DVD-R 8x (DAXON008S) at 12x with HyperTuning and OverSpeed
enabled

Ridisc extreme DVD-R 8x (RITEK G05) at 12x with HyperTuning,
OverSpeed and Online HyperTuning enabled

As you can
see, these new functions are promising a lot. Many of our members are testing
these new functions in our Lite-On forum. If you want more information, then
simply visit our forum and find out more about the
results.

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To round off
this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Lite-On SHM-165P6S. These
tests are: 'Sheep Test", protected audio discs and some special disc tests.

The 'Sheep Test":

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 For this test, we will use
the Sheep tests made by Alexander Noé. Why is it called sheep test?
That's because the logo of the first 1 to 1 copy program called CloneCD is a sheep.
When
looking at supported writers, you will notice that the feature list has sheep to
indicate if a feature is supported or not. In this case we are interested in
the writer's ability to backup/write weak
sectors. Also called: 'Correct EFM encoding
of regular bit-patterns".

• No sheep:
  Can't backup any Safedisc 2 versions without the help of software tricks
  


• 1 Sheep:
  Can backup Safedisc 2 up to version 2.4x without software tricks


• 2 Sheep:
  Can backup Safedisc 2, including version 2.5x


• 3 Sheep:
  Can write all possible weak sectors, few if any writers could do this.
  

One of our
forum moderators Womble, has written
a guide concerning the 'Sheep Test" that can be found here.

In the
screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Lite-On SHM-165P6S supports
everything.

The Lite-On
SHM-165P6S supports DAO-RAW recording mode, which basically means, it can write
uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

As we can see
from the table the Lite-On SHM-165H6S is a 'Two Sheep Burner'. It also succeeded
in writing the Safedisc V2.90 test but failed the Sheep3 test.

Copy protected Audio:

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For our
protected audio test, we used the Exact Audio Copy program. We inserted the
protected audio discs and if the drive was able to recognize the disc we tried
to extract the music tracks to the hard drive. First let us look at the discs we
had available for this test: 

Celine Dion: A
New Day Has Come; protected with key2audio version 3.

 

Herbert
Gé¶nemeyer: Mensch - This disc is protected with Cactus Datashield 200.0.4
.3(build 12b)

And Michelle:
Leben!; protected with Cactus Datashield 200.5.1.91 '“ 5.10.090.

Results:

Overburning:

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To test the
overburning capabilities of the Lite-On SHM-165P6S, we used the over-burning
test in Nero CD/DVD-Speed.

CD-R:

For this test
we used an Infiniti Professional Compax 99min/900mb CD-R. (Thanks to Medea
International (UK) for providing the disc).

According to
Nero CD/DVD speed the drive fully supports 99min CD-R media.

To test if the
Lite-On SHM-165P6S is capable to read overburned CD-Rs, we used a 99:48 minutes
CD-R:

As we can see
for the picture above the Lite-On SHM-165P6S had no problems reading the 99:48
minutes CD-R.

DVD+R/-R:

We also tried
to overburn DVD+R/-R media:

According to
Nero CD-DVD Speed this function is not supported on DVD+R/-R media by the
Lite-On SHM-165P6S.

This
concludes our Lite-On SHM-165P6S review, let us head on to the last page to read
our conclusion…

Positive:

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• Supports DVD±R/+R DL/-R DL writing at 16x/8x/4x
• Supports CD-R/RW writing at 48x
• Can write DVD±R/+R DL certified media at higher speed
• Good media support and compatibility on DVD±R
• Supports Bitsetting for DVD+R/RW/DL
• Supports disc quality scanning
• Can overburn CDs up to 99 min
• Can read 99min CD-R
• Reads DVD-Video SL at 16x
• Can copy/rip copy-protected Audio-CDs
• 'Two sheep" writer (incl. Safedisc 2.90)
• Supports DAO-RAW writing
• Good community support and 3^rd party programs that works with the drive
• Very good support
• Good retail and software package

Negative:

---

• Does not support Mt. Rainier
• Writes CD-RW only at 24x
• Writes DVD-R DL only at 4x 
• Green LED for both reading and writing
• Reads only 16x certified media at 16x
• Full 16x DVD±R read support and 12x DVD+R DL reading only available via test firmware  

Conclusion:

---

Let us summarize the most important positive and negative points below:

The main positive points: The Lite-On SHM-165P6S being a so called 'Super Allwrite recorder" and supports recording on currently available media formats (CD-R/RW, DVD±R/±RW/±R DL and DVD-RAM).

The Lite-On SHM-165P6S can write CD-R/RW media with excellent/very good quality and can write those media types at high speed. DVD±R/RW writing quality is good with most media, and once again the Lite-On SHM-165P6S is one of the fastest CD burners around.

DVD±R/RW media compatibility was also excellent with the Lite-On SHM-165P6S, with all our tested media burning at its rated speed and by using the HT/OS functions which are available via the SmartBurn tool also faster than its rated speed.

Also, DVD-RAM is well implemented on the Lite-On SHM-165P6S, Not only can the drive write at 5x using a P-CAV writing method, it can also read DVD-RAM media, regardless of the disc's rated speed at 5x, again using a P-CAV reading method.

During our tests the Lite-On SHM-165P6S excelled at ripping audio CD's. The reading performance is excellent, and the DAE quality is also excellent, making the drive an excellent choice for audio ripping.

The support for this drive in our forum is also very good, not only from the community but also from some Lite-On engineers (which is highly appreciated by our members).

The main negative points: There are not too many negative things to say about the Lite-On SHM-165P6S. But we did note a few things we would like to see improved.

We know that 12x reading for DVD+R DL and full 16x reading support for DVD+/-R is possible for this drive and we would really like to see this implemented with the next official firmware.

Although writing quality with DVD±R/RW media was overall good, the writing quality with some media (especially DVD+RW) could be improved.

We would also like to see a dual coloured LED, with one colour used for read and a different colour used for writing, instead of the present single coloured green LED.

To sum it all up, this is what we would say: 'The Lite-On SHM-165P6S is a well specified drive with good overall performance. With a few little improvements, and with each new test firmware better working HyperTuning and OverSpeed functions, could make a good drive into an outstanding drive". Anyway, it's good to see how Lite-On now listens to the customer wishes and tries to improve the drives performance.

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we can find this drive starting from $35.99 and at getprice the drive is listed at 41.32 €. (May 2006).

You may comment on this review below or in this forum thread.

Thanks to:

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