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Review: Samsung SE-T084L Reviewed by: Dee-27 Provided by: Samsung UK Firmware: TS00 Manufactured: March 2007

We at CDFreaks would like to present a review the latest external slim-line DVD-ReWriter from Samsung – the Samsung SE-T084L. The Samsung SE-T084L supports 8x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/DVD-RW, 5x DVD-RAM and 6x DVD+R DL and 4x DVD-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.

The Samsung SE-T084L also supports LightScribe direct to disc labelling, allowing images to be written to LightScribe compatible media.

Company Information

We are sure that most of you know Samsung already, but let us take a look at some of the company information found at: www.samsungoms-europe.com

As a world leader in the field of digital media, Samsung Electronics produces Optical Disc Drives (ODD) since 1994. In the past few years Samsung was able to take a central market position in this field.

With subsidiaries all over Europe and a large part of the former USSR, Samsung Europe can offer the consumer a complete selection of disc drives, for all types of computers.

With large and continuous investments in research and development Samsung is able to be more and more at the forefront of disc drive technology.

As one of the first companies developing COMBO drives (DVD-ROM and CD-RW combined in one disc drive), Samsung is a frontrunner in this technology.

In the field of slim-line technologies, Samsung is expanding the line-up, in order to meet the demands of the market for desktop and notebook PCs.

Samsung offers a wide range of Optical Disc Drives, allowing customers to choose the exact combination of capabilities and features. Our products feature the latest noise suppression technologies. If you are looking for a high performance Optical Drive, you need look no further than Samsung.

If you are interested in reading more company information, please visit: www.samsungoms-europe.com

Drive Specifications

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We found the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L at Samsung’s website

Retail packaging:

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Our review drive was a retail version. Let’s take a look at the packaging.

Box Front

Box Rear

Box left

 

Box Right

Box Top

What’s inside the box

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Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.

Our retail package contained the Samsung SE-T084L drive, power adaptor, European and UK AC power cables, carrying case, USB cable and software CD-ROM.

Carrying case

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

Drive Front

The front of the Samsung SE-T084L is very stylish and we can see the drive is slot loading, we can also see a read/write LED, an eject button and emergency eject hole.

Drive Rear

On the rear of the drive we can see the DC power connector and USB connector

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of the drive we found a label and we can see the drive was manufactured in Indonesia during March 2007.

Now let’s head on to the next page were we can take a look at the features of the drive….

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Test machine

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

Hardware:

• Motherboard: ASUSTeK P5W DH Deluxe (Intel Glendale DG I975x chipset)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
• RAM: 4 GB OCZ Platinum dual channel kit DDR2 800
• GFX: BFG nVidia 8800GTS (640 Megabytes GDDR3)
• Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC882 HD audio controller
• Hard disk: 2X 250GB Seagate Barracuda (SATA 2)

 

System setup:

The Samsung SE-T084L was connected to a USB2 connector on the main board of our review PC.

No problems with the setup

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Samsung SE-T084L supports DVD-RAM read and write, LightScribe direct disc labelling, and support for Mount Rainier.

Installed software:

• Nero Burning Rom
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• Exact Audio Copy
• KProbe

Our review PC has Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit installed.

Features and techniques

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The Samsung SE-T084L being a slim-line drive will naturally not be as fast as a normal half height internal or external DVD burner. The spindle motor cannot rotate as fast as a half height drive and power consumption for a slim-line drive must be less than a half height drive. There are however advantages to this setup. The Samsung SE-T084L uses very little power compared to a standard half height drive and can be powered from the USB port that the drive is connected to, rather than having to use the supplied AC power supply.

Samsung provide a utility to check that the host PC can provide enough power to power the SE-T084L from the USB port.

As we can see from the above screenshot, the Samsung SE-T084L can be powered from our review PC’s USB port. One should note that writing speed is reduced when the drive is USB powered, for example, the maximum DVD R writing speed is reduced from 8x to 4x.

As we can see from the above screenshot, the Samsung SE-T084L uses a high speed USB 2.0 interface and the USB bridge is powered by an NEC controller.

Software bundle:

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Let’s take a look at the software bundle included with our retail drive. Please note, we may not install or use any of this software in this review.

The supplied CD-ROM

Our retail package included Nero 6 OEM, which included the following software.

• Nero Express 6
• Nero Vision Express
• Nero Media Player
• InCD 4
• InCD Reader

Main Nero install screen

USB power testing utility

Live firmware update utility

The software bundle is very good and should provide a very good starting point for anyone purchasing this drive.

BookType (Bitsetting):

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The Samsung SE-T084L supports bit-setting, and is capable of writing DVD+R/DL media with DVD-ROM book type.

Here is how you could check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

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

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

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Samsung SE-T084L:

For these tests we used CD-Speed and wrote a full disc at the drives maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gives an average speed of 19.20x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 28 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

 

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gave an average speed of 16.14x and a total writing time of 6 minutes and 20 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The Samsung SE-T084L uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.01x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 59 seconds.

DVD-R

The Samsung SE-T084L uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 6.01x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 38 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

8x DVDR Disc Writing	Supported Write Speed	Write Strategy	Start Write Speed	End Write  Speed	Average  Write  Speed	Write  Time  Full 4.38Gb
NEC ND-7551A	8x +R 8x –R	CAV Z-CLV	3.38x 2.07x	8.10x 8.27x	5.95x 5.21x	11m:11s 14m:08s
Lite-On SSM-85H5S	8x +R 8x –R	Z-CLV Z-CLV	2.57x 2.02x	8.09x 8.10x	5.67x 5.66x	14m:01s 12m:49s
Samsung SE-T084L	8x +R 8x –R	P-CAV P-CAV	3.42x 3.43x	8.02x 8.02x	6.01x 6.01x	10m:59s 11m:38s

The Samsung SE-T084L was the fastest drive when writing DVD±R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 5.03x and a total writing time of 13 minutes and 28 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SE-T084L was the slowest drive when writing our DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.83x and a total writing time of 14 minutes and 50 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SE-T084L was the slowest drive when writing our DVD-RW media.

6x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.54x and a total writing time of 27 minutes and 42 seconds.

4x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 4x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 4X. This gives an average speed of 3.52x and a total writing time of 34 minutes and 56 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SE-T084L was the fastest drive while writing DVD+R DL media, but was the slowest drive while writing DVD-R DL media.

5x DVD-RAM writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L, it should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 5x.

The Samsung SE-T084L uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 5X. This gives an average speed of 4.64x and a total writing time of 12 minutes and 08 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SE-T084L was the fastest drive while writing DVD-RAM media.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L performed well with our writing tests, the drive being the fastest writer in several categories and had no problems writing our test discs.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will check reading performance….

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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 8x
• CD-ROM 24x

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close to 75 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The Samsung SE-T084L reached 24.18x read speed.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Samsung SE-T084L reached 24.34x read speed.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Roxio Media Creator 7.5 install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed+ (32X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

The Samsung SE-T084L reached 24.59x read speed.

100 minute CD-R:

The Samsung SE-T084L reached 26.89x when reading our test 100 minute CD-R and had no problems reading our 100 minute test disc.

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 78 minutes long (78:53:31).

The Samsung SE-T084L reached 24.97x when reading our test audio disc.

And as a last test we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According to EAC the Samsung SE-T084L does not support Caching, Accurate Stream and C2 Error Info.

Below are our obtained results.

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Samsung SE-T084L performed well in the “Burst mode” test but much slower in the “Secure mode” test.

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 CD-R DA media from Ricoh (Thanks to Ricoh (BV) for sending us this media).

The extracting quality is excellent and supports the reading of CD text and sub channel data.

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 8X.

Pressed 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 OTP)

DVD Video (double layer PTP)

The Samsung SE-T084L read our single layer disc at 4x and our double layer test discs at 6x which is average for a slim-line drive.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

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

DVD+R

DVD+RW

The Samsung SE-T084L read our DVD+R and DVD+RW disc at 8x.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

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

DVD-R

DVD-RW

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

DVD+R DL

For this test we used a Verbatim 2.4X DVD+R DL disc and a Verbatim 4X DVD-R DL disc filled with about 7.96Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD+R DL

DVD-R DL

The Samsung SE-T084L read our DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL at 6x reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The Samsung SE-T084L read our DVD-RAM disc at 5x using a Z-CLV reading method.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L performed extremely well for a slim-line drive and proved to be a reliable reader.

Now let’s head over to the next page where we will test CD-R/RW writing performance……

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The specifications of the Samsung SE-T084L state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 24x 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 703Mb 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. (24x)

The Samsung SE-T084L completed the burn in 6 minutes and 2 seconds.

Write quality:

We will test CD-R discs from many 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 K-Probe 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.

An excellent result to start our CD-R quality tests, (highly recommended).

Another excellent result (highly rcommended).

Our RICOH media manufactured by Moser Baer India has burned with excellent quality (highly recommended).

Once again we have an excellent result, (highly recommended).

The result is excellent (highly recommended).

Once again we have an excellent result (highly recommended).

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

The result is good.

Summary:

CD-R writing quality is excellent with the Samsung SE-T084L and CD-RW was also good with our tested media.

Now let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD recordable performance….

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The specifications of this drive tell us that it should write DVD±R at up to 8x 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

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 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-un-correctable”.”

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 (un-correctable errors) allowed on a good disc:

“In any ECC Block the number of PI-un-correctable 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 Optiarc AD-7173A 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 a Lite-On LH-20A1P with firmware KL0G along with K-Probe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using an Optiarc AD-7173A along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is excellent.

The result is excellent.

The result is good.

The result is good but the disc was only written at 6x.

The result is excellent

The result is good.

The result is very good.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

We used the same test procedures as in our DVD+R tests.

Below are our obtained results.

PI errors are alarmingly high at the 2.4x and 6x stages of the burn. PIF errors are high at the 2.4x stage of the burn. The disc gave a perfect read-back test and the result is ok, but could be better.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L writes DVD+R with generally excellent writing quality and one of the fastest slim-line DVD writers we have tested. Writing quality with our tested DVD+RW was ok but could be improved.

Now let’s look at DVD-R/RW performance and quality on the next page…..

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DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On LH-20A1P with firmware KL0G along with K-Probe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using an Optiarc AD-7173A along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is very good.

The result is very good.

Once again we have a very good result.

The result is very good.

The result is excellent.

PI errors are fairly high throughout the disc and there are worrying PIF clusters at a couple of points in the disc, the most worrying at the end of the disc where it also shows as a minor slowdown in our read-back test. The result is ok but could be better with this very high quality media.

The result is good

The result is good.

DVD-RW media compatibility and write quality:

For this test we used the same testing procedures as in our DVD-R tests.

The result is very good.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L has written our DVD-R/RW media with very good/good quality.

Let’s head on to the next page where we will test DVD R DL writing performance and quality……

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DVD+R/-R Double Layer writing performance and quality:

The Samsung SE-T084L 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 4x.

For these tests we used a Video-DVD compliant file set and burned the discs with Nero Burning Rom.

DVD+R DL:

The Samsung SE-T084L wrote our Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL media at 6x in 27 minutes and 33 seconds.

There is a cluster of PI and PIF errors at the layer break, but our read-back test is perfect. The result is good.

DVD-R DL:

The Samsung SE-T084L wrote our Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media at 4x in 34 minutes and 22 seconds.

PI errors on the first layer are high but within specification. PIF errors are also high at the start of the disc and our read-back test shows some problems at the layer break. The result is ok but could be improved.

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility:

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

• Panasonic DVD-RV32
• Panasonic SA-HT520
• Proline DVDP350
• Panasonic DMR-E50 recorder

Compatibility results:

All our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media burned by the Samsung SE-T084L without any problems.

Only one DVD Standalone device would play the Samsung SE-T084L burned DVD-R DL media without any problems.

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 Samsung SE-T084L or media format used.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L burned our test DVD+DL with good quality, but DVD-R DL writing quality could be improved.

Let’s head on to the next page and our DVD-RAM writing tests....

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DVD-RAM writing performance:

The Samsung SE-T084L is a so-called Multi drive, meaning it also supports the DVD-RAM format.

This drive is one of few drives that also supports the DVD-RAM format, lets us look at the recording side of the disc, and as you can see it has differences from the other DVD+R/W/R9 DL and DVD-R/W 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 as “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.

DVD-RAM has error correction, but also has error replacement to spare sectors as a "defect management" function. This gives higher reliability than other DVD format.

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. Let’s try to read back the 2 discs that we wrote:

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

5x DVD-RAM writing performance:

The Samsung SE-T084L wrote the disc in 12 minutes and 08 seconds using a P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity) writing method.

Now let’s try reading the disc back in the drive.

The Samsung SE-T084L had no problems reading our created disc.

Now let’s try and read the disc back in our Optiarc read-back testing drive.

The Optiarc drive had no problems in reading back our test disc.

Summary:

The Samsung SE-T084L wrote and was able to read back our tested media without any problems.

Now let’s check out the Samsung SE-T084L LightScribe feature on the next page...

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LightScribe:

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On January 4, 2004, HP announced an innovative new technology to address the problem of labelling CD’s and DVD’s. LightScribe technology allows consumers to create silk-screen quality labels on their CDs or DVDs by burning text and graphics directly onto a disc, eliminating the need for adhesive labels.

But, before we continue - Let us first take a look at some information found at the LightScribe site:

ABOUT LIGHTSCRIBE

CREATE SILKSCREEN-QUALITY LABELS FOR ALL YOUR CDS AND DVDS, RIGHT FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

Until now there hasn't been much choice when it comes to creating labels for your CDs and DVDs. Messy markers or sticky adhesive labels were pretty much the only affordable option. But imagine creating professional-looking labels using the same laser that burns your data-right inside your CD/DVD drive! Well, now it's easy with LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology.

LABEL-MAKING REDEFINED.

LightScribe technology is an integrated system that combines the CD or DVD drive of your LightScribe-enabled computer with specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce precise, laser-etched labels. You can design and produce labels to express your creativity and personality-the sky's the limit!

With LightScribe, the disc is the label. This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create elegant labels for all your CDs and DVDs. Simply burn your music mix, digital-video/photo archives, or business application. Then flip the disc and burn your own unique label.

LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical DVD writers, labelling software, and a variety of brand name discs. Remember, the LightScribe logo indicates a LightScribe-enabled product, so be sure to look for it at your favourite retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe page for a list of companies that make LightScribe-enabled products.

HOW IT WORKS

RADICAL REVOLUTION IN DISC LABELING.

Once you've burned your first LightScribe label and experienced the amazing result, you'll never want to use a permanent marker or sticky label again. LightScribe makes it easy. It truly is a revolution in disc labelling.

JUST HOW DOES IT WORK?

How can you burn a label onto your disc right from your computer? Suppose you have just created a music CD of your favourite songs. Now you want to make a label that contains the song titles, artists' names, and some personal information and design elements to make it special.

Burn your tracks onto the data side of the disc. Flip the disc over to the label side and put it back in the drive. Burn your label by opening your favourite LightScribe-enabled label-making software and going to the CD template work area. Now you do all of your creative design work-imported pictures, copy, and artwork. When you are satisfied with what you have done, click "print." It really is that simple! No ink, no messy markers, no clumpy adhesive labels, just an amazingly beautiful label right before your eyes.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Your LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD disc drive contains a special laser that pumps light energy into a thin dye coating on the label side of the disc. The light from the laser causes a chemical change in the dye coating that shows up as a visible point on the disc. With laser precision, LightScribe delivers closely controlled light energy to multiple points on the disc as it spins in the drive. The result is a high-resolution reproduction of the artwork, text, or photos you composed in the software application. Seeing is believing!

In this review we decided to use SureThing Deluxe labeller instead of the supplied label making module in Nero.

LightScribe Media:

The surface of the LightScribe media is gold-brown, also referred to as sepia coloured. More recently different colours of LightScribe media has been introduced and we will be testing this coloured media in this section of the review.

If we take a closer look at the inner ring of the LightScribe media, we can see a bar code indexing system. This is what the drive’s laser uses to recognize the LightScribe surface, but also for the indexing (for later re-burns).

Designing and burning with SureThing Labeller:

Now let’s create our LightScribe label

Here we can select the printing drive and print quality

This dialog tests the printing drive before printing the label.

In the above screenshot we can see the printing progress.

Finally the finished label and the result is good.

To test the LightScribe indexing function, we decide to take a second pass to print our test media.

As we can see, the Samsung SE-T084L had no problems in aligning the media correctly. The second printing pass giving our finished test media extra contrast. The result is very good indeed.

For our final LightScribe test, we used a red coloured disc manufacture by Philips.

The result can be seen below.

Once again, the result is very good.

Let’s head on to the last page where we run some advanced tests on our Samsung SE-T084L....

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To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Samsung SE-T084L. These tests are: “Sheep Test”, and some special disc tests.

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 and be found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Samsung SE-T084L supports everything.

The Samsung SE-T084L supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which basically means, it can write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

As we can see from the table and screenshots, the Samsung SE-T084L is a “Two Sheep Burner”. In addition, the Samsung SE-T084L could also handle Safe Disc 2.90 discs.

Overburning:

CD-R over-burn test:

For this test we used an Ricoh CD-R manufactured by Moser Baer India (Thanks to Ricoh Europe) for providing the disc).

The reported over-burn capacity was stated as 82:19.70

We used CD-Speed with over-burn enabled to try and write a disc at slightly less than the stated maximum over-burn capacity (81:53.25) to be exact.

The Samsung SE-T084L had no problems in creating our test disc.

DVD+R over-burn test:

We first tried to burn a DVD+R media.

As we can see from the above screenshot, the Samsung SE-T084L does not support over-burning on this media type.

DVD-R over-burn test:

We will now try a DVD-R media.

As we can see from the above screenshot, the Samsung SE-T084L does not support over-burning on this media type.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Samsung SE-T084L is capable of writing and reading mini DVD-RW discs with a capacity of 30 minutes/1.46 GB.

With the Samsung SE-T084L being a slot loading drive, reading and writing MINI DVD discs would normally not be supported. Samsung themselves claim this problem has been overcome in the Samsung SE-T084L and the Samsung SE-T084L is the first slot loading drive to support this feature. Let’s find out if the Samsung SE-T084L can read and write to the MINI DVD 8cm format.

The Memorex media is made by CMC Magnetics.  Thanks to Memorex Europe for sending us this media.

The Samsung SE-T084L had no problems in writing our test MINI DVD-RW disc. Now let’s find out if the drive can read the disc.

The Samsung SE-T084L read our test MINI DVD-RW media without any problems.

Video-CD disc:

For our final test we wanted to see how the Samsung SE-T084L would read a Video-CD, for this test we created a Video-CD with Nero Burning ROM 7, and used NERO CD-DVD Speed to read the disc back. Below is our result:

The Samsung SE-T084L had no problems reading our test VCD although the read speed was locked at 16x.

This concludes our Samsung SE-T084L review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below....

Positive:

• Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
• Excellent/very good DVD+R writing quality.
• Supports 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW writing speeds.
• Supports DVD-RAM read/write at 5x.
• Supports Bitsetting (Booktype DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/DL media
• Supports LightScribe direct to disc labelling.
• Very sleek and beautifully designed drive.
• Excellent build quality.
• Good community support here on CD Freaks.
• Supports 8cm MINI DVD read and write.
• Good software bundle.
• Low power consumption.
• Small size and portable.
• Can be powered from a suitable USB socket.

Negative:

• Slow compared to a modern standard sized drives
• Writing quality on DVD+RW media could be improved.
• Writing quality on DVD-R DL media could be improved.

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points:

The Samsung SE-T084L was able to burn all our tested CD-R media with excellent/very good quality.

DVD±R writing quality was also of a high standard and on most media very good indeed.

The software bundle is also of a high standard and should provide all the essential tools for burning CD and DVD media.

The Samsung SE-T084L is small and easily portable and consumes a minimal amount of power.

The Samsung SE-T084L also supports most currently available media formats including DVD-RAM.

The Samsung SE-T084L also supports the LightScribe direct to disc labelling system, allowing pictures and text to be printed to special LightScribe media.

The Samsung SE-T084L is beautifully designed and has a very sleek and sexy look and the build quality is excellent.

The main negative points:

There are not many negative things to say about the Samsung SE-T084L. The drive is slow at reading and writing compared to a modern 18x/20x DVD Re-Writer.

Writing quality on our tested DVD+RW and DVD-R DL media could be improved.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Samsung SE-T084L has a great feature set, it’s small, portable, very sleek and it performs extremely well”.

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

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