Samsung SE-W164L DVD Burner Review

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Review:
Samsung SE-W164L
Reviewer:  Dee-27 & Jan70
Provided by: Samsung
Germany
Firmware: TS01 -
TS03
Manufactured: October
2005

Samsung
Germany was kind enough to send us the SE-W164L for review. In this review we
will be seeing how this drive from one the world's largest electronics
manufacturers performs in our tests.

The Samsung
SE-W164L supports 16x DVD±R,
8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x/4x DVD+R DL/-R DL
writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be
written. This drive is also the first drive from Samsung that
supports LightScribe direct disc labelling.

 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

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

 

Drive
specifications:

Now let us take a look at
the specifications of the Samsung SE-W164L, found at Samsungs
website:

 

What's inside the
box?

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

Top

Bottom

 

Right and Left Sides

Below you will see the
contents of the retail box:

The drive supplied was
the retail version. As we can see the drive is supplied with power supply, power
cable (EU), power cable (UK), USB cable, vertical mount stand, software, and
instructions. 

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

The bezel of the Samsung
SE-W164L is pleasingly styled. We can see an emergency eject hole, a single
green coloured LED for read and write (we prefer a different led colour though
for writing) and an eject button. The logos include the LightScribe
logo, the WritemasterTM logo, the SAMSUNG logo, a DVD Forum DVD-R/RW logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+ReWritable logo and a CD-RW
High Speed+ logo.

Top

Bottom

On the underside of the
drive we found two labels and we can read it was made in Indonesia '“ October
2005.

On the back of the drive
starting from the left, we can see the USB connector, cooling vents, power
connector, and finally the power switch.

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 support and a larger buffer size. Our
drive came shipped with firmware TS01, but was later updated with firmware TS02
and TS03.

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:

⋅        
Motherboard: ASUSTeK A8N-SLI DELUXE (nForce 4 SLI
chipset)
⋅        
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (Toledo) Dual Core
⋅        
RAM: 2 GB Corsair TWINX 2CL DDR
⋅        
GFX: Leadtek Winfast 6600 TD (PCI Express nVidia)
⋅        
Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy 2
⋅        
Hard disk: 2X Seagate Barracuda (SATA2)

System
set-up:

The Samsung SE-W164L was connected to one of the
mainboards USB2 connectors and identified itself as TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-W162L.
Autorun was enabled on all drives.

Firmware
Update:

The Samsung SE-W164L
firmware can be updated using the supplied 'live update" software; all that is
required is an Internet connection. The drive was shipped with firmware TS01 and
was during the course of this review updated to version TS02 and TS03. See the
screenshots below on the firmware update process.

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
  
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
  
• Nero Info Tool
  
• Slysoft CloneCD
  
• Exact Audio Copy v0.95 beta 4
  
• K-Probe

Features and techniques:

The Samsung SE-W164L is
based on the new Mediatek MT1888LE chipset.

The Drive also features
'Double Optimum Power Calibration Technology". The Double OPC constantly
monitors the sensitivity of the media and adjusts the laser strength to achieve
the best possible results. It does this by analyzing the reflection from the
media's surface.

Disc Quality
Scanning:

With a small edit to the
Windows system registry, the Samsung SE-W164L can be used along with Nero
CD-Speed for 'Disc Quality Scanning".

Scanned at 12x

Below are two scans made
by using KProbe:

Scanned at 8x

Scanned at 12x

BookType
(bitsetting):

The Samsung SE-W164L
supports bit-setting, and is capable of writing DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media
with DVD-ROM book type.

This feature can be
changed with the Bitsetting option in Nero CD-DVD:

Or in Nero Burning ROM
under the Choose Recorder option:

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:

DVD+R DL with book type
DVD-ROM

DVD+RW with book type
DVD-ROM

DVD+R with book type
DVD-ROM

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

This should say
DVD-ROM.

Now it's time to take a
closer look at the write technology used by the Samsung SE-W164L:

CD-Recordable:

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum
speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 37.30x and a total writing time of
2 minutes and 52 seconds.

For comparison we have
made the following table: 

As we can see from the
table, the Samsung SE-W164L is on of the fasted drives when it comes to writing
CD-R's.

CD-Rewritable:

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) writing
technology to write at 32X for CD-RW discs, the average speed is 28.28x and the
total time 3 minutes and 38 seconds.

For a better overview we
present the following comparison table:

As we can see from the
table, the Samsung SE-W164L performed below average on writing
CD-RWs.

16X DVD+R/-R
Writing speed:

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at the
maximum supported speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.79x and
a writing time of 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at its
maximum speed of 16x. This gives an average write speed of 11.77x and a total
writing time of 6 minutes and 05 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:

8X DVD+R DL
writing speed:

The Samsung SE-W164L
supports 8x writing speed on DVD+R DL media.

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write
DVD+R DL at 8x. The average speed is 6.39x and total writing time was 19 minutes
and 6 seconds.

4X DVD-R DL
writing speed:

The Samsung SE-W164L
supports 4x writing speed on DVD-R DL media.

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-R DL at 4x.
The average speed is 4.00x and total writing time is 27 minutes and 12 seconds.

8X DVD+RW
writing speed:

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity) to write
DVD+RW at 8x. The average speed is 6.99x and total writing time is 8 minutes and
40 seconds.

6X DVD-RW
writing speed:

The Samsung SE-W164L uses
CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity) to write DVD-RW at 6x. The
average speed is 5.65x and total writing time is 10 minutes and 55 seconds.

Included
software:

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.

Nero OEM
suite:

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 Media Creator 7.5 install CD that is close
to 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The Samsung SE-W164L
reached 47.80x. Let's compare the result in the table below:

The Samsung SE-W164L was
the fastest drive reading pressed CD-ROM. The Seek Times is
excellent.

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-W164L is
one of the slowest drives reading CD-Rs, due to the locked read speed at 40x.
The Seek Times is excellent.

 CD-Rewritable 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.

As we can see above, the
Samsung SE-W164L is locked at 40x, reading CD-RW; now let us compare it to other
drives below.

The Samsung SE-W164L
performed average on CD-RW read test, and once again the Seek Times are
excellent.

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 79 minutes long
(78:53:31).

The Samsung SE-W164L
reached 41.53x while reading CD-DA discs. Let us compare the result with other
drives:

The Samsung SE-W164L
performed average while reading Audio-CDs.

100 minutes
CD:

We used Nero
CD-DVD Speed to measure the transfer rate. The 100 min disc we used is slightly
larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it is 97 minutes and
50 seconds long.

The Samsung
SE-W164L had no problems in reading our 100 minute test CD-R

And as a last test we
used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According to EAC the
Samsung drive does not support Caching, which is considered as a plus - while
ripping audio.

Below is the results
produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive performed well
in burst mode, but rather slow 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
CD-R media from RICOH (Thanks to RICOH for sending us this media).

The extracting quality is
excellent and it should support everything, except reading the
Leadin/Leadout.

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 (OPT)

DVD-Video Double Layer
(PTP)

As we can see the drive
reached 16x on DVD-Video Single Layer and 8x on DVD-Video Double
layer.

The Samsung SE-W164L
performed excellently on the DVD-Video SL test and average on the DVD-Video DL
test.

DVD
'“ DVD+R/RW:

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

DVD+R

 
DVD+RW

The Samsung SE-W164L
performed average on DVD+R/RW. Now let us see how it will perform on
DVD-R/RW.

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.

Once again the Samsung
SE-W164L performed average on DVD-R/RW.

Overall
thoughts:

The Samsung SE-W164L is a
respectable reader, it is by no means the fastest reader on the block, but
during our read tests it proved reliable.

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

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The specifications of the
Samsung SE-W164L state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 48x and
CD-RW at 32x. 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 took 2 minutes
and 56 seconds to write the disc at 48x. Let us see how this compares to other
drives:

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:	BenQ CD-R Thanks to Daxon for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	Daxon Inc.
Code:	97m22s67f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 7: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Capacity:	79:59.74 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	48x
Write Time:	2m:54s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.67
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

BenQ media with average C1
errors of 0.67, it goes into the group 'best quality discs"
category.

 

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:	40x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	3m:04s
C1 Average/Sec:	2.23
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

RICOH media '“ manufactured
by Moser Baer India Limited and with its average of 2.33 it goes in the
'Good quality"
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
Write Time:	2m:53s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.72
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

This media goes into the
category 'best quality discs" for its C1 average of 0.72.

 

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:	48x
Write Speed:	40x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	2m:59s
C1 Average/Sec:	0.09
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Media made by Taiyo Yuden
have always had a good reputation and with the average C1 errors of 0.09 it goes
into the group 'best
quality discs" category.

 

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation
Code:	97m34s23f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 3: Long Strategy (Cyanine, AZO)
Capacity:	79:59.73 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	48x
Write Time:	2m:53s
C1 Average/Sec:	1.29
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Verbatim '“ a well-known
brand showed us a C1 average of 1.29 - it goes into the category 'Best
Discs".

Another
excellent result from the Emgeton branded CD-R media manufactured by Fornet
International. With its C1 average of 1.89, it places this disc in our 'best
quality disc" category.

Brand:	HP '“ Thanks to Medea International (UK) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics
Code:	97m26s66f
Disc Type:	CD-R
Recording Layer:	Dye Type 6: Short Strategy (Phthalocyanine)
Capacity:	79:59.71 (703 MB)
Certified Speed:	52x
Write Speed:	48x (CAV)
Write Time:	3m:15s
C1 Average/Sec:	1.96
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Once again we
have a very good result, with a C1 average of 1.96, this places the HP CD-R
manufactured by CMC Magnetics in our 'best quality disc" category.

Brand:	Infiniti Printable '“ Thanks to Medea International (UK) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	SKC
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:17s
C1 Average/Sec:	1.11
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

Another very
good result, with a C1 average of only 1.11, this places this disc in our 'best
quality disc" but the disc was only written at 32x.

Another
excellent result, with a C1 average of 0.43, this places this disc in our 'best
disc's" category.

Writing
Quality with Re-Writable discs:

We will also
test CD-RW discs from different CD-RW manufacturers. 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:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim (D) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation
Code:	97m34s25f
Disc Type:	Ultra Speed CD-RW 32x
Recording Layer:	Phase Change
Capacity:	79:59.74 (703MB)
Certified Speed:	32x
Write Speed:	32x
Write Time:	3m:38s
C1 Average/Sec:	9.85
C2 Average/Sec:	0.0

The result
is good.

The result is
good.

Summary:

The CD-R
writing quality is excellent, and the CD-RW quality is very good.

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

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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-16H5S
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-4570A 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 Lite-On SHW-16H5S with firmware LS0W along with KProbe to measure the
disc quality. We will also be using the NEC ND-4570A with firmware 1.02 along
with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

Brand:	DataWrite '“ Thanks to E-Net for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics Corporation
Code:	CMC MAG M01
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x
Write Time:	5m:56s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.31
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.05

The result is very
good.

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:	5m:56s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.80
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.01

Plextor media with Taiyo
Yuden media code, the result is excellent.

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to SVP (UK) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation
Code:	MCC 004
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	5m:56s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.21
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.04

The result is very
good.

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to SVP UK for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	Taiyo Yuden
Code:	YUDEN000T02
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	8m:17s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.80
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.01

No surprises
here, an excellent result from the Verbatim 8x media manufactured by Taiyo
Yuden.

The result is
good.

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon Taiwan for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Daxon
Code:	Daxon AZ3
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:00s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	2.16
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

The result is
good.

The result is
good.

Brand:	Verbatim Thanks to SVP (UK) for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	Verbatim
Code:	MCC003
Disc Type:	DVD+R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	8m:15s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.48
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.00

The result is
excellent.

DVD+ReWritable media:

 

PI errors are very high
throughout the disc. The result is ok but could be improved.

To sum
it up: So far the
Samsung SE-W164L writes DVD+R with very good/excellent quality and DVD+RW media
with ok quality. 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 SHW-16H5S with firmware LS0W along with KProbe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the NEC ND-4570A with firmware 1.02 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

Brand:	Ricoh '“ Thanks to Ricoh Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics
Code:	CMC MAG AM3
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:15s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	4.13
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.10

The result is good.

Brand:	TDK
Manufacturer:	TDK
Code:	TTH02
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:10s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	31.61
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.07

PI errors are high towards the end of the disc but within specification. The result is good.

Brand:	Taiyo Yuden unbranded '“ Thanks to SVP (UK) for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Taiyo Yuden
Code:	TYG02
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	8m:31s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	3.52
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.00

The result is excellent.

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 (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:05s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	3.51
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

The result is excellent.

Brand:	Vebatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim UK for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Code:	MCC 02R G20
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-VAC)
Write Time:	8m:35s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.00
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.03

The result is excellent.

Brand:	Traxdata '“ Thanks to Conrexx for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	RITEK
Code:	RITEK F1
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:23s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	12.92
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.12

PI errors are high throughout the disc and our read-back test shows some problems. The result is ok but could be better.

Brand:	BenQ '“ Thanks to Daxon (Taiwan) for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	Daxon Inc.
Code:	DAXON 016S
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:06s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	8.90
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.16

The result is good.

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim for providing this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Code:	MCC 03RG20
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	16x
Write Speed:	16x (CAV)
Write Time:	6m:04s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.66
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.03

The result is very good.

Brand:	HP '“ Thanks to Medea International UK for sending us this media
Manufacturer:	CMC Magnetics
Code:	CMC MAGAE1
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	8m:29s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	0.64
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.04

The result is very good.

Brand:	Sony
Manufacturer:	Sony Corporation
Code:	SONY 08D1
Disc Type:	DVD-R
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (P-CAV)
Write Time:	8m:32s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	6.38
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.07

The result is good.

DVD-ReWritable media:

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
Code:	MKM01RW6X01
Disc Type:	DVD-RW
Capacity:	4483MB
Certified Speed:	6x
Write Speed:	6x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	10m:55s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	1.30
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.02

The result is excellent.

To sum it up: Overall, the write quality is very good/excellent 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 Samsung SE-W164L
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/4x.

Testing
procedure:
We
created an ISO Image from a pre-authored DVD-Video compliant file set, with a
total on-disc size of 8146 MB. We then wrote this image file using Nero Burning
ROM 7. Below are the results:

Nero completed the burn
successfully with the Ricoh media in 19 minutes and 13 seconds.

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

Now let's look at the
read-back tests, first using the BenQ DW1640 then the Samsung
SE-W164L.

BenQ DW1640 read-back
test

Samsung SE-W164L read-back
test

Brand:	Ricoh '“ Thanks to Ricoh Europe for sending us this media.
Manufacturer:	Ricoh Company Limited
Code:	RICOHJPN D01
Disc Type:	DVD+R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	8x
Write Speed:	8x (Z-CLV)
Write Time:	19m:13s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	9.17
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.29

The result is
good.

Let us compare the
Samsung SE-W164L 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 at the
beginning of this page, the Samsung SE-W164L supports the DVD-R DL standard at
4x. Again, we used Nero Burning Rom 7 to write the DVD Image:

The Samsung SE-W164L used
27 minutes and 16 seconds to write the Verbatim DVD-R DL 4x media at 4x.

Now let's look at the
read-back tests, first using the BenQ DW1640 then the Samsung
SE-W164L

BenQ DW1640 read-back
test

Samsung SE-W164L read-back
test

Brand:	Verbatim '“ Thanks to Verbatim for providing the sample.
Manufacturer:	Mitsubishi Kagaku Media
Code:	MKM 01RD30
Disc Type:	DVD-R DL
Capacity:	8103MB
Certified Speed:	4x
Write Speed:	4x (CLV)
Write Time:	27m:16s
PI-8 errors Average/Sec:	3.88
PI-1 failures (PIF) Avg/Sec:	0.03

The result is excellent.

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 DVD Standalone
devices played the Samsung SE-W164L burned DVD+R DL media. But only one DVD
Standalone devices would play 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 Samsung SE-W164L or media format used.

Summary: Overall the results are very
good.

---

 

LightScribe:

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:

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 Labeling 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 Labeling technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical
DVD writers, labeling 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 favorite retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe
page for a list of companies that make LightScribe-enabled products.

A 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 labeling.

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 favorite 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 favorite 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!

The LightScribe Media:

The surface of the
LightScribe media is gold-brown, also referred to as sepia coloured.

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).

In this article we will
use LightScribe media from Verbatim:

 

Designing and burning with SureThing Labeler:

The SureThing
program is very easy to work with and we created a layout here to test out the
LightScribe feature. After we were satisfied with the layout we pressed Print
Label (LightScribe).

In the print
option dialog we also find a Diagnostic button and we clicked it of
course.

We closed the
LightScribe Diagnostics windows and selected 'Best quality" and OK to print the
label in the Print Dialog windows.

The program
gave us a notice 'Please ensure that you have a LightScribe disc inserted in the
drive with the label side down". (As you can see you can choose '“ Don't show me
this message in the future." We went on with OK to print the label.

The SureThing
LightScribe printing dialogue showed us an estimated remaining time of 23
minutes and 8 seconds.

Writing
process finished, let us take a look at the result.

Very nice
indeed, even if we zoom in on the disc, the quality and contrast is very good.
We decided to print this design again in Best quality, to test the indexing
feature:

Excellent! The
indexing capability of the hardware and software worked out perfectly. The label
is now a lot darker and the graphic details are still excellent.

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

---

 

To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Samsung SE-W164L. These tests are: 'Sheep Test", protected audio discs and some special disc tests.

The 'Sheep Test":

 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 Samsung SE-W164L supports everything.

The Samsung SE-W164L 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 Samsung SE-W164L is a 'Two Sheep Burner", in addition it also managed to copy the Safedisc V2.90 test. It could not manage the Sheep3 test though

Copy protected Audio:

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:

To test the overburning capabilities of the Samsung SE-W164L, 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 can overburn to 96 minute and 48 seconds.

To test if the Samsung SE-W164L is capable to read overburned CD-Rs, we used a 99:57 minutes CD-R:

As we can see from the picture above the Samsung SE-W164L had no problems reading the 99:57 minutes CD-R.

DVD+R:

We also tried to overburn a DVD+R media:

According to Nero CD-DVD Speed the Samsung SE-W164L can not overburn DVD+R media.

DVD-R:

According to Nero CD-DVD Speed the Samsung SE-W164L can not overburn DVD-R media.

This concludes our Samsung SE-W164L review, let us head on to the last page to read our conclusion…

 

Positive:

• Supports CD-R/RW
  writing at 48x/32x
  
• Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW
  writing at 8x/6x
  
• Writes
  DVD±R media at full
  16x write speed via USB2
  
• Overall good writing
  quality
  
• Supports Bitsetting
  for DVD+R/+RW/+R DL (BookType to DVD-ROM)
  
• 'Two sheep" writer
  
  
• Supports DAO-RAW
  writing
  
• Can rip copy protected
  Audio-CDs
  
• Reads
  CD-ROM at 48x
  
• Reads
  DVD-ROM/DVD-Video SL at 16
  
• 'Two sheep" writer
   
  
• Can overburn CD-Rs up
  to 96 min
  
• Can read 99 min CD-Rs
  
  
• Good Software
  package
  
  
• Can do disc quality
  scanning
  
  
• Supports LightScribe
  Direct Disc Labelling
  
• Lead free product
   
  

Negative:

• Does not support Mt.
  Rainier
  
• Does not increase the
  burn speed (over-speed) of DVD±R media
  
• Reads CD-R/CD-RW/CD-DA
  only at 40x
  
• Reads DVD±R/RW/±R DL
  only at 12x/8x/8x
  
  
• Can not
  overburn DVD±R
  media
  
• Green LED for both
  reading and writing

Conclusion:

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

The main
positive points:
The Samsung SE-W164L can write most DVD media with good quality and the writing
performance on DVD±R is respectable with writing times starting around 5 minutes
and 56 seconds and up. Given that the SE-W164L is an external drive, the
performance is very good.

The Samsung SE-W164L
sports an elegant enclosure, and can also be vertically mounted using the
supplied stand.

The CD-R write quality is
excellent with the Samsung SE-W164L, with most tested CD-R media returning
impressive results. Write performance was also impressive with many burns well
under 3 minutes.

The supplied software
package was also good, and should provide the beginner and the more advanced
user with all the necessary tools to write DVD and CD recordable
media.

Bitsetting support on
DVD+R/+RW/+R DL is also a welcome inclusion and ensures good compatibility with
set top DVD players.

As a last point we would
like to mention that this DVD burner is a 'lead-free" product, which meet the
recycling standards that came into effect on the 1^st of January 2006.

The main
negative points: There are few negative points
about this drive, we would like to mention that other drives offer faster read
speeds on CD-R/RW/DA and on DVD±R/RW/±R
DL media.

Further, it was a little
disappointing not to find some media that could be burned at higher than its
rated speed.

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 Samsung
SE-W164L is an impressive and overall a
good performing drive with really nice features".

By using our price
grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we were
unable to find a listed price for the drive, but at getprice the drive is listed at 79 €. (June
2006).

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

Thanks
to:

Bell Technology spol s.r.o. '“ Czech
Republic for providing the media used in this review.

SVP Communications '“ The United Kingdom
for providing the media used in this review.

Conrexx Technology B.V./RITEK Europe '“
The Netherlands for providing the media used in this review.

Medea International '“ United
Kingdom for providing the Infiniti and HP media used in this review

 Plextor SA/NV (B) for providing the Plextor
media used in this review.

Ricoh Europe '“ For providing the media used
in this review.

E-Net Distribution '“ United Kingdom
for providing the media used in this review.

 

Verbatim
- Germany and United Kingdom for providing the media used in this
review.

For providing the Memorex media used in this
review. Memorex is one of the largest providers
of all types of media for larger parts of the world.

Daxon (Taiwan) for providing
the Daxon media used in this review