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Review: Samsung SH-S203B Reviewed by: Dee-27 Provided by: Samsung Europe Firmware: SB00 – SB01 Manufactured: May 2007

Samsung was kind enough to send us the SH-S203B for review. In this review we will be seeing how this drive from one the world's best known electronics manufacturers performs in our tests.

The Samsung SH-S203B supports 20x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW, and is the world’s first drive to support 16x/12x DVD+R/DL-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written. In addition this drive also supports DVD-RAM at 12x.

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 SH-2203B at the Samsung 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 and right sides

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 SH-S203B drive, fixing screws, SATA lead, software CD-ROM, ATA to SATA power converter and manual.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

The bezel of the Samsung SH-S203B is nicely styled. We can also see various logos, an emergency eject hole, single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the top of the drive we found one label and we can see the drive was manufactured in the Philippines during May 2007.

On the rear of the drive we can see from left to right, an SATA power and SATA data connectors.

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 P5K (Intel P35 chipset)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
• 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 500GB Seagate Barracuda (SATA 2)

Firmware update:

We found a later firmware (SB01) on the Samsung website and proceeded to update the drives firmware. The update completed successfully without any issues.

Reviewers note

Because of the late arrival of firmware SB01, the reading tests and some of the writing tests were conducted using firmware SB00.

System setup:

The Samsung SH-S203B was connected to a SATA channel on the motherboards ICH9 SATA controller. As we can see from the above screenshot, Nero InfoTool reports the Samsung SH-S203B as a UDMA5 compatible device.

And another screenshot from Nero InfoTool:

From the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Samsung SH-S203B supports DVD-RAM read/write and Mount Rainier. The drive came shipped with firmware version SB00.

Installed software:

• Nero Burning ROM 7
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• Slysoft CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy
• KProbe

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

Features and techniques

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Software Bundle:

Now let’s take a look at the supplied software bundle. Please note, we may not use any of this software in this review.

The supplied software CD-ROM

In the above screenshot we see the available install options

• Nero 7 Essentials
• Firmware Live Update
• User Guide

The Nero 7 Essentials install screen

Live Firmware Update Utility

User Guide area selection screen

The software bundle is good, up to date and should provide a good starting point for any new user as well as the more advanced user.

Drive internals:

In the above screenshot we can see the internal PCB of the Samsung SH-S203B.

Disc Quality Scanning:

The Samsung SH-S203B can be used along with KProbe or Nero CD-Speed for “Disc Quality Scanning”.

Disc Quality Scan at 8x scanning speed using CD-Speed.

Disc Quality Scan at 8x scanning speed using KProbe.

The Samsung SH-S203B could be considered a useful drive for Disc Quality Scanning. The results seem fairly consistent with those of a Lite-On drive scanning at 8x

BookType (Bitsetting):

The Samsung SH-S203B supports bit-setting via burning applications such as Nero Burning Rom and supports Bit-Setting on DVD+R/RW/+R DL media types.

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

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 SH-S203B:

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 SH-S203B, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 48x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 36.86x and a total writing time of 2 minutes and 54 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 32x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 32X. This gives an average speed of 28.09x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when writing CD-RW media.

20x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 20x.

DVD+R

The Samsung SH-S203B uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 20X. This gives an average speed of 14.95x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 36 seconds.

DVD-R

The Samsung SH-S203B uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 20X. This gives an average speed of 14.96x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 38 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

20x DVDR Disc Writing	Supported Write Speed	Write Strategy	Start Write Speed	End Write  Speed	Average  Write  Speed	Write  Time  Full 4.38Gb
Samsung SH-S182D	18x +R 18x –R	CAV CAV	7.54x 7.58x	18.12x 18.16x	13.21x 13.42x	5m:34s 5m:16s
Optiarc AD-7173A	18x +R 18x –R	CAV CAV	7.53x 7.53x	18.02x 18.05x	13.26x 13.29x	5m:26s 5m:27s
Plextor PX-760A	18x +R 18x –R	CAV CAV	7.23x 7.24x	18.00x 18.06x	12.41x 12.35x	5m:34s 5m:41s
Samsung SE-S184M	18x +R 18x –R	CAV CAV	7.62x 7.63x	18.24x 18.22x	13.46x 13.48x	5m:19s 5m:18s
Pioneer DVR-112	18x +R 18x –R	CAV CAV	7.51x 7.51x	18.16x 13.34x	13.17x 13.12x	5m:11s 5m:13s
Samsung SH-S203B	20x +R 20x -R	CAV CAV	8.36x 8.39x	20.08x 20.11x	14.95x 14.97x	4m:36s 4m:38s

As we can see from our table, the Samsung SH-S203B was the fastest drive when writing DVD±R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.71x and a total writing time of 7 minutes and 31 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SH-S203B was about average at writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 6.02x and a total writing time of 9 minutes and 50 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SH-S203B was about average when writing DVD-RW media.

16x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 16x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.76x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 33 seconds.

12x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 12x. Unfortunately we did not have any DVD-R DL media that could be written at this speed, the fastest being 10x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 10X. This gives an average speed of 9.03x and a total writing time of 13 minutes and 22 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SH-S203B was by far the fastest drive when writing DVD+R DL and the fastest drive when writing DVD-R DL media.

12x DVD-RAM writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Samsung SH-S203B, it should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 12x.

The Samsung SH-S203B uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 12X. This gives an average speed of 10.09x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 44 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Samsung SH-S203B was among the fastest drives when writing DVD-RAM media.

Summary:

There is no doubt that the Samsung SH-S203B has excellent writing performance. CD-R writing speed is excellent and DVD writing speeds broke all records here in the CD Freaks review labs. DVD+R DL writing performance, thanks to the SH-S203B 16x writing speed, also breaks all writing speed records here in the CD Freaks review labs.

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 16x
• CD-ROM 48x

Pressed discs:

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

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 47.24x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B proved to be one of the fastest drives at reading our test CD-ROM. Access and seek times were very good.

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 Ricoh 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Moser Baer India.

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 40.50x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed about average with our CD-R test disc.

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 SH-S203B reached 40.92x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when reading CD-RW media.

100 minute CD-R:

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 44.72x when reading our test 100 minute CD-R and had no problems reading our 100 minute test CD.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Samsung SH-S203B, again 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 nearly 79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

The Samsung SH-S203B reached 41.54x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed about average when reading our audio test CD.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the drives Audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below, the drive supports accurate stream and C2 error info and doesn’t support caching.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode.

Secure mode.

The Samsung SH-S203B performed well in burst mode but slightly slower in secure mode. Overall, this is a very fast drive for ripping audio CD’s.

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 Europe (BV) for sending us this media).

The extraction quality was excellent and the performance was excellent.

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.

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 SH-S203B is not riplocked and read our single layer disc at 16x and our double layer test discs at 12x

The Samsung SH-S203B was one of the fastest drives when reading pressed DVD-Video media.

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 SH-S203B was the fastest drive when reading DVD+R media and about average when reading DVD+RW media.

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 SH-S203B was the fastest drive when reading DVD-R media and about average when reading DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL discs:

DVD+R DL:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The Samsung SH-S203B read our DVD-RAM disc at 12x using a P-CAV reading method.

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B has excellent reading performance and is a very 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 SH-S203B 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 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. (48x)

The Samsung SH-S203B took 3 minutes and 30 seconds to write the disc at 40x. Let us see how this compares to other drives in the table below:

The Samsung SH-S203B was about average when writing our test CD-R media.

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.

Below are the obtained results:

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

The write quality on the Verbatim 52x media is excellent, (Highly recommended).

Our RICOH media manufactured by Moser Baer India has burned with good quality.

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

The HP media manufactured by CMC Magnetics has burned with excellent quality.

Another excellent result (highly recommended).

And another excellent result.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

The result is good.

 

The result is good.

Summary:

CD-R writing quality and media compatibility is excellent with the Samsung SH-S203B and CD-RW writing quality is good/very good.

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 20x 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

Let’s compare with some other drives.

We can see the Samsung SH-S203B has performed very well and is the fastest drive we have tested, but let’s see how good 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 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 KL05 along with K-Probe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7173A with firmware 1-O3 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is very good.

The result is very good and disc was burned at faster than its rated speed.

An excellent result and the disc were written at faster than its rated speed.

The writing quality is very good and the disc was written at faster than its rated speed.

The result is excellent considering this disc was burned faster than its rated speed.

No surprises here, an excellent result from the Verbatim 8x media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, all the more so as this disc was written faster than its rated speed.

The result is good.

Once again we have another good result.

The writing quality is very good and the disc was burned faster than its rated speed.

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.

The result is excellent.

The result is good.

 

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B writes DVD+R/RW with excellent/very good quality and is able to burn selected media at higher than its rated speed. The Samsung SH-S203B was also the fastest DVD+R writer we have ever tested in the CD Freaks review labs.

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 KL05 along with K-Probe to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7173A with firmware 1-O3 along with CD-Speed for our read-back tests.

The result is very good and the media was burned at higher than its rated speed.

Again the result is good and the media was burned faster than its rated speed.

PI errors are slightly elevated at the end of the disc but are well within specification. The disc was also burned at faster than its rated speed and the result is good.

PI errors are slightly elevated towards the end of the disc but are well within specification, the result is good.

There is a single PIF spike, but our read-back test is perfect. The result is good.

The result is good.

The result is excellent considering the disc was burned at higher than its rated speed.

The result is excellent considering the disc was written faster than its rated speed.

PI errors are fairly high throughout the disc but are well within specification. PIF errors are reasonably low and we have a perfect read-back test. 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 good.

The result is good.

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B has written our DVD-R media with excellent/good quality and wrote selected media at faster than its rated speed. The Samsung SH-S203B also recorded the fastest burn times for DVD-R we have ever seen in the CD Freaks review labs.

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 SH-S203B 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 16x for DVD+R DL and 12x for DVD-R DL.

16x DVD+R DL writing test:

We had limited test samples of 16x DVD+R DL media, so to start off our tests, we wrote one disc with CD-Speed at 16x writing speed and tested the resulting disc.

Our test media was a Ricoh 16x DVD+R manufactured media.

The Ricoh DVD+R DL disc was burned successfully in a record breaking 10 minutes and 33 seconds.

The result is very good.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we pre-authored several video clips into an image file and burned the resulting image in Nero Burning Rom. We then used the Lite-On LH-20A1P along with KProbe to test the discs quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7173A using Nero CD-Speed.

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our 8x rated Verbatim media in 13 minutes and 27 seconds. Writing quality is excellent and the media was burned faster than its rated speed.

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our 8x rated Ricoh media in 15 minutes and 42 seconds. Writing quality is very good.

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our 2.4x rated Verbatim media in 27 minutes and 16 seconds. The result is good and the media was burned faster than its rated speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our Verbatim 8x media in 13 minutes and 27 seconds. Overall PI errors are quite high but PIF errors are low and we have a perfect read-back test. The result is good considering the disc was burned at faster than its rated speed.

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our Verbatim 4x rated test media in 27 minutes and 34 seconds. Overall PI errors are high on the first layer but PIF errors are low and we have a perfect read-back test. The result is good 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 SH-S203B without any problems.

Only one DVD Standalone device would play the Samsung SH-S203B 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 SH-S203B or media format used.

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B burned our test DVD DL media with record breaking speed and writing quality was excellent to good.

Let’s head onto the next page where we will take a look at DVD-RAM performance…

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DVD-RAM writing performance:

The Samsung SH-S203B 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.

Maxell 12x rated DVD-RAM media

As we can see, the Samsung SH-S203B wrote our 12x DVD-RAM media at its maximum rated speed of 12x in 5 minutes and 44 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Samsung SH-S203B can read our test disc.

The Samsung SH-S203B had no problems in reading our test disc at 12x.

We then ran a scandisc to check for errors. As we can see from the above screen shot, there were no errors on the disc.

Maxell 5x rated DVD-RAM media

As we can see, the Samsung SH-S203B wrote our 5x DVD-RAM media at its maximum rated speed of 5x in 11 minutes and 10 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Samsung SH-S203B can read our test disc.

The Samsung SH-S203B had no problems in reading our test disc at 5x.

We then ran a scandisc to check for errors. As we can see from the above screen shot, there were no errors on the disc.

Summary:

The Samsung SH-S203B proved reliable at both reading and writing our test DVD-RAM media. When using 12x media the drive completed a full disc in 5 minutes and 44 seconds, which should be fast enough for every day backups.

To round of this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Samsung SH-S203B on the next page…

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To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on the Samsung SH-S203B. 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 SH-S203B supports everything.

The Samsung SH-S203B 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 SH-S203B is a “Two Sheep Burner” but we note the Samsung SH-S203B also managed to read our Safedisc 2.90 test disc.

Overburning:

900MB (99 minute) over-burn test:

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

The Samsung SH-S203B had no problems in creating our 100 minute CD-R test burn.

700MB (80 minute) over-burn test:

From the screenshot above, the Samsung SH-S203B reported a maximum overburn capacity of 83:28.04. We attempted to burn a disc slightly less than the reported maximum capacity. To be exact we setup a test burn of 82 minutes and 52 seconds.

The Samsung SH-S 203B had no problems in over-burning our 80 minute disc to 82 minutes and 52 seconds.

We then decided to see if the Samsung SH-S203B could read the overburned disc.

As we can see from the above screenshot, the Samsung SH-S203B had no problems in reading 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 SH-S203B does not support overburning on this media type.

DVD-R over-burn test:

We will now try a DVD-R media.

Again the Samsung SH-S203B did not support overburning to the media type.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Samsung SH-S203B is capable of writing and reading mini DVD-RW discs with a capacity of 30 minutes/1.46 GB.

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

The Samsung SH-S203B 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 SH-S203B read our test MINI DVD-RW media without any problems.

Video-CD disc:

For our final test we wanted to see how the Samsung SH-S203B 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 SH-S203B had no problems in reading our Video-CD disc. The reading speed is however locked at 16x.

This concludes our Samsung SH-S203B review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below....

Positive:

• Outstanding writing performance on DVD±R/DL.
• Excellent/very good CD-R/RW writing quality and compatibility.
• Excellent/very good DVD±R/RW writing quality.
• Excellent/Very good DVD±R DL writing quality.
• Can burn selected DVD±R/DL media faster than its rated speed.
• Excellent reading performance and reliability.
• Reads pressed DVD Video SL/DL and recordable media at 16x/12x.
• Supports DVD-RAM read/write at 12x speed.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/RW/DL.
• Supports Disc Quality Scanning with CD-Speed and KProbe.
• Good software bundle.
• Can read/write MINI DVD.
• Can overburn CD-R and read and write 100 minute CD-R

Negative:

• Single coloured read/write LED

 

Conclusion:

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

The main positive points:

The Samsung SH-S203B is the fastest drive we have tested here on CD Freaks as far as writing DVD media is concerned. Being a so called multi-drive, the Samsung SH-S203B supports all of the currently popular CD/DVD formats including DVD-RAM.

The Samsung SH-S203B was able to burn all our tested CD-R/RW media with excellent/very good quality and media compatibility was also very good.

DVD±R/RW writing quality was also of a very high standard and on most media excellent, the Samsung SH-S203B coping with some difficult to handle media extremely well. The Samsung SH-S203B was also able to burn selected DVD±R media at faster than its rated speed, and overall burning performance with DVD±R media was very impressive indeed. Recording the fastest write times we have seen.

The Samsung SH-S203B also proved to be a good performer with DVD-RAM media, again recording some very fast write times with our tested 12x DVD-RAM media.

The Samsung SH-S203B boasts a very fast 16x writing speed on DVD+R DL media, writing a full DL disc in 10 minutes and 33 seconds was most impressive. Not only was the performance excellent, recording the fastest burn times we have seen, but also the writing quality on our tested media was mostly very impressive.

Reading performance and reliability is excellent and a big improvement in speed terms over older Samsung models.

The supplied software bundle should provide a good starting point for new and more advanced users alike.

The main negative points:

There are virtually no negative things to say about the Samsung SH-S203B. If we were being critical, we could say that writing quality could be improved when writing Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media. We could also say some tweaks to a few writing strategies for DVD±R media would be welcome. We are sure this will happen with future firmware updates.

We would also like to see different coloured LED’s being used for read/write.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Samsung SH-S203B is blazing fast, has a great feature set and burns media with excellent/very good quality. An outstanding effort from Samsung”

We were so impressed by the Samsung SH-S203B blazing fast performance, features and writing quality, that we decided to award the drive our prestigious CD Freaks “Editor’s Choice Award”.

By using our price grabber feature cdfreaks.pricegrabber we were unable to find a price listing for the drive.

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

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