Review: Lite-On iHAS524 Reviewed by: Dee Provided by: Lite-On Europe Firmware: BL2J Manufactured: October 2009

Lite-On was kind enough to send us the iHAS524 for review.
In this review we will be seeing how this drive from one the world's best known
optical drive manufacturers performs in our tests.

The Lite-On iHAS524 supports 24x DVD±R, 8x/6x DVD+RW/-RW,
and 8x DVD+R/DL-R DL writing technology, allowing Double/Dual Layer discs of
8.5GB to be written. The Lite-On iHAS524 also supports DVD-RAM reading and
writing at 12x speed, and SmartErase features, and also the first drive we have
tested here at MyCE.com to feature LabelTag.

Company Information

We are sure that most of you know Lite-On already, but for
those of you wishing to find out more, you can read about it on the Lite-On website.

Drive Specifications

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Packaging

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Let's now take a look at the packaging that the drive is
shipped in.

The drive that Lite-On sent was the retail version, and we
can see the package and contents below.

Box front

Box rear

 
Box left and right sides

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 package was the retail version.

The package contained the Lite-On iHAS524, SATA cable,
software disc, instruction manual and fixing screws.

Now let’s take a look at the
drive.

Bezel

The bezel of the Lite-On iHAS524 is nicely styled. We can
also see various logos including LabelTag, which is a feature that the drive supports,
an emergency eject hole, single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of the drive we found one label and we can see
the drive was manufactured in China during October 2009.

On the rear of the drive we can see a SATA power connector
and data connector.

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

 

Test machine

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

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P (Intel X48 chipset)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
• RAM: 8 GB Crucial Balistix Tracer (red) dual channel kit DDR2 800
• GFX: ATI HD 4870 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio controller
• Hard disk OS: OCZ (Indilinx Barefoot) 240GB SSD (RAID 0) array.
• Hard disk storage: 1X 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (SATA 2) - 1x
  1TB Samsung SpinPiont.
• Case: Antec 900
• PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W
• Display: Samsung Syncmaster 245B 24” widescreen LCD (HDCP
  compliant)
• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

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Drive hardware and PCB

Let's first take a look at the internals of the Lite-ON
iHAS524.

Although we can't see the chipset, as it is on the underside
of the PCB, the iHAS524 is powered by a M.T.K. chipset. Interestingly the
iHAS524 mechanics is strikingly similar to Optiarc's AD724x range of optical drives.

System setup:

A screenshot from Nero Infotool 6.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was connected to one of the SATA ports
on the motherboard’s JMicron SATA controller. We used the standard Microsoft
Windows 7 x64 drivers, which seem to work perfectly with optical drives.

A screenshot from Opti Drive Control:

From the screenshot from Opti Drive Control above, we can
see the Lite-On iHAS524 supports the main media groups. The drive came shipped
with firmware version BL2J.

Included software package

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The Lite-ON iHAS524 came supplied with the Nero 8 Essentials
software package, which should provide a good platform for burning your CD-R
and DVD recordable media. This special package also included LabelTag software
and SmartErase software.

Nero 8 Essentials

Note: We installed this software on our review PC, but only
used it to test SmartErase and LabelTag.

Installed software:

For conducting our various tests, we will be using the
following applications.

• Nero Burning
  Rom 9
• Opti Drive Control
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• Nero InfoTool
• DVDFab 6
• Slysoft
  CloneCD
• Exact Audio Copy

Our review PC has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit installed.

Features and techniques

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PI/PIF Disc quality scanning

The Lite-On drives have become famous for Disc Quality
Scanning and the iHAS524 is no exception. The drive can be used with either
Opti Drive Control, CD-Speed/Nero DiskSpeed or K-Probe for disc quality
scanning. In our reviews we always use a CLV scanning method at 4x scanning
speed. Please note, 8x scanning speed has been set as a standard on the CD
Freaks forum.

Opti Drive control

4x CLV scan

8x CAV scan

As well as being able to scan for PI/PIF errors, the Lite-On
iHAS524 is also capable of testing Jitter. You can read a full explanation of
the tests in our explanation at the start of the DVD+R page. 

Nero DiscSpeed

8x CAV scan with Nero
DiscSpeed

BookType (Bitsetting):

The Lite-On iHAS524 supports set and forget bit-setting and
supports Bit-Setting on DVD+R/RW and DL media via burning applications such as
Nero Burning Rom.

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

Start Opti Drive Control and click the Disc info button and
you should get something like this:

DVD+R with BookType
DVD-ROM

DVD+RW with BookType
DVD-ROM

DVD+R DL with BookType
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 Lite-On iHAS524.

For these tests we used Opti Drive Control and wrote a full
disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 48x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses CAV, (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average
speed of 34.70x and a total writing time of 2 minutes and 43 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the fastest
drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 32x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 32X. This
gives an average speed of 22.69x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 51
seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the slowest drives
when writing CD-RW media.

24x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 24x.

DVD+R

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses CAV, (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gives an average
speed of 15.93x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 11 seconds.

DVD-R

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses CAV, (Constant Angular
Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This gives an average
speed of 16.66x and a total writing time of 3 minutes and 55 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

As we can see from our table, the Lite-On iHAS524 was the
fastest drive when writing our test DVD-R media, and also very fast when
writing DVD+R media.

Since the Lite-On iHAS524 is only able to burn a one
DVD+R and one DVD-R at 24x writing speed, we will include a table below of
typical writing speeds you can expect from the iHAS524.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives
an average speed of 7.14x and a total writing time of 8 minutes and 31 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the slowest drives when
writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives
an average speed of 5.63x and a total writing time of 10 minutes and 41 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the slowest drives when
writing DVD-RW media.

12x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 12x. Unfortunately we
had no media that would burn at 12x writing speed, and enabling
"overspeed" although it reported it could burn a disc at 12x, failed
to burn at this speed (see DVD-R DL overspeed writing test below).

We wrote our test disc at 8x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 8X. This gives an average speed of
5.71x and a total writing time of 19 minutes and 6 seconds.

12x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 12x. Unfortunately we
had no media that would burn at 12x writing speed, and enabling
"overspeed" although it reported it could burn a disc at 12x, failed
to burn at this speed (see DVD-R DL overspeed writing test below).

We wrote our test disc at 8x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 8X. This gives an average speed of
5.82x and a total writing time of 18 minutes and 54 seconds.

Overspeed test

The Lite-On iHAS524, like most Lite-On drives allow a media
to be burned faster than its rated speed by enabling "overspeed".

Since we did not have a media that could burn at 12x, we
enabled overspeed and selected 12x as the writing speed. See screenshot below.

As we can see in our above screenshot, although we enabled
overspeed, and selected 12x as the writing speed, our test media didn't reach
12x, in fact it only reached 4x.

For comparison with other recently tested drives, we have
made the following table: 

The Lite-On iHAS524 was about average in writing speed when
writing double layer media.

12x DVD-RAM writing speed

According to the specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524, it
should be able to write DVD-RAM at a maximum speed of 12x.

The Lite-On iHAS524 uses P-CAV, (Partial Constant
Angular Velocity), to write at 12X. This gives an average speed
of 9.76x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 43 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Lite-On iHAS524 was about average when writing our test
DVD-RAM media.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS524 has excellent writing performance on
CD-R media. Writing performance on DVD R media is also extremely fast.

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

Reading performance

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For these tests we will use Opti Drive Control to read
various CD’s
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 Lite-On iHAS524 reached 47.65x read speed. Let’s compare
it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the fastest drives when
reading our test CD-ROM media.

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 Lite-On iHAS524 reached 47.99x read speed. Let’s compare
it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was among the fastest drives in terms of
speed 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 Lite-On iHAS524 reached 40.18x read speed. Let’s compare
it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was about average when reading CD-RW
media.

100 minute CD-R:

The Lite-On iHAS524 had no problems reading our 100 minute
test CD-R, and reached 53.97x reading speed.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the Lite-On
iHAS524, again we used Nero CD-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 Lite-On iHAS524 reached 49.52x when reading our test
audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was one of the fastest drives when
reading our test Audio CD.

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 is excellent and the Lite-On iHAS524
proved to be a fast audio extracting drive.

DVD reading performance:

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Again, we will use Opti Drive Control 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 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 Lite-On iHAS524 is not riplocked and read our single
layer disc at 16x and our double layer test discs at 12x

The Lite-On iHAS524 was about average when reading our test
DVD-Video test discs.

DVD – DVD+R/RW:

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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 Lite-On iHAS524 was above average when reading our test
DVD+R media and about average when reading our test DVD+RW media.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

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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 Lite-On iHAS524 was above average when reading
DVD-R media and about average when reading our test DVD-RW media.

DVD±R DL discs:

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DVD+R DL:

The Lite-On iHAS524 read
our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Lite-On iHAS524 read our DVD-R DL test disc at 12x
reading speed.

DVD-RAM:

The Lite-On iHAS524 read our DVD-RAM disc at 12x using a
P-CAV reading method.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS524 has generally very good DVD reading
performance. CD reading performance is quite simply excellent.

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

The specifications of the Lite-On iHAS524 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:

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For our data writing tests, we simply burned a full disc
using Opti Drive Control (create data disc) function and burned the discs at
the maximum speed allowed.

Write quality:

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We will test CD-R discs from many different CD-R manufacturers.
To really measure the write speed, we used the “create test disc” function in
Opti Drive Control. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive
supports. For the quality test, we used Opti Drive Control Disc Quality
Scan and combined this with a Transfer Rate Test to
test if the resulting disc was readable. Also note that different drives and
different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs.
We used a Optiarc AD7200A drive with firmware 1.09 and scanned the discs at 48X
speed.

There is more than one way to handle C1 and C2 error
detection/correction, but a simple and common way is to detect and correct up
to two errors per frame in each stage and detect three or more errors:

• E11: 1 error detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E21: 2 errors detected and corrected by C1 layer
• E31: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by
  C1 layer

The sum of these (per second) is called the Block Error
Rate: BLER=E11+E21+E31

• E32: 3 or more errors detected but not corrected by
  C2 layer

Any E31 is un-correctable by the C1 layer and will result in
the bytes in that frame being redistributed into multiple frames which are
passed to the C2 layer.

Any E32 is un-correctable by the C2 layer and will result in
interpolation being used for Audio CDs or will result in third layer error
correction being used for Data CDs.

Different drives have different ways of reporting these
errors in a Disc Quality scan.  Lite-On CD-RW drives will report C1 and
C2 errors this way:

• C1=BLER=E11+E21+E31
• C2=E32

Here is an easier way to look at Disc Quality Scanning:

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.

In short, our analysis will be based on this guideline to
determine the quality of the burned disc:

CD-R/RW
quality scans guideline

Below are the obtained results:

A very good result to start our CD-R tests.

The result is very good, although we note that the burn was
slowed down near the end of the disc.

The result is good.

The result is very good, although once again the writing
speed has been reduced near the end of the disc.

The result is very good, but again the writing speed is
reduced, this time quite early on the writing process.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

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The result is ok, but C1 errors are pretty high at the start
of the disc, where the slow Z-CLV writing strategy doesn't really match the
media.

Summary:

CD-R writing quality is generally very good, however, there
was quite a few discs where the writing speed was reduced. CD-RW writing
quality was ok, but could be improved by implementing a fast P-CAV writing
strategy.

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

The specifications of this drive tell us that it should
write DVD±R at 24x 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.

Write quality:

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Disc Quality Scanning -
PI/PO:

DVDs use an error detection and correction system (ECC)
which is usually transparent to the end-user, but we can get an idea of the
"quality" of a disc by performing Disc Quality Scanning, which shows
how many errors the drive is detecting and correcting behind the scenes.

There are two layers or stages of error detection and
correction on all DVD media; these are called Parity Inner (PI) and Parity
Outer (PO). Data is arranged in ECC blocks containing rows and columns of user
data with additional columns of PI error correction and rows of PO error correction.

An ECC block contains 32 KByte of user data with some added
control data, scrambled and arranged in 192 rows and 172 columns with an additional
10 columns of PI error correction and 16 rows of PO error correction.

The Parity Inner stage is performed first, and up to 5 bytes
in a row can be corrected. Any row with one or more errors is counted as a
Parity Inner Error (PIE). Any row with more than 5 errors is considered un-correctable
and is counted as a Parity Inner Failure (PIF).

The Parity Outer stage is performed next and will detect and
attempt to correct any errors that are still left after the PI stage. Any
column that has errors is counted as a Parity Outer Error (POE), and any column
that has un-correctable errors is counted as a Parity Outer Failure (POF). If a
POF occurs the drive can sometimes re-read the problematic spot and correct the
problem; this happens only during normal reading and not during scanning,
however.

Disc Quality scanning is influenced by the drive performing
the test, and that's why different drives report different results and even the
same drive will report (slightly) different results when scanning the same disc
again. Please note that PI/PO and Jitter scans only test some aspects of disc
quality and that other important aspects are not revealed.

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

The scan above shows the results from a pressed, Single
Layer DVD-Video disc (Goldeneye).

The above scan shows the result from a pressed Double Layer
DVD-Video disc (The Green Mile).

The Lite-On DVD burners used in this review report errors
as follows:

• PIE per 8 ECC blocks (rows with 1 or more bytes in error)
• PIF per 1 ECC block (rows with 6 or more bytes in error)

We want to see as low error numbers as possible.
PIE per 8 ECC blocks should be no higher than 280.
PIF per 1 ECC block should be no higher than 4.

Both the pressed DVD-discs above are well within the
standards if we ignore the single PIF spike in the DL scan.

If you want to look at the standards for yourself, 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.

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc
reflectivity, 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
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 an
Optiarc AD-7240S DVD-Writer which by default is able to read DVD±R media at 16x
speed. A small speed reduction near the end is still accepted on good discs,
but serious reading problems or reading failures is a bad sign.

Jitter:

Jitter is
a very complex subject and even more difficult to explain when we start to use
optical drives designed for the home market to measure jitter values.

Let’s
first look at the DVD specification for pressed DVD discs (in the bold part courtesy
of Pioneer Electronics).

“The
DVD design target is that when the worst-case disc allowed by the
specification, considering the economics of production, is played using the
worst-case pickup that can be produced in volume economically, the byte error
rate after error correction will still be 1 x 10-^-20, which is good
enough to be acceptable for computer applications.

Since
the above target is for "after error correction," the error correction
capability must be calculated. Considering the trade-off between error
correction capability and the overhead of the added redundancy, the DVD format
was set to one ECC block per 32 KB. This requires a byte error rate before
correction of 1 x 10^-2.
In order to achieve good economy on both the part of the discs and the playback
mechanisms. The current disc tilt specification was determined as a result of
the efforts on both sides.

As
will be explained hereafter, it is difficult to make the error rate a specification
of the disc itself. Therefore, a jitter standard is set by the DVD
specifications. A simple calculation based on a normal distribution requires
that the jitter rate be under 15.4%, and experimental results indicate that
jitter must be under 16%, to achieve the required error rate. Since the disc
tilt varies within a revolution, it was decided to adopt the design concept
that jitter must remain within 16% at the instantaneous peak value of tilt.
Since it is actually very difficult to measure the peak value, the concept
became to measure the average jitter at under 15%, and the byte error rate at
under 5 x 10-3.”

What is
Jitter?

In basic terms, we could say
jitter is a product of “pit and land distortion” In other words, when the drive
reading the disc has to compensate by means of a “tilt servo” which constantly
tries to move and refocus the PUH lens for optimum tracking and tries to
compensate for the imperfections of pits and lands on the pressed or recordable
media. This is further compounded by the hardware used for recording and
playback. Not only is the record and
replay process limited by the resolution of the optical pickup, it is also
horribly non-linear. In addition, the playback of the pits is subject to
non-linear crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track, and also from pits in
nearby tracks.

The things that causes jitter divide into three main types.

• Variation in pit length and width.
• Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.
• Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

 

Variation in pit length and width.

The recorded pits themselves are not perfectly accurate. Anything which
causes variations in the sizes of the pits will produce jitter. A prime culprit
of this is sudden variations in laser power (laser noise). If laser power varies,
then the laser beam itself changes and will vary in intensity and possibly
focus. This will cause the pit length and width to also vary and we now have
jitter.

Crosstalk from nearby pits in the same track.

If the pits are not totally accurate, then the laser beam spot may
overrun a pit and gather data from the adjacent pit in the same track, or if
the “land” is to short, then the laser beam spot can be influenced by the
adjacent pit and this is called inter-symbol interference. Inter-symbol
interference is worse at low recording velocities, because the pits are shorter
and closer together. And it is the cause of "deviation" of the pit
lengths.

Crosstalk from pits in adjacent tracks.

Crosstalk between pits in adjacent tracks is caused by the laser beam
spot being larger than the width of the track. It is a largely random
contribution and is worse at lower recorded velocities, because the highest
frequency components of the readout signal in the wanted track, with which the
crosstalk is competing, are weaker.

Some
other factors to consider

There are
many aspects to consider when we add Recordable DVD media into the mix. We are
now dealing with an organic dye, which is inherently unstable. We must also
consider the equipment we are using to measure jitter is aimed at the home
market. So we must also take into account variations between drives that we are
unable to calibrate for such tests.

Now let’s
look at some of the hardware limitations of the drives we are using to measure
jitter.

If there
is no tilt, then the jitter value includes components from light source noise,
circuit noise, disc noise, standard interference between symbols (inter -symbol
interference), and some small amount of crosstalk from the neighbouring tracks.

Next we
consider manufacturing variation in the circuitry.
Variation due to the circuitry have noise-like characteristics, and increase
the minimum jitter level, but are thought to have a very small effect on tilt
margin. Factors such as offset in the servo circuit, however, both increase the
jitter level and decrease tilt margin.

How we
will measure jitter.

We will be
using a Lite-On DVD writer to conduct these tests along with Opti Drive Control
at 4x scanning speed. In the screen
shot below we can see a PI/PIF scan including a jitter test (the purple graph
in the lower window) we carried out on a single layer DVD+R media.

Now, let's
find a reasonable average jitter level. Experimental results indicate that 8% average
value or less is a desirable figure, based on the DVD specification. That does
not mean that jitter average values above 8% are bad. In fact, many optical
drives will quite happily read recordable DVD media with jitter values of more
than 14% average without any problems. Other drives, including standalone DVD
players may begin to struggle reading discs with average jitter values above
10%. So there is a fairly wide range of acceptable values. One must test their own
playback devices to see what they can cope with.

However,
for the purpose of having a basic guideline we can use in our reviews, we
present a rating system for average jitter values.

·        
Less than 8% (average) = Very good

·        
8% - 9% (average) = good

·        
9% - 12% (average) = average

·        
Above 12% (average) = poor

Here is an easier explanation on how to read the test results

Maybe this got too technical, and you are wondering what to
look for in your Nero DiscSpeed/CD-Speed Quality Scans?

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.

·        
Jitter: An average jitter value of 8% or less is considered very
good. You should not worry too much if the average value is slightly above this
figure.

And as always; lower is better

DVD+R media compatibility and write quality:

---

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with
firmware 4L18 along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc quality. We
will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.03 along with Opti
Drive Control for our read-back tests.

An excellent result, PI and PIF errors are low and jitter at
8.20% average is very nice.

The result is good and the burn time was very fast, but 24x will
be just too fast for most media.

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

There is a cluster of PI errors between 2GB and 3GB, nothing
too serious and the burn 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.

The result is simply excellent.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS524 burns DVD+R media with generally very
good to excellent quality. The iHAS524 is also a fast writer, turning in some
very fast times for 16x burns.

On our tested DVD+RW media, writing quality was excellent.

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

DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

---

In these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS422 with
firmware 4L18 along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc quality. We
will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.03 along with Opti
Drive Control for our read-back tests.

The result is excellent considering the media was burned at
24x.

The result is excellent.

PIF errors are extremely low, although the average PI errors
are a little high, the result is still excellent.

Jitter is a
little high, other than this the result is very good.

The
result is very 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 Lite-On iHAS524 burns DVD-R media with generally
excellent/very good quality, and the burn times are fast, even at 16x writing
speed.

On our tested DVD-RW media, writing quality was very good.

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

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

---

The Lite-On iHAS524 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.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we wrote a full disc with Opti Drive Control.
We then used the Lite-On along with Opti Drive Control to test the disc’s
quality; we then finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7240S using
Opti Drive Control.

PI and PIF errors are all very much under control, jitter is
also well under control, and the result is excellent.

DVD-R DL:

PI errors and the jitter average are pretty high but within
specification, PIF errors are low and we have a perfect read-back test. The
result is good, but we do however feel there is some room for improvement.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS524 writing quality on our tested DVD+R DL
media was excellent, and our tested DVD-R DL media return a good result.
Generally there is nothing to worry about with DVD±R DL writing quality and
performance.

Now let's look at DVD-RAM writing performance on the next
page....

 

DVD-RAM writing performance:

---

The Lite-ON iHAS524 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. Let 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 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”. This
means 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 formats.

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 disc 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 Lite-On iHAS524 wrote our 12x DVD-RAM
media at its maximum rated speed of 12x in 5 minutes and 43 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Lite-On iHAS524 can read our test disc.

There was a slowdown in our read-back test, but I would like
to point out that this disc is old and worn, and this could be the reason for
the slowdown. Unfortunately I can't find a source for this media to replace it.

We then ran a CD-Speed’s Scandisc function to check the disc
for errors.

As we can see, the disc has no errors.

Verbatim 5x rated DVD-RAM media

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS524 wrote our 5x DVD-RAM
media at its rated speed of 5x in 11 minutes and 9 seconds.

Now let’s see if the Lite-On iHAS524 can read our test disc.

The Lite-On iHAS524 had no problems in reading our test disc
at 5x.

We then ran a CD-Speed’s Scandisc function to check the disc
for errors.

As we can see, the disc has no errors.

Summary:

There were no problems to report with DVD-RAM and our tested
media, other than what we suspect was a damaged 12x DVD-RAM media.

Now let's head to the special features page where we will
check out LabelTag and SmartErase.....

Special Features

---

On this page we will check out the special features that the
drive has to offer. In the case of the Lite-On iHAS524, we look at SmartErase.

SmartErase

---

SmartErase is feature that will destroy any data on
recordable CD or DVD. It does this by overwriting the disc with meaningless
data to destroy any data that is present on the disc. The resulting disc should
be rendered useless and unreadable.

We check out the feature below.

When the SmartErase application is opened, it will list all
drives in your system that support the feature. In this case our two Lite-On drives
support this feature.

As we can see there are two options.

• Quick Erase
• Full Erase

We chose the "full erase" option.

Once the disc has been erased, a popup confirms that the
erase process has been successful.

Summary:

SmartErase worked perfectly and none of our tested discs
were in any way readable after a SmartErase had been performed on the disc.

LabelTag

---

LabelTag is a new feature introduced in the Lite-On iHAS524.
LabelTag can write text or an image to the data side of a DVD R or CD-R media,
and co-exists with the normal data track on the DVD R/CD-R media.

The LabelTag software that allows you to design the text for
burning to the DVD R/CD-R media is supplied on the software disc that comes
with the Lite-On iHAS524.

Let's take a look at what can be done with LabelTag.

CD-R

Let's look at our design for CD-R media in the screenshot
below.

The first thing you will notice when looking at the dye on a
partially written CD-R media is, there is not much of a contrast between the
written part and the blank part of the media. CD-R dye tends to be very light,
therefore contrast is low between the written and unwritten parts of the disc.

Let's see how the resulting disc looks.

Writing the design to the disc along with a small amount of
data files.

The first thing we will notice is the amount of time taken
to write the label. The complete process took 10 minutes and 27 seconds.

Now let's look at the quality. Note: we scanned our
resulting disc with a flatbed scanner, which obviously displays some problems
with scanning highly reflective material.

Even taking into consideration that our flatbed scanner has
problems with highly reflective material, the result is very poor, and even to
the naked eye, it is very difficult to read the image burned onto the test CD-R
media.

DVD R

Let's look at our design for DVD R media in the screenshot
below.

DVD R dye has a much higher contrast between the written and
unwritten parts of the disc, so should perform a lot better than our tested
CD-R. Let's find out.

Once again, the process of writing the LabelTag image takes
some time to complete, in this case, 21 minutes and 31 seconds.

Now let's look at the resulting image.

Taking into consideration the problems that our flatbed
scanner has with highly reflective material, the resulting LabelTag image is
very easy to read, and looks even better with the naked eye.

Summary

LabelTag can produce excellent results with DVD R media, but
with CD-R media the result can be very difficult to read. Then there is the
time taken to actually write the image. To be fair, people will generally fill
the disc with more data than we have with our tests, and therefore the time
taken to write the LabelTag image will be reduced.

LabelTag is a nice idea, but I just wonder how many people
will actually use this feature past the novelty stage.

One thing that you should also keep in mind about LabelTag.
Once a label is written, the disc is closed and no further writing can take
place.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with
some real world and advanced tests....

Author’s page:

---

Introduction:

On this page, the author of the review has the freedom to
run tests that she/he thinks will enhance the review. These tests are unlike
our standard tests, which we try to keep consistent throughout the whole review
team, so that our reviews are as consistent as possible. This page gives the
reviewer the opportunity to show some advanced and real world tests that other
review team members may not be able to run.

Real World tests:

---

Real world tests are designed to simulate what normal users
might use their drives for in everyday use. For example, writing discs with a
burning application.

Audio Extraction:

For this test we used EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to test the
drive’s Audio extraction performance. As we can see from the screenshot below,
the drive supports accurate stream, C2 error info.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Lite-On iHAS524 performed extremely well in burst mode
but, was a little slower in secure mode, but none the less, was faster than
most of our tested drives.

Nero Burning Rom:

In the following tests we
will burn discs from the main media groups with Nero Burning Rom.

CD-R:

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 Lite-On iHAS524 burned our test CD-R at 48x in 3 minutes
and 18 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was about average when writing our test
CD-R.

DVD R:

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.

The Lite-On iHAS524 burned our test DVD R at 24x in 3 minutes
and 55 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was the fastest drive when writing our
test DVD R media.

DVD DL:

In this test we will measure the time for writing to DVD R
DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to burn an ISO DVD-Video compilation
containing 8103MB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once write method.

The Lite-On iHAS524 burned our test DVD R DL at 8x in 18
minutes and 59 seconds.

Let’s compare with other drives in our table below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was below average when writing our test
DVD+R DL media

Standalone DVD-Player compatibility test:

We only have 1 standalone DVD-Recorder available to test the
DVD+R DL media (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
• Sony PS3

Compatibility result

All our DVD Standalone devices played the DVD+R DL media
burned by the Lite-On iHAS524 without any problems.

Only two of our DVD Standalone devices would play the Lite-On
iHAS524 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 Lite-On
iHAS524 or media format used.

CSS Encrypted DVD-Video ripping tests:

Most modern DVD burners don’t have Video riplock and in most
cases will read a pressed DVD-Video SL disc at 16x speed. However, some drives
use a CSS riplock when it comes to extracting data from the disc. If you
attempt to rip a pressed DVD-Video with CSS encryption to your hard drive, then
the ripping speed may be locked at a much lower speed than 16x.

To test this feature, we needed a reference from a drive
that we know does not employ CSS riplock. We choose the Optiarc AD-7240S as a
reference drive for this purpose and ripped a SL and DL pressed DVD-Video to
our hard drive using DVDFab Platinum (full disc option).

We should point out, that ripping and compressing a DL
DVD-Video disc to DVD 5 format is quite CPU intensive. The more power your
system has, the less likely your system power will affect the results. The PC
used in this review is equipped with a fast Intel Quad Core processor and fast
hard drives, in our case an OCZ Vertex SSD. We checked to make sure our review
PC was not having an impact on the results.

For this test we will use Fengtao software DVDFab. Thanks to
Fengtao software – For providing a full
DVDFab license.

Below we can see our reference results.

DVD-Video Single layer

SL CSS encrypted DVD
Video disc “Goldeneye” (Optiarc AD-7240S reference result)

Time taken = 4m:34s

DVD-Video double layer

DL CSS encrypted DVD
Video disc “The Green Mile” (Optiarc AD-7240S reference result)

Time taken = 11m:36s

Now let’s test the Lite-On iHAS524 using the same testing
procedures.

SL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (Goldeneye):

The Lite-On iHAS524 is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test
DVD-Video SL disc in 4 minutes and 41 seconds.

DL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (The Green Mile):

The Lite-On iHAS524 is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test
DVD-Video DL disc in 11 minutes and 23 seconds.

To compare with other drives, we present the table below.

The Lite-On iHAS524 was extremely fast when ripping our tested
DVD-Video media.

Advanced tests:

---

To round off this review, we will run some advanced tests on
the Lite-On iHAS524. 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 found here.

In the screenshot below taken from CloneCD, we see the Lite-On
iHAS524 supports everything.

The Lite-On iHAS524 supports DAO-RAW96 recording mode, which
basically means, it can write uncorrected data and sub-channel data.

As we can see from the results, the Lite-On iHAS524 is a two
sheep burner.

Overburning CD-R:

We tested the Lite-On iHAS524 to see if it could overburn
CD-R media. The results are below.

700MB (80 minute) over-burn test:

The Lite-On iHAS524 reported a maximum overburn capacity of
83:18.47. We then setup a test burn with CD-Speed of slightly less than maximum
and burned the disc, 82:49.57 to be exact.

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS524 failed at the end of the
burn, and the resulting disc was unreadable.

MINI DVD discs:

In this section we are going to test if the Lite-On iHAS524 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 Lite-On iHAS524 had no problems in writing our test mini
DVD-RW disc. Now let’s check if the Lite-On iHAS524 can also read back our test
disc.

The Lite-On iHAS524 read back our test mini DVD-RW disc
without any problems.

Video-CD disc:

For our final test we wanted to see how the Lite-On iHAS524 would
read a Video-CD, for this test we created a Video-CD with Nero Burning ROM 9,
and used NERO DiskSpeed to read the disc back. Below is our result:

The Lite-On iHAS524 had no problems in reading our test VCD
and also read the disc at 46x reading speed.

This concludes our Lite-On iHAS524 review. To read the
conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• Generally good/excellent DVD±R/RW writing quality and
  performance.
• Excellent DVD+R DL writing quality
• Generally very good CD-R/RW writing quality.
• Can burn selected DVD±R media faster than its rated speed.
• Excellent CD and DVD reading performance and reliability.
• Reads pressed DVD Video SL/DL and recordable media at
  16x/12x.
• Supports BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/RW/DL.
• Supports Disc Quality Scanning.
• Supports SmartErase.
• Excellent third party support here on MyCE.com.
• Very quiet at 24x writing speed.
• Can read and write mini DVD media.
• Supports LabelTag direct to disc labelling.

Negative:

• DVD-R DL writing quality could be improved.
• LabelTag on CD-R was difficult to read.

Conclusion:

---

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

The main positive points

The Lite-On iHAS524 is a fast drive as far as writing CD-R
and DVD±R media is concerned, recording some of the fastest times on CD-R and DVD±R
discs burned in our reviews.

The Lite-On iHAS524 wrote our tested DVD±R media with
generally excellent quality

The Lite-On iHAS524 is a feature rich drive, with SmartErase
and LabelTag adding to the drive’s appeal.

Reading performance and reliability was excellent. The iHAS524
would make an excellent CD-Audio and DVD-Video ripper.

Lite-On Disc Quality Scanning has become legendary here on
MyCE.com and the iHAS524 will not disappoint in this department.

Our retail drive was also supplied with Nero Essentials 8,
and should be very capable of meeting most people's media burning requirements.

LabelTag on our tested DVD R media is excellent, and very
easy to read.

The main negative points

Not many negative points to the Lite-On iHAS524 at all. On
our tested DVD-R DL media, the writing quality could be improved.

LabelTag on CD-R was not really of useable quality, and was
very difficult to see with the naked eye. Not a fault with the iHAS524, more to
do with the dye used on CD-R media.

We had the debate before about 24x DVD R writing speeds. The
fact is, the Lite-On iHAS524 can write at 24x, but unfortunately as with other
optical drive manufacturers, it can only do this on one DVD+R media, and one
DVD-R media. As of now, there is no 24x certified media available.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“A great feature set and not too many negative points,
the Lite-On iHAS524 is generally an excellent drive”

Because of the good feature set and generally good writing
quality across the main media groups, we decided to award the Lite-On iHAS524 our
MyCE “Safe Buy” award, and the drive received an editor rating of excellent.

You may comment on this review below.

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