Review: LiteON eHBU212 Reviewed by: Vroom Provided by: Liteon Firmware: RL15 Manufactured: March 2011

Liteon was kind enough to send
us the eHBU212 USB3 external Blu-ray writer for review. The drive supports 12x
Blu-ray writing and 8x reading, in addition, this drive also supports DVD+R/DL
/RW 16x/8x/8x, DVD-R/DL/RW 16x/8x/6x DVD-RAM 12x and CD-R/RW 48x/24x writing
and 48x reading for CD-R/RW and 16x DVD±R/RW. For more information about the
eHBU212 and Liteon you can visit their website by clicking this link.

Drive
Specifications

---

Let’s start first
by showing the full specifications of the drive as they appear on the Liteon
website.

Drive
Specifications

---

Nice and stylish,
the black drive with the white outline on the front and the left side of the
drive gives a different style that separates the drive from the majority of
black external cases. The drive has the usual logos, a green LED, the emergency
eject hole and the eject button.

On the rear of the
drive there is the USB3 port, the power in socket and the on/off switch.

On the Sidebottom
of the drive we can see the model of the drive, serial number and the
manufacturing date (March 2011).

The front side of the box.

Rear of the box.

The left and right side of the box.

Inside the box
there is the drive, a USB3 cable, the application software disc, a quick user
guide and an AC adapter.

The Liteon eHBU212is supplied with CyberLink’s BD Solution v6 and
includes the following applications.

• PowerDVD 8
• PowerProducer 5
• PowerDirector 7
• Power2Go 6
• PowerBackup 2
• Label print 2

Software install screen.

Now let’s move to
the reading performance of the drive...

Before I start my reading tests I need to
give some info about the test PC and the software that I will be using for this
review.

Test machine

---

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

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte P55-UD4
• Processor: Intel i5 750 @ 3.4Ghz
• RAM: 2 x 2GB Corsair Dominator PC-12800
• GFX: ATI 5670 1024MB GDDR5
• Sound: Onboard Realtek
• Hard disk
  OS: OCZ Vertex2 64GB
• Hard disk
  (Storage): Samsung HD103UJ 1TB
• PSU: Chieftec 500W
• Display: Fujitsu Siemens 22”
• Operating
  System: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 with all
  the updates up to 27/9/2011 (64 bit)

System Setup

The Liteon eHBU212
was connected to a USB3 port and was identified as CD-ROM drive. However as we
can see at the top of the screenshot the drive is identified correctly as an eHBU212.
The same behaviour occurred when the drive was connected to a USB2 port, and in
Windows device manager the drive was again recognized as CD-ROM Drive.

As we can see from
the screenshot the drive has 8MB buffer and it came shipped with RL15 firmware.
The drive supports all CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW/DL and BD-R/RE formats.

Installed
Software:

• Nero Multimedia
  suite 10 (with all the updates up to 27/9/2011)
• Nero CD/DVD
  speed
• Opti Drive
  Control
• DVDFab 8
• Exact Audio Copy
• ImgBurn

Read performance tests

Reading is a very
important function, especially if you use an external drive. So here I will run
some tests to give an idea of how fast the drive can perform when reading CDs
DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.

CD Reading

---

CD-ROM

For the first test
I will be using a CD-ROM disk that is close to 800MB.

The drive was able
to reach the 47.33x with our test media, and that is a very good result for an
external drive.

The Liteon eHBU212
is close to the top when it comes to reading CD media.

CD-R

A copy of the
original disk was made into a JVC 48x CD-R for the next test.

Again the eHBU212 had no issues reaching 48x speed
with our test media.

Again we can see
that the eHBU212 is clearly one of the fastest drives with CD-R media.

CD-RW

For the final test I made another copy of
the original disc, this time on a Verbatim 4x CD-RW.

With CD-RW media the drive was able to
reach the speed of 40.08x and that is also a good result.

When it comes to CD-RW media clearly the
Liteon eHBU212 is one of the fastest drives that can be found these days.

AUDIO – Digital audio extraction

To test the speed of the digital audio
extraction of the drive I used an original CD that was close to 79 minutes long.

The Liteon eHBU212 had no problems reaching
48x speeds when it came to reading digital audio.

Finishing all the CD tests by performing
the DAE test (Digital Audio Extraction) we can see that
the eHBU212 is the fastest drive. We can easily say that the overall performance
of the drive it’s close to excellent when it come to CD reading.

DVD Reading performance

---

In the following tests I will be testing
the read capabilities of the drive with various DVD media, DVD±R/RW Double layer
media and pressed discs.

Pressed DVD

DVD
Video (Single layer)

DVD
Video (Double Layer)

The first impression that we get is that
the Liteon eHBU212 is not riplocked and it has no issues reaching speeds of 12x
on dual layer disc and 16x with single layer discs.

The eHBU212 is doing an outstanding job
reading pressed discs, and it’s no surprise that the drive is again among the
fastest drives.

DVD+R /RW

---

For this test I will be using a 16x +R
Verbatim disc and an 8x +RW Verbatim disc. Below are the results.

DVD+R

DVD+RW

Again we continue with positive results on
+R and +RW media.

Once again we see that the eHBU212 is among
the fastest drives when it come to reading +R/RW media, with speeds up to 16x
for +R and 12x for +RW.

DVD-R/RW

---

Again I used a 16x Verbatim disc and a 6x
Verbatim RW disc. Below are the results.

DVD-R

DVD-RW

Again we can see that the Liteon eHBU212
can reach speeds of 16x for –R and 12x for –RW media.

Outstanding performance with –R/RW media
and also high read speeds.

DVD±R DL

---

For the final test I used a DVD+R DL 8x
Verbatim disc and a 4x DVD-R DL disc from verbatim. Below are the results.

DVD+R
DL

Very good results for DVD+R DL media.

DVD-R
DL

A very good result for DVD-R DL media.

Blu-Ray Reading performance

---

BD SL

For my first
test I selected a SL BD-ROM movie, Underworld. Below you can see the result.

BD DL

For my next test I used a DL BD disc with
the movie Quantum of Solace. Below you can see the result.

Below we can see the results on some of the
drives that I have tested in the past.

We can clearly see that the eHBU212 is the
fastest drive out there, and remember we are talking about an external USB3
drive.

BD-R

For my first test I used a Verbatim –R SL
disc, below is the result.

The eHBU212 was
able to reach 8x speed in 15 minutes and 32 seconds.

BD-RE

For the next test
a 2x Verbatim –RE disc was used, below is the result.

Again the eHBU212
is showing a very solid performance with all kinds of media.

Now let’s start
our CD-R burning tests ...

CD-R/RW writing performance

---

According to the specifications the Liteon
eHBU212 should be able to reach 48x with CD-R media and 24x with CD-RW media.
So let's find out how the drive will perform with the test media that I have,
and also see the quality of the burns.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

---

Write quality:

I will be testing various
CD-R discs from different manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, I used
the “create data CD” function in Nero CD-DVD Speed. The discs are written at
the maximum speed that the drive supports, and for the quality test, I used Nero
CD-DVD speed Disc Quality and combined this with a Transfer
Rate Test to see if the resulting disc was readable. Also note
that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results
obtained when scanning the discs. I used an Optiarc AD-7200A drive with
firmware 1.09 for TRT and DQ, I 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. 

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.

An
excellent result for the JVC media to start my test, zero C2 errors and C1
errors are within limits.

---

Another excellent
result again. This time from the Phillips media, zero C1 errors and a perfect
TRT.

As we can see the
the eHBU212 continues producing excellent burn results on CD-R media. For some reason
the drive didn't want to burn the disc at the certified speed, and slowed down
to 32x.

The last disc that
I used, was an Intenso printable, again the drive didn't want to reach the maximum
speed and slowed down to 32x. This time the result is good for this media.

CD-RW writting
quality

The result is
excellent for a rewritable disc.

Summary:

The Liteon eHBU212
can write at a maximum speed of 48x/24x, and I can say that the drive is one of
the fastest at writing CD-R discs, and simply fast when it comes to CD-RW. However,
the writing quality is simply close to excellent in most cases.

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

Write quality:

---

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-7200A 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, 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 Nero
CD-Speed 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 disc.

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 I
will be using a Lite-On iHAS624 with firmware GL27 Nero CD-DVD speed to measure
the disc quality. I will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware 1.09
along with Nero CD-DVD speed for the read-back tests.

As it was
expected, outstanding results from this excellent media.

We continue with
an excellent result, the rise of the PIF and Jitter at the end are not an
issue, and the perfect TRT is there to prove it.

Again I am happy
to present another outstanding result from excellent media.

Another excellent
result, this time from the JVC media.

This is the first
result that isn't excellent or outstanding. There might be some room for
improvement in future firmware releases but overall the disc was perfectly
readable.

A very good result
for the TDK media, everything is within limits, and the disc has a perfect TRT.

DVD+RW media and writing quality

---

The drive produced
a very good result with this heavily used rewriteable media.

Summary

The overall performance of the Liteon
eHBU212 is excellent on DVD+R media, and also very good with DVD+RW media. All
test discs had perfect Transfer rate tests.

Now lets move to the DVD-R/RW tests…

DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

---

An excellent
result, everything is within limits and also the TRT is perfect.

A good result to
continue with our tests, PIE errors and jitter are higher but this doesn’t
affect the TRT.

Not a great
result, PIF errors are extremely high. Jitter and PIE levels are okay and the
disc finished the TRT test without any issues. Unfortunately this burn can only
be taken as poor.

Another good
result, but I can say that I was hoping for a better result from this media.

Again we have a
very good result, PIE errors are slightly higher again but within limits. Also
the disc has a perfect TRT.

This result is outstanding
for a heavily used rewritable disc.

Summary

The performance of the Liteon eHBU212 is
very good with DVD-R media, and outstanding when it come to DVD-RW media. Some
improvements should be made lower the PIE errors on DVD-R other than that we
had zero issues with our test media.

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

---

At the end of the
disc can see that the errors are increasing but we had no issues reading the
disc, a very good result.

The result is excellent,
PIE errors are within limits, Jitter level is low and the TRT test had no
slowdowns. Not much more to ask from this media.

---

Summary:

The eHBU212burned our test DVD±DL media with very good/excellent
quality and I had no issues with the TRT tests.

Let’s head on
to the next page, where we test BD-R/RE writing performance....

An Introduction to Blu-Ray

---

Until recently, optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R,
DVD±RW and DVD-RAM relied on a red laser to read and write data, the Blu-Ray
format uses a blue-violet laser, which explains the name Blu-ray.

A blue-violet laser (405nm) has a shorter wavelength than a red
laser (650nm); this makes it possible to focus the laser with even greater
accuracy. This allows data to be packed more tightly, so it's possible to
squeeze more data on the disc even though it's the same physical size as a
CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 enables
Blu-ray discs to hold 25GB/50GB.

Blu-ray drives can also be made backwards compatible with CDs and
DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

Now let’s take a look at the track pitch and compare them with
that of DVD

As
we can see in the above screenshots, the storage density of Blu-ray is much
higher than DVD. The Blu-ray laser beam spot is also much narrower than that of
DVD.

Blu-Ray Error specification:

In
the above table we present some of the specifications for reported errors on
Blu-ray media. At present we have no equipment or software available for
measuring these errors.

BD-R writing tests

---

The
specifications of the eHBU212 state that the drive is able to write BD-R at
12x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

Reviewers
note: We had no media that was supported at 12x on theeHBU212, and also we
weren’t able to burn faster than the rated speed of the media. All disc quality
tests were done at maximum speed.

BD-R 25GB

For
this test we used Nero Disc Speed to create our test disc.

Not a great result
to start. The selected burn speed was 6x but it slowed down to 4x, and quality
scan of the disc was average. The only positive is the perfect TRT. Anyway I am
left with mixed feelings, firstly because of the quality of the burn and secondly
by the speed of the burn.

---

BD-R LTH Type 2x

With the LTH disc everything looks much
better, and again the TRT is perfect.

BD-RE 2x

With the RE media
the results are even better from the LTH disc. Everything looks okay and there
is also a perfect TRT.

TDK BD-RE 2x

Finishing my BD
tests with this TDK –RE media I can say that the result is good, and there is
also a perfect TRT to finish my tests.

Summary

Mixed feelings again, this time I won’t
just say that it’s the media to blame. I believe that the software has a role in
all this, ODC hasn’t been updated for quite some time, and nero CD-DVD speed is
too old. For the moment I have to say that the overall performance is good.

Now let's do
some real world 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 comparable
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 I am using Exact Audio Copy
(EAC) to test the drive’s extraction ability. As we can see the drive supports
Accurate Stream, Audio Cache and C2 errors.

Below are the test results for Burst and
Secure rip. The test disc that I used was close to 79 minutes.

Secure
mode

Burst
mode.

The Liteon eHBU212 has very good
performance when ripping audio CD’s and it can reach 48x in burst mode. When it
comes to Secure mode the drive was only able to reach 11x.

DVDFab 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.

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

Now let’s test the
Liteon eHBU212 using the same testing procedures

DVD

Single
Layer Disc

Double
Layer Disc

The Liteon eHBU212 is not riplocked and
it’s able to rip a Double layer DVD in 10 minutes and 3 Seconds.

BD-ROM

Single
layer BD disc.

Double
layer BD disc.

Again the eHBU212 was very fast, the drive
ripped a SL disc in 15 minutes and 38 seconds and a DL disc at 31 minutes and 7
seconds.

Burn test

---

For the next test I will be burning an
audio CD using nero 10.  For this test I used a Lightscribe CD-R from Verbatim,
and the disc was also slightly overburned (80min. 06sec.).

2 minutes
and 47seconds for an audio CD-R burned at 48x.

For the next two tests I used a Verbatim
DVD, a Double Layer +R disc and a single layer +R DVD. Below are the results.

5 minutes
and 44 seconds for a data DVD+R

19 minutes
and 29 seconds for a data DVD+R DL

Blu-Ray SL tests.

For my final test I used a Philips SL 4x
BD-R disc, I used ImgBurn to burn the disc, you may ask why ImgBurn and not
nero? If you remember I had some issues with the burn speed on my previous
tests, so I needed software that was able to display the burn and the Transfer
rate graph. For this test I have also disabled the Smart-Burn function that Liteon
drives support, and went ahead and burnt the disc at the maximum speed available,
in my case for this media it was 8x. Below are the results.

As we can see from the burn graph there
were no slowdowns in the recording speed. It took 12 minutes and 24 seconds to
record 22.39GB of data.

As we can also see the drive didn’t have
any issues verifying the recorder data and that took was 15 minutes and 32
seconds. The disc has a perfect TRT up to 8x.

I also did a Disc Quality test, using the Liteon
eHBU212, as we can see the result looks very good.

This finishes our tests on the Liteon
eHBU212. To read the conclusion click on the link below.

Conclusion

Positive:

• USB3 Drive
• ON/OFF switch on the back
• The drive is not riplocked
• Very good CD-R/RW burn quality
• Excellent DVD+R burn quality, and very
  good with DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media
• Very good burn quality burns on all –R
  media
• Fast audio extraction
• You can change the booktype on all +R
  media
• Good community support here at MyCE
• Very good build quality
• Lightscribe

Negative:

• Burn speeds weren’t as expected with our
  test media
• Very aggressive settings on Smart-Burn
  technology, reduces the burn speed.

Summary

This is the first optical USB3 drive that
MyCE has tested and I can say that the result is impressive. As expected there
is some room for improvement, but I'll give some more info about that later.
The eHBU212 is a very good drive, it’s fast for audio extraction and also
reading data CDs. When it come to DVDs the drive is able to reach 16x speed,
and also the eHBU212 has no riplock.

The Liteon eHBU212 can produce very good
burns on CD-R and CD-RW media. The same applies to DVD-R/RW and double layer media, the performance of the
drive is close to excellent when it come to DVD+R/RW media and very good with
DVD+R DL media.

The drive has
everything that you might need on a Blu-Ray burner starting with Lightscribe and
has almost every technology that Liteon has developed over the years, it would
be fun if we could also have LabelTag.

In the limited
time that I could test the drive and with limited high speed BD-R media I came
across some things that could have been done differently, at least that was my
conclusion. For example, the very aggressive Smart-Burn. It simply slowed down
the drive, and unfortunately that didn’t allow the drive to give the best burn.
You only need to look on the Verbatim BD-R 6x and the overspeed Phillips 4x
media, the difference in the result is huge. Again I will put this down to Smart-Burn,
but I didn’t have more media to test, but that is the main thing that Liteon should
look at. Also it would be nice to have some overspeed on Verbatim media.

“The Liteon
eHBU212 has very good performance in almost every aspect, therefore I give it the
very good rating and the safe buy editor's award”

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

 

 

Thanks
to:

---