Review: Lite-On eSEU206 Reviewed by: vroom Provided by: Lite-On NL Firmware: UL14 Manufactured: April 2011

If you are using a
netbook you learn to appreciate the all the benefits that you can get from that
platform, however there may come a time that you need to burn an audio or an
mp3 CD which is the first disadvantage of a netbook. The easiest solution is to
get a portable USB powered optical drive. In this review I will be taking a
closer look at the eSEU206 BD Combo drive from Lite-On. The eSEU206
is a USB2 slimdrive that can read Blu-Ray discs at 6x, burn CD-R/RW at 24/24
and write on DVD±R at 8x, DVD+RW at 8x, DVD-RW at 6x and on DVD-RAM media at
5x.

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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Here we can see
the specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206 slimdrive, as they appear on the Lite-On
website.

Packaging

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Now let's 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

 

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.

The retail package
contained the Lite-On eSEU206, split Y USB cable, software disc, and
instruction manual.

Now let’s take a look at the drive.

Drive front

The front of the Lite-On
eSEU206 has the DVD+R, DVD-R logos on the left side, in the middle there's the Blu-ray
logo, the green LED, and the eject button.On the right side there is the
emergency eject hole, the LightScribe logo and the Compact disc logo.

Drive rear

At the back of the
drive there is only the USB connection.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On the bottom of
the drive we can see the labels with all the info, and also we can see that the
drive is manufactured on April 2011 in China.

A quick look at the optical system of the eSEU206.

Now let’s head
to the next page where we 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-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55 chipset)
• Processor:
  Intel i7 750
• RAM: 8 GB
  Kingston dual channel kit DDR3 
• GFX: ATI HD
  5670 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Hard disk OS:
  OCZ Vertex 2 64GB
• Hard disk storage: Samsing Spinpoint F1 1TB
• PSU: Chieftec
  500W
• Display: FujitsuSiemens
  22”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Premium (64 bitSystem setup:

The Lite-On eSEU206
was connected to a USB2 port on our test PC. The drive came shipped with
firmware version UL14.

Included software package

---

The Lite-On eSEU206
came supplied with CyberLink BD Solution v.6 that has PowerDVD 10 BD,
PowerProducer 5, PowerDirector 7, Power2Go 6, PowerBackup 2 and LabelPrint 2. A
good multimedia platform for all your needs.

BD Solution v6

Note: We did not
install this software on our review notebook or test it.

Installed software:

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

• Nero Burning Rom 11
• Nero DiscSpeed
• Exact Audio Copy
• Opti Drive Control
• DVDFab

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The Lite-On eSEU206
supports bitsetting and is capable of writing DVD+R/RW DL media with the DVD-ROM
book type.

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

Start Nero
DiscSpeed, click the Disc info button and you should see something like this:

DVD+R DL with BookType DVD-ROM.

As we can see from the above picture the Bitsetting
can be changed manually using the EEPROM Utility or you can do that from your
burning software.

Disc Quality Scanning

The Lite-On eSEU206
can be used along with Opti Drive Control or Nero CD-DVD Speed for Disc Quality
Scanning.

The drive is able
to scan for PIE and PIF errors also it supports Jitter on DVD R/RW media, and
C1 and C2 errors on CD-R/RW media.

Blu-Ray Disc Quality Scan

The drive is capable of performing disc quality scans
on Blu-ray media.

DVD+R Disc Quality Scan

As we can see the
eSEU206 has no issues scanning our test DVD.  

CD-R Disc Quality Scan

We scanned our
test CD-R media at the maximum speed the drive would allow, which was 24x. Unfortunately
we can't compare this result with the results obtained using our Optiarc AD-7200A,
but again this a useful feature to have.

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to
take a closer look at the write technology used by the Lite-On eSEU206.

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

CD Recordable:

According to the
specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206, it should be able to write CD-R media at
a maximum speed of 24x.

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 17.83x and
a total writing time of 5 minutes and 7 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

As we can see, the
Lite-On eSEU206 is one of the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the
specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206, it should be able to write CD-RW media
at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 14.49x and a total writing
time of 6 minutes and 6 seconds.

For comparison we
have made the following table: 

As we can see the
eSEU206 is the second fastest drive we have tested with CD-RW media, with an average
speed of 14.49x and a total write time of 6 minutes and 6 seconds.

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R
media at a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to
write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.73x and a
total writing time of 10 minutes and 38 seconds.

DVD-R

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.73x and a total writing
time of 10 minutes and 53 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

As we can see from
our table, the Lite-On eSEU206 showed some very impressive results on both +/-
media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

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

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write
at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 4.39x and a total writing
time of 13 minutes and 29 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The Lite-On eSEU206
wasn't as fast as the eTAU108
that we tested a few years ago, however the result is acceptable for a slim
drive.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a
maximum speed of 6x.

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to
write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.27x and a
total writing time of 14 minutes and 25 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The Lite-On eSEU206
shows average performance with DVD-RW media, taking 14 minutes and 25 seconds
to complete the burn.

4x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Lite-On eSEU206, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a
maximum speed of 4x.

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write
at 4x. This gives an average speed of 3.60x and a total writing time of 30
minutes and 12 seconds.

4x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the
specifications of the Lie-On eSEU108, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a
maximum speed of 4x.

The Lite-On eSEU206
uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to
write at 4x. This gives an average speed of 3.44x and a total writing time of 32
minutes and 21 seconds.

For comparison purposes
we have produced the following table: 

The maximum speed
on both dual layer media types was 4x, and the Lite-On eSEU108 therefore requires
some extra time to burn our test discs.

Summary:

The Lite-On eSEU206
has very good writing performance on CD-R and DVD-/+R media. Writing performance
on DVD RW and dual layer media is a little slow.

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 once again use Nero DiscSpeed, and 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:

• BD-ROM 6x
• DVD-ROM 8x
• CD-ROM 24x

Pressed discs:

For this test we
used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing various software that is slightly over 75
minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Lite-On eSEU206
reached 24.00x read speed.

CD Recordable discs:

For this test we
made a copy of the original CD. The disc we used was an unbranded 52x certified
CD-R disc manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The Lite-On eSEU206
reached 24.31x read speed.

CD Re-writable discs:

Again, we made a
copy of the original CD, this time we used a Verbatim 4x CD-RW disc (thanks to
Verbatim for providing me with this media).

The Lite-On eSEU206
reached 24.43x read speed.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the
digital audio extraction performance of the Lite-On eSEU206, again we used
Optic Drive Control to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc was 76 minutes
in length (75:50:73).

The Lite-On eSEU206
reached 24.23x when reading our test audio disc.

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 and double layer
DVD-discs at 8x.

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)

The Lite-On eSEU206
isn’t Video_TS riplocked and read our single layer disc at 8x and double layer
discs at 6x.

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 eSEU206
read our DVD+R and DVD+RW discs at 8x.

DVD – DVD-R/RW:

---

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

DVD-R

DVD-RW

Once again the Lite-On
eSEU206 read our test DVD-R/RW discs at 8x.

DVD±R DL discs:

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DVD+R DL:

The Lite-On eSEU206
read our DVD+R DL test disc at 6x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Lite-On eSEU206
read our DVD-R DL test disc at 6x reading speed.

Blu-Ray discs:

---

The LiteOn eSEU206 supports the reading of
pressed single layer Blu-Ray discs at 6x.

BD-ROM SL:

As
we can see the USB2 connection is the limiting factor, over all it took 21
minutes and 48 seconds to complete the task.

BD-ROM DL:

The
drive was able to reach its max speed of 4x and it took 61 minutes and 58
seconds to finish.

BD-R SL:

Again
the USB2 connection is limiting the performance. It took 20 minutes and 56
seconds to finish.

BD-R LTH:

The Lite-On
eSEU06 can read back LTH media at 4x. It took 30 minutes and 52 seconds to
finish reading our test media.

BD-RE SL:

As
it was indicated on the box, the maximum speed that the drive can read BD-RE
media is 4x, and again it took 30 minutes and 52 seconds to finish the reading
task.

Summary:

The Lite-On eSEU206
has shown itself to be a very good and reliable reader.

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

The specifications
of the Lite-On eSEU206 state that the drive is able to write CD-R/RW discs at
24x. 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 CD-Speed (create data disc)
function and burned the discs at the maximum speed allowed.

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 Opti Drive Control. The discs were
written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we
used Opti Drive Control's 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 an Optiarc
AD-7200A 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:

An excellent
result to start our CD-R tests.

The result is very
good.

The result is ok.

The result is OK.

As it was expected
from this media, the result can only be described as poor.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable
discs:

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The result is excellent.

Summary:

Both CD-R and
CD-RW writing quality are generally excellent/very good for the eSEU208.

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

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-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, 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 Nero
DiscSpeed and 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 Opti Drive Control 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 iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive
Control to measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A
with firmware 1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

Again an excellent
result from this media.

An excellent
result, which has low PIE, PIF and Jitter levels.

We continue our
tests with another excellent result.

A good result for
this TDK media. Jitter average is also very good at 8.5% and PIE and PIF levels
are very low for this media.

DVD+RW media compatibility and
write quality:

---

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

Below are our
obtained results.

Considering this a
re-writable disc, the result is excellent.

Summary:

The Lite-On eSEU206
writes DVD+R/RW with mostly excellent writing quality and even with low quality
media is able to give good results.

With 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 iHAS624 with firmware GL2A along with Opti Drive Control to
measure the disc quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7200A with firmware
1.09 along with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

The result is good,
although PIF and Jitter levels are slightly higher, but the disc read back was
perfect.

The result is very
good, but there is room for improvement. Reading back the disc was perfect
almost.

The disc might
have a perfect TRT, but the overall result is simply poor.

The result is excellent,
low PIE, PIF and Jitter levels.

DVD-RW media compatibility and
write quality:

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

Considering this a
re-writable disc, the result is once again excellent.

Summary:

The DVD-R writing
quality was simply good, however I believe that there is room for improvement in
the firmware.

With our tested
DVD-RW media, writing quality was excellent.

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:

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The Lite-On eSEU206
supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer/Dual Layer discs
with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 4x.

DVD+R DL:

For these tests we
used Opti Drive Control to burn our test disc. We then used a Lite-On iHAS624
along with Opti Drive Control to test the disc’s quality; we then finally ran a
read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7200A.

The disc has a
perfect TRT, but on the second layer there is an increase on PIE and PIF errors.
This however is a pattern that I have seen on all my tests with this media.

DVD-R DL:

PIE and PIF errors
are within limits, but the TRT isn’t perfect. The result can only be described
as average.

Summary:

The Lite-On eSEU206
writing quality on our tested DVD+R DL media was good. When it comes to DVD-R
DL media there is some room for improvement.

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

Real world tests:

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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:

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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 Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to extract the audio to our hard drive. According
to EAC the Lite-ON eSEU206 does support caching, Accurate Stream and C2 Error
Info.

Below are the
results produced by EAC:

Burst mode

Secure mode

The Lite-On eSEU206
performed very well in the “Burst mode” and as expected was slower when reading
in secure mode.

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 695MB using Nero Burning
ROM software. The writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is
set up as a non-multisession disc with “finalize disc” enabled. The screenshot
below shows how long it takes to write a disc at the highest speed. (24x)

The Lite-On eSEU206
burned our test CD-R at 24x in 5 minutes and 3 seconds.

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

As we can see the
eSEU206 was the fastest drive that we have tested so far.

DVD R:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R discs. We used Nero Burning Rom to
burn a data compilation containing 4.3GB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The Lite-On eSEU206
burned our test DVD R at 8x in 10 minutes and 36 seconds.

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

Again we can see
that the drive shows excellent performance.

DVD DL:

In this test we
will measure the time for writing to DVD R DL discs. We used Nero Burning Rom
to burn a data compilation containing 7.92GB of data. We used the Disc-At-Once
write method.

The Lite-On eSEU206
burned our test DVD R DL at 4x in 30 minutes and 13 seconds.

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

The LiteON eSEU206
can only burn at 4x, and therefore it finishes in last place.

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.

Of course, running
this test on a slimline drive, we can expect the results to be much slower than
running the tests on a modern full sized internal DVD writer. However, we felt
that this would be an interesting and useful test.

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. We checked to make sure
our review PC was not having an impact on the results.

For this test we
will use Fengtao Software's DVDFab.

BD-ROM:

BD-Video single
layer “Underworld”. It took 22minutes and 29 seconds to finish ripping the disc
to the hard drive.

BD-Video double layer “Quantum of Solace”. It took
61minutes and 28 seconds to finish ripping the entire disc to the hard drive.

DVD-ROM:

DVD-Video single layer “Dario Argento's Phantom of the
opera”

DVD-Video double layer “Iron man”

Thanks to Fengtao Software
– For providing a full DVD Fab licence.

The Lite-On eSEU206
isn’t video_ts riplocked, the result is a very good result considering that
this is a slimdrive.

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

As we can see the
eSEU206 is the fastest drive that we tested so far.

This concludes
our Lite-On eSEU206 review. To read the conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• Close to
  excellent DVD-R writing quality.
• Excellent write
  quality with DVD±RW media.
• Excellent CD-R
  writing quality.
• Sleek and
  stylish design with a brushed finish.
• Excellent
  reading reliability.
• Excellent build
  quality.
• LightScribe.
• Supports BitSetting
  (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL.
• Good community
  support here at MyCE.com.
• Excellent
  software bundle.
• Small size,
  portable and USB powered
• Can playback 3D
  movies

Negative:

• DVD-R and DVD-R
  DL writing quality could have been better.
• Slow burn speed
  on DVD±RW
• USB2 limits the
  performance when it comes to Blu-Ray

Conclusion:

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

The main
positive points:

The Lite-On eSEU206
is a portable Blu-ray player that comes with an excellent software package.
Also the drive is an excellent CD burner, and very good when it comes to DVD+R
and re-writable media. The eSEU206 doesn't require an external power unit to operate,
and it comes with a long split Y USB cable.

The Lite-On eSEU206
is beautifully designed BD Combo drive and the brushed finish gives a higher
quality look to the drive.

The main
negative points:

The main thing
that I didn’t like was the USB2 interface. USB2 might be more than enough for
an 8x DVD/CD burner, but when it comes to Blu-Ray it simply isn’t enough.

To sum up, this is what we would
say:

“The Lite-On eSEU206
is overall an excellent drive. It’s a drive that I not only like to look at,
but most importantly it can give great quality burns. It's easy to carry, and
it doesn’t require a huge amount of power to playback your BD’s or DVD’s.”

Because of the
good feature set and generally good writing quality across the main media
groups, I decided to award the Lite-On eSEA206 with the “Editor's Choice”
award, and give the “excellent rating”.

Thanks to:

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