Review: Lite-On iHAS624 Reviewed by: Vroom Provided by: Lite-On Europe Firmware: GL24 Manufactured: September 2010

Lite-On was kind enough to send us the iHAS624
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 iHAS624 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 iHAS624 also supports DVD-RAM
reading and writing at 12x speed, and SmartErase, lightscribe and also features
LabelTag technology.

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 iHAS624,
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 iHAS624 is nicely
styled. We can also see various logos including a LabelTag and Lightscribe logo,
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 September 2010.

On the rear of the drive we can see the 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-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55
  chipset)
• Processor: Intel i7 750
• RAM: 4 GB Corsair dual channel kit DDR3 
• GFX: ATI HD 5670 (512 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Hard disk OS: Western Digital RE2 50GB
• Hard disk storage: 500GB Western Digital Blue
• PSU: Chieftec 500W
• Display: FujitsuSiemens 22”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Premium (64 bit)

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System setup:

A screenshot from Nero Infotool 6.

The Lite-On iHAS624 was connected to one of
the SATA ports on the motherboard’s SATA controller. We used the standard
Microsoft Windows 7 x64 drivers, which seem to work perfectly with optical
drives.

And screenshot from Opti Drive Control:

From the screenshot from Opti Drive Control
above, we can see the Lite-On iHAS624 supports the main media groups. The drive
came shipped with firmware version GL24.

Included software package

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The Lite-ON iHAS624 came supplied with the
Nero 9 software package, which should provide a good platform for burning your
CD-R/RW and DVD recordable media. This special package also included LabelTag/Lightscribe
software and SmartErase software.

Nero
9 Essentials

Note: We didn’t install this software, we
used Nero 10 on our review PC, the only installed software from the disc was 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 8
• Slysoft CloneCD
• Exact
  Audio Copy

Our review PC has Windows 7 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 iHAS624 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

As well as being able to scan for PI/PIF
errors, the Lite-On iHAS624 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. 

BookType (Bitsetting):

The Lite-On iHAS624 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 iHAS624.

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
iHAS624, it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 48x.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses CAV, (Constant
Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This
gives an average speed of 34.75x and a total writing time of 2 minutes and 45
seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS624 was one
of the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 32x.
Unfortunately we only had 24x media.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned
Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed
of 24X. This gives an average speed of 20.92x and a total writing time of 4
minutes and 12 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

As we can see, we can directly compare the
result with the other drives, but the drive is fast with 24x CD-RW media.

24x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 24x.

DVD+R

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses CAV, (Constant
Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This
gives an average speed of 16.36x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 20
seconds.

DVD-R

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses CAV, (Constant
Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24X. This
gives an average speed of 16.19x and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 15
seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

As we can see from our table, the Lite-On iHAS624
is among the fastest drives when writing our test DVD-R media.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned
Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed
of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.26x and a total writing time of 7
minutes and 49 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

The Lite-On iHAS624 was one of the fastest drives
we tested, when writing our test DVD+RW media.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned
Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed
of 6X. This gives an average speed of 5.72x and a total writing time of 10
minutes and 29 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

The Lite-On iHAS624 was again one of the
fastest drives when writing DVD-RW media.

8x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned
Constant Linear Velocity), to write at 8X. This gives an
average speed of 5.73x and a total writing time of 19 minutes and 22 seconds.

8x DVD-R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Lite-On
iHAS624, it should be able to write DVD-R DL at a maximum speed of 8x, again we
only had 4x so we can’t compare the results with other drives.

The Lite-On iHAS624 uses CLV, (Constant
Linear Velocity), to write at 4X. This gives an average speed of 3.98x
and a total writing time of 27 minutes and 23 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following
table: 

The Lite-On iHAS624 was about average in writing
speed when writing double layer media.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS624 has a very good writing
performance on CD-R/RW & DVD R/RW media.

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
close to 75 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The Lite-On iHAS624 reached 47.65x read
speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS624 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 CD. The disc we used was a TDK 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by
CMC Magnetics.

The Lite-On iHAS624 reached 48.22x read
speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS624 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 CD;
this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (24X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi
Chemicals Corporation.

The Lite-On iHAS624 reached 40.13x read
speed. Let’s compare it with some other drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS624 is very fast when
reading CD-RW media.

Audio – Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction
performance of the Lite-On iHAS624, again we used Opti Drive Control to measure
the transfer rate. The audio disc we used was “10.000 Days” from TOLL, and it’s
almost 80minutes. (75:50.73).

The Lite-On iHAS624 reached 39.82x when
reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare it with some drives below.

The Lite-On iHAS624 is among 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 TDK.

The extraction quality is excellent and,
the Lite-On iHAS624 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)

The Lite-On iHAS624 is not riplocked and
read our single layer disc at 16x and our double layer test discs at 8x

The Lite-On iHAS624 is a slow drive 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 iHAS624 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 That’s 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 iHAS624 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
iHAS624 read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R DL:

The Lite-On
iHAS624 read our DVD-R DL test disc at 8x reading speed.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS624 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 iHAS624 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 AD7240S drive with firmware
1.04 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 good/

The result is again very good.

Writing Quality with Re-Writable discs:

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The result is very good for this CD-RW media.

Summary:

CD-R writing quality is generally very good,
however we feel that there is room for improvement. CD-RW writing quality was also
very good.

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:

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In these tests we will be using a Lite-On SHM-165P6S
with firmware MS0R along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc quality.
We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.04 along with Opti
Drive Control for our read-back tests.

An excellent result, PIF errors are low,
jitter and PI are a little higher from what we want, but the TRT is perfect.

The result is good and jitter is again
high, but 24x is just too fast for most media.

The results is excellent, for this 8x media
manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The result again is very good for this
media, also we can see that the drive slowed down near the end, but it didn’t
have any effect on the burn quality.

The result isn’t very good, high Jitter
& PI, and the slowdown on the TRT doesn’t help. A poor burn for this media.

DVD+RW media compatibility and write quality:

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

Below are our obtained results.

The result is disappointing, high levels of
PIE and Jitter shows that Liteon needs to work more on this, in their next
firmware update. We used three new disks and the results were the same on all
discs.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS624 burns DVD+R media with
generally very good to excellent quality. On our tested DVD+RW media, writing
quality was poor, and again we hope that this will be fix soon with a new
firmware.

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

DVD-R media compatibility and write quality:

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In these tests we will be using a Lite-On
SHM-165P6S with firmware MS0R along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc
quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.04 along
with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

Again we see the slowdown in the end of the
TRT test, and this shows that 24x is too much, even on one of the best media
out there.

The result is good, but not as good as we
would like.

PIE errors are high, but PIE and Jitter are
within limits. The result is very good.

Again
PIE is high, but PIF and Jitter levels are OK, and we can also verify that on
the perfect TRT.

The same pattern continues with this media, overall it’s a good
burn.

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 excellent, the burn was one
of the fastest we had on RW media, and finishes our test with a perfect TRT.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS624 burns DVD-R media with
generally very good quality, but we had high PI errors, on all our burns. All
burns had perfect TRT (only the 24x had some issues), so again this is
something that we expect to be fixed with a firmware update.

On the other hand the iHAS624S is an
excellent burner for DVD-RW media, and very fast.

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 iHAS624 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 errors are within limits, but PIF errors
and Jitter are higher from what we are used to from this media. The result is
good, and the perfect trt shows that there is nothing to worry about.

DVD-R DL:

PI errors and the jitter average are pretty
high but within specification, PIF errors are very low for this media, also we
have a perfect read-back test. The result is very good.

Summary:

The Lite-On iHAS624 writing quality on our
tested DVD+R DL media was good, and our tested DVD-R DL media return a very good
result. Generally there is nothing to worry about with DVD±R DL writing quality
and performance.

 

Now let's head to the special features
page where we will check out LightScribe 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 iHAS624, we start
our tests with 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, but it will only work with a drive that
supports the feature. In this case only the LiteON iHAS624 drive supports
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 iHAS624. 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 iHAS624, or you can download the PLDS
SmartPack Utility from Liteon, that has both the smarterase and
label design view software.

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.

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.

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.

At this point we would like to say that in
order to have a working label on your disc you need to burn your media as a
multisession, and leave the session open.

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, i can make your CD’s
and DVD’s look different, but it will cost you some space. So you will have to
decide if you want to use this feature.

 

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 iHAS624 performed extremely well
in burst mode and also in secure mode. Overall it’s one of the fastest drives
we have tested on 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 699MB 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 iHAS624 burned our test CD-R at
48x in 2 minutes and 44 seconds.

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

The Lite-On iHAS624 was one of the fastest
drives we have tested 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 iHAS624 burned our test DVD R
at 16x in 5 minutes and 51 seconds. Unfortunately the media that we had were
capable only for 16x.

Since this burn wasn’t a 24x burn, there is
no point at comparing the results with any other burn that was made. There for
the list is removed.

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 iHAS624 burned our test DVD R
DL at 8x in 19 minutes and 58 seconds.

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

The Lite-On iHAS624 was about average when
writing our test DVD+R DL media

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.

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 a 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.

Now let’s test the Lite-On iHAS624 using
the same testing procedures.

SL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (The Phantom of the opera):

The Lite-On iHAS624 is not CSS riplocked
and ripped our test DVD-Video SL disc in 4 minutes and 48 seconds.

DL CSS encrypted DVD-Video (Iron Man):

The Lite-On iHAS624 is not CSS riplocked
and ripped our test DVD-Video DL disc in 19 minutes and 17 seconds.

Overburning CD-R:

We tested the Lite-On iHAS624 to see if it
could overburn CD-R media. The results are below.

700MB (80 minute) over-burn test:

The Lite-On iHAS624 reported a maximum
overburn capacity of 83:34.18. We then setup a test burn with CD-Speed of
slightly less than maximum and burned the disc, 82:57.74 to be exact.

We can see a slowdown near the end of the
disc but that doesn’t have any impact on the burn.

As we can see, the Lite-On iHAS624 had no
issues reading the overburned disc at 49.87x.

LightScribe

The LiteON iHAS624 as a LightScribe drive
enables images and text to be burned onto LightScribe Discs, both CD and
DVD.  Make a label whenever and wherever you want with your PC and
burner.  It is Simple, Compatible and Flexible. 

On January 4, 2004, HP announced an
innovative new technology to address the problem of labeling CD’s and DVD’s.
LightScribe technology allows consumers to create silk-screen quality labels on
their CDs or DVDs by burning text and graphics directly onto a disc,
eliminating the need for adhesive labels.

But, before we continue – Let us first take
a look at some information found at the LightScribe
site:

 About LightScribe:

CREATE SILKSCREEN-QUALITY LABELS FOR ALL
YOUR CDS AND DVDS, RIGHT FROM YOUR COMPUTER:

Until now there hasn’t been much choice
when it comes to creating labels for your CDs and DVDs. Messy markers or sticky
adhesive labels were pretty much the only affordable option. But imagine
creating professional-looking labels using the same laser that burns your
data-right inside your CD/DVD drive! Well, now it’s easy with LightScribe
Direct Disc Labeling technology.

LABEL-MAKING REDEFINED:

LightScribe technology is an integrated
system that combines the CD or DVD drive of your LightScribe-enabled computer
with specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce
precise, laser-etched labels. You can design and produce labels to express your
creativity and personality-the sky’s the limit!

With LightScribe, the disc is the label.
This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create elegant labels for all
your CDs and DVDs. Simply burn your music mix, digital-video/photo archives, or
business application. Then flip the disc and burn your own unique label.

LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling
technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical DVD writers, labelling
software, and a variety of brand name discs. Remember, the LightScribe logo
indicates a LightScribe-enabled product, so be sure to look for it at your favourite
retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe page for a list of
companies that make LightScribe-enabled products.

How it Works:

A RADICAL REVOLUTION IN DISC LABELING:

Once you’ve burned your first LightScribe
label and experienced the amazing result, you’ll never want to use a permanent
marker or sticky label again. LightScribe makes it easy. It truly is a
revolution in disc labelling.

JUST HOW DOES IT WORK?

How can you burn a label onto your disc
right from your computer? Suppose you have just created a music CD of your
favorite songs. Now you want to make a label that contains the song titles,
artists’ names, and some personal information and design elements to make it
special.

Burn your tracks onto the data side of the
disc. Flip the disc over to the label side and put it back in the drive. Burn
your label by opening your favourite LightScribe-enabled label-making software
and going to the CD template work area. Now you do all of your creative design
work-imported pictures, copy, and artwork. When you are satisfied with what you
have done, click "print." It really is that simple! No ink, no messy
markers, no clumpy adhesive labels, just an amazingly beautiful label right
before your eyes.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Your LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD disc drive
contains a special laser that pumps light energy into a thin dye coating on the
label side of the disc. The light from the laser causes a chemical change in
the dye coating that shows up as a visible point on the disc. With laser
precision, LightScribe delivers closely controlled light energy to multiple
points on the disc as it spins in the drive. The result is a high-resolution
reproduction of the artwork, text, or photos you composed in the software
application.

This concludes our Lite-On iHAS624 review.
To read the conclusion, click on the link below

Positive:

• Generally very good DVD±R/RW writing
  quality and performance.
• Generally very good CD-R/RW writing
  quality.
• Excellent CD and DVD reading performance
  and reliability.
• 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.
• Supports LabelTag and also Lightscribe
  direct to disc labelling.

Negative:

·        
DVD-R writing quality could be improved.

Conclusion:

---

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

The main positive points

The Lite-On iHAS624 is a fast drive as far
as writing CD-R and DVD±R media is concerned, with very good quality.

The Lite-On iHAS624 is a feature rich
drive, it offers all the latest technology that Liteon has to offer, starting
with SmartErase, Lightscribe and LabelTag.

Reading performance and reliability was very
good. The iHAS624 would make an excellent CD-Audio and DVD-Video ripper.

Lite-On Disc Quality Scanning has become
legendary here on MyCE.com and the iHAS624 will not disappoint in this
department.

Our retail drive was also supplied with
Nero Essentials 9, and should be capable of meeting most people's media burning
requirements.

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

Booktype is one thing that many users will
appreciate, and it’s available on all supported media (DVD+R/RW DL).

The main negative points

Not many negative points to the Lite-On iHAS624
at all. On our tested DVD-R media, the writing quality could be improved.

Burning at 24x isn’t always as good as we
hoped, but only two media can reach this speed.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The iHAS624 has everything that you
need, labeltag, lightscribe, booktype (on +R/RW DL media) and secure erase, but
most of all it offers good quality reading and burning on all media, the
Lite-On iHAS624 is generally a very good drive”

Because of the good feature set and
generally good writing quality across the main media groups, we decided to
award the Lite-On iHAS624 our MyCE “Safe Buy” award.

You may comment on this review below.

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