Review: Liteon iHBS112 2 Reviewed by: Antonis Sapanidis Provided by: Lite-On Europe Firmware: CL04 Manufactured: May 2010

Liteon
was kind enough to send us the iHBS112 Blu-ray writer for review. The drive
supports 12x Blu-ray writing and 8x reading, in addition, this drive also supports
DVD±R/RW, DVD-RAM and CD-R/RW writing. In this review we will be testing out
the latest Blu-ray burner, the iHBS112 from Liteon.

The
Liteon iHBS112 supports writing at 12x BD-R, 2x BD-RE, 16x DVD±R, 8x/6x
DVD+RW/-RW, and 8x DVD+R DL/-R DL writing technology. So let’s get a
closer look at the iHBS112.

Drive
Specifications

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We
found the specifications of the iHBS112 at the liteon website

Packaging

---

The
drive was a bulk version, and it came with a SATA cable and a cd-rom of
Cyberlink BD Solution v6.

First let’s take a look at the drive.

The
front of the IHBS112 is simple and follows the typical liteon stile. We can see
various logos, an emergency eject hole, a single green LED and an eject button.

Drive top

Drive bottom

On
the top of the drive we found two labels and we can see the drive was
manufactured in China during May 2010.

Now let’s head on to the next page were 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 P55-UD4
• Processor: Intel i5 750
• RAM: 2 x 2GB Corsair Dominator PC-12800
• GFX: ATI 4350 512MB
• Sound: Onboard Realtek
• Hard disk OS: Western Digital Blue 500GB
• PSU: Chieftec 500W
• Display: LG M2362D 23”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

System
setup:

The
Liteon iHBS112 was connected to one of the main-board's SATA ports and reports
as a Liteon iHBS112 2.

From
the screenshot from Nero InfoTool above, we can see the Liteon iHBS112 supports
BD-R/-R DL, BD-RE/-RE DL and BD-ROM reading. According to Nero InfoTool, it
also reports that the drive is capable of writing BD-R/-R DL and BD-RE media.
The drive came shipped with firmware version CL04 and no updates were available
at the time of writing this review.

Installed
software:

• Nero
  Multimedia Suite 10
• Nero CD/DVD Speed
• DVDFab 7
• Opti drive control
• Exact Audio Copy

Our
review PC has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit installed with all the updates up
to 24/06/2010.

Features
and techniques

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Software
Bundle:

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

The
Liteon iHBS112 is 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

BookType
(BitSetting):

The
Liteon iHBS112 supports BitSetting for single (+R/RW) and dual layer media.
However, you can manually  set the BitSetting.

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

Start
Nero CD-DVD Speed and click the Disc info button and you should get something
like this:

DVD+R DL with book type DVD-ROM

Writing
technique

---

Now
it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Liteon
iHBS112.

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

CD
Recordable:

According
to the specifications of the iHBS112, it should be able to write CD-R media at
a maximum speed of 48x.

The
iHBS112 uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at
its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 32.84x and a total
writing time of 2 minutes and 44 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

As
we can see, the Liteon iHBS112 is one of the fastest drives when it comes to writing
CD-R media.

CD
Re-writable:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHBS112, it should be able to write CD-RW
media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 24X.  This gives an average speed of 20.12x
and a total writing time of 4 minutes and 11 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

As
we can see, the Liteon iHBS112 was about average when compared to our other
drives when writing CD-RW media.

16x
DVD+R writing speed:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHBS112, it’s able to write DVD+R/-R media
at a maximum speed of 16x.

DVD+R

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to
write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.07x and a
total writing time of 5 minutes and 35 seconds.

16x
DVD-R writing speed:

DVD-R

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to
write at its maximum speed of 16X. This gives an average speed of 11.19x and a
total writing time of 5 minutes and 40 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

As
we can see from our tables, the Liteon iHBS112 was
above average when writing DVD±R media.

8X
DVD+RW writing speed:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHSB112 it should be able to write DVD+RW
at a maximum speed of 8x.

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.38x and a
total writing time of 7 minutes and 48 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

The
Liteon iHBS112 was about average regarding speed when writing our test DVD+RW
media.

6x
DVD-RW writing speed:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHBS112 it should be able to write DVD-RW
at a maximum speed of 6x.

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 5.54x and a
total writing time of 10 minutes and 55 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

The
Liteon iHBS112, was one of the slowest when writing DVD-RW media.

8x
DVD+R DL writing speed:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHBS112 it should be able to write DVD+R DL
at a maximum speed of 8x.

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses Z-CLV, (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity),
to write at its maximum speed of 8X. This gives an average speed of 7.68x and a
total writing time of 19 minutes and 30 seconds.

8x
DVD-R DL writing speed:

According
to the specifications of the Liteon iHBS112 it should be able to write DVD-R DL
at a maximum speed of 8x.

The
Liteon iHBS112 uses CLV, (Constant Linear Velocity), to
write at its maximum speed of 4X, unfortunately our media only supported this
speed. The writing of the disc completed in 27 minutes and 52 seconds.

For
comparison we have made the following table: 

The
Liteon iHBS112 was one of the slowest drives when writing DVD+R DL
media.

Summary:

The
Liteon iHBS112 is good performer across all media groups, but it wasn’t as fast
as we hoped.

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 Nero CD/DVD-Speed and Opti Drive Control to read
various BD’s, CD’s and DVD’s, including audio discs and DVD-media.

CD
reading performance:

---

CD-ROM:

For
this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing various programs and it’s
close to 77 minutes in length. Below you will see the produced result:

The
Liteon iHBS112 reached the max speed of 48.48x read speed. Let’s compare it
with some other drives below.

The
Liteon iHBS112 is one of the fastest drives that we tested so far.

CD
Recordable discs:

For
this test we made a copy of the original CD that we used on our previous test.
The disc we used was a JVC 52X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The
Liteon iHBS112 reached 48.82x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other
drives below.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was again one of the fastest drivers that we tested when reading
our test CD-R.

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
Liteon iHBS112 reached 28.90x read speed. Let’s compare it with some other
drives below.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was a very fast drive with great seek times when reading our
test CD-RW.

Audio
– Digital Audio Extraction:

To
test the digital audio extraction performance of the Liteon iHBS112, we used
Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is
slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it’s nearly
79 minutes in length (78:53:31).

The
Liteon iHBS112 reached 48.63x when reading our test audio disc. Let’s compare
it with some drives below.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was the fastest drive we tested so far when reading an Audio
disc.

DVD
reading performance:

---

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
Layer 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)

The
Liteon iHBS112 is not riplocked and is able to read our single layer disc at
16x and our double layer test discs at 12x.

We
present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was one of the fastest drives when reading pressed DVD-Video
discs.

DVD
– DVD+R/RW:

---

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

We
present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was above average when reading DVD+RW and DVD+R.

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 can be found below.

DVD-R

DVD-RW

We
present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was again above average when reading DVD-R and DVD-RW.

DVD±R
DL discs:

---

DVD+R
DL:

The
Liteon iHBS112 read our DVD+R DL test disc at 12x reading speed.

DVD-R
DL:

The
Liteon iHBS112 read our DVD-R DL test disc at 8x reading speed.

We
present the table below for comparison with other Blu-ray drives.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was average when reading our test DVD±DL media and left mixed
feelings, we hoped that it could also reach 12x on DVD-R DL, but unfortunately
it didn’t.

Blu-ray
reading performance:

---

BD-ROM
SL

For
our first test we selected a SL BD-ROM movie, Underworld.

The
Liteon iHBS112 read our BD-ROM media at 8x reading speed.

BD-ROM
DL:

For
the second
test we selected a BD-ROM DL disc containing the movie Quantum of solace

The
Liteon iHBS112 read our DL BD-ROM media at 8x max reading speed.

BD-R:

Again
the Liteon iHBS112 read our BD-R disc at 8x.

BD-RE:

The
Liteon iHBS112 read our BD-RE at 8x reading speed.

Summary:

The
Liteon iHBS112 is a fast reader of BD media, currently supporting the 8x
reading speed on all media.  DVD media reading performance is also very good, and
one of the fastest drives we tested.

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

The
specifications of the Liteon iHBS112 state that the drive is able to write
CD-R/RW discs at 40x/24x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in
speed and quality.

Writing
Data CD-R discs:

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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 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-7240S drive with firmware 1.03 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. 

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
fair result to start our CD-R quality tests, also we can see that some
improvement is needed.

Our
maxell media manufactured by ritek has burned with very good quality.

Another
fair result for this media.

The
Result is OK for this media.

The
result is good but we expected something better.

Writing
quality with CD-RW media

The
results is OK for a rewritable media.

Summary:

With
the Liteon iHBS112 writing CD-R/RW at a maximum speed of 48x/24x, the drive is one
of the fastest at writing CD-R discs, but not as fast when it comes to CD-RW.
However, the writing quality is simply good in most cases, but we believe that
there is room for improvement.

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 media.

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

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

·        
Less than 8% (average) = Very good

·        
8% - 9% (average) = good

·        
9% - 12% (average) = average

·        
Above 12% (average) = poor

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

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

Use
this as a guideline for good discs:

·        
PI
(Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI-8 errors, do
not worry too much about high single spikes that exceed 280.

·        
PIF (Parity Inner Failures): No larger
areas on the disc should exceed 4 PIF-1 errors, do not worry too much about
high single spikes that exceed 4.

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

And
as always; lower is better

DVD+R
media compatibility and write quality:

---

In
these tests we will be using a Lite-On iHAS524 with firmware BLC1 and the
DH20A3P with firmware XV6D along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc
quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.03 along
with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

An
excellent result to start our tests.

The
result is very good.

Another
excellent result from this 8x  that’s media manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

The
result is good, and the TRT was perfect.

The
result is good.

DVD+RW
media compatibility and write quality:

---

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

Below
are our obtained results.

The
result is excellent for a rewritable media.

Summary:

The
Liteon iHBS112 writes DVD+R with very good to excellent quality. DVD+RW writing
with our tested media 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 iHAS524 with firmware BLC1 and the
DH20A3P with firmware XV6D along with Opti Drive Control to measure the disc
quality. We will also be using the Optiarc AD-7240S with firmware 1.03 along
with Opti Drive Control for our read-back tests.

The
result is good for this media.

The
result could be considered as excellent if it wasn’t for the hih PIE level, the
disc has no slowdowns on the TRT test.

Another
excellent result.

Again
the results is excellent.

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 for a rewritable media.

Summary:

The
Liteon iHBS112 has written our DVD-R/RW media with excellent quality.

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
Liteon iHBS112 supports the DVD+R DL/-R DL standard for writing Double Layer
discs with a size around 8.5 GB at a writing speed of 8x.

DVD+R
DL:

For
these tests we used Opti Drive Control to burn our test disc. We then used a
Lite-On DH203Ap & the iHAS524 along with Opti Drive Control to test the
disc’s quality, and finally ran a read-back test on our Optiarc AD-7240S.

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, but it could have been better.

DVD-R
DL:

The
result is good but PIE errors are high, Jitter level is low, and TRT test had
no slowdowns.

Summary:

The
iHBS1122 burned our test DVD±DL media with very good quality.

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

An
Introduction to Blu-Ray

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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 will allow data to be packed more tightly, so it's possible to
squeeze more data on the disc even though it's the same 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

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The
specifications of the iHBS112 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 by the iHBS112, and also we
weren’t able to burn faster than the rated speed of the media. All disc quality
test were done at max speed.

BD-R
25GB

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

As
we can see the iHBS112 has no problems reading back the disc.

BD-R LTH Type 2x

 

A
disappointing result, we didn’t expect this from a new drive.

BD-RE:

The
specifications of the Liteon Ihbs112 state that the drive is able to write
BD-RE discs at 2x. Let us find out how the drive really performs.

BD-RE
25GB

The
iHBS112 burned our test BD-RE media from VERBATIM in 45 minutes and 02 seconds.

Now
let’s see how the iHBS112 read’s and scans our test disc.

BD-RE
25GB

The
iHBS112 burned our test BD-RE 25GB media from TDK in 44:50 minutes.

Now
let’s see how the iHBS112 read’s and scans our test disc.

Summary:

Apart
from our failed burn on the LTH media the iHBS112 had no problems in creating, reading
and scanning back our test discs.

At
this point we like to say that we didn’t have any other drive capable of
scanning our disc so we can’t draw any safe conclusion on the quality of the
burned discs. So we can say that the lower the better.

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

Author’s
page:

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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 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.

Below
is the results produced by EAC:

Burst Mode

Secure mode

The
Liteon iHBS112 performed well in burst mode, reaching the 48 read speed, but it
was much slower in secure mode, only 16x.

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 610MB 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
Liteon iHBS112 burned our test CD-R at 48x in 3 minutes and 41 seconds.

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
Liteon iHBS112 burned our test DVD R at lower speed than the selected 16x, it
took 7 minutes and 06 seconds.

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 method.

The
Liteon iHBS112 burned our test DVD R DL at 4x (selected speed was 8x)  in 25
minutes.

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.

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 iHBS112 using the same testing procedures.

DVD-Video
Single layer

SL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “Phantom
of the opera”

DVD-Video
double layer

DL CSS encrypted DVD Video disc “Iron
Man”

The
Liteon iHBS112 is not CSS riplocked and ripped our test DVD-Video DL disc in 9
minutes.

BD-Video
50GB and 25GB

Dual layer Blu-Ray disc, “Quantum of
solace”

Single layer Blu-Ray disc,
“Underworld”

Very
good ripping performance from the Liteon iHBS112, which ripped our dual layer test
Blu-Ray video in 31 minutes and 12 seconds, and the Blu-Ray SL in 15minutes
24seconds.

This concludes our Liteon iHBS112 review. To read the conclusion, click
on the link below.

Positive:

• Fast
  Blu-ray reading performance at 8x max.
• Very good
  DVD burning performance on DVD+R
• Excellent
  burning performance on DVD-R/RW and DVD+RW media
• Good
  community support, here at MyCE.com
• Supports
  DVD-RAM read and write at 12x.
• Supports
  BitSetting (BookType DVD-ROM) on DVD+R/RW DL.
• Very good
  Blu-Ray and DVD-Video ripping performance.
• Very good
  build quality.
• Good
  software package.
•  Near
  silent operation when playing (or ripping) back BD and DVD movies.

Negative:

• You have
  to manually change the bitsetting.
• Failed to
  burn LTH media.

Conclusion:

---

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

The
main positive points:

The
Liteon iHBS112 performed very well in our tests. Reading performance with BD
media was also very good.

The
Liteon iHBS112 was able to burn all our tested media, CD-R/RW DVD-R/RW DL and
DVD+R/RW DL media with very good/excellent quality.

The
iHBS112 support scanning on all formats, CD/DVD/BD, also the CD scanning part
looks improved from the previous Liteon models.

The
CyberLink BD Solution software bundle should provide a good starting point for
owners of the Liteon iHBS112 for playing and creating BD content. Blu-ray movie
playback via PowerDVD using an HDCP compliant screen was excellent.

The
build quality of the Liteon iHBS112 is also very good. The drive has a solid
feel, and also the tray looks and feels stable.

The
main negative points:

The
main negative of the drive is the failed burn of the LTH media, we didn’t
expect this from a modern drive. Maybe a firmware update will fix this

The
other issue if that you need to manually set the BookType.

To sum up, this is what we would say:

“The Liteon iHBS112 is a very good performer when it comes to reading and
writing all kinds of media. It has a few weak points that can be sorted out, but
overall it’s a very good drive”.

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

 

 

Thanks
to:

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