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17 SEPT 2004 |
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Lite-On SOHW32S/SOHW1213S DVD-RW Drives |
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DVD
recordable drives are starting to really take off in
terms of the features available and the speed of the
drives.
Today, I will be reviewing two DVD recordable
drives from a company called Lite-On. One has a maximum
recording speed of 8X and the other has a maximum speed
of 12X. Ever since DVD drives have been released,
things have been a bit more complicated. There are more
numbers to examine as well as the different technologies
used in the drives. This review will help demystify the
confusion involved when buying a DVD recordable drive as
well as what to look for. Since most people buying a
DVD recordable intend on using it mainly for creating
DVD’s rather than CD’s, the review will focus on the DVD
performance of the two drives.
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I
must say that Lite-On’s package is very
complete. Included in the package is the drive
itself, Nero Vision Express, Power DVD, an audio
cable, and several blank DVD recordable media,
screws, and an instruction manual. This is just
enough for anyone to get started making their
first DVD easily. Although the manual is a bit
generic and isn’t really model specific, it’s
barely enough. The 8X dual layer drive came
with a dual layer disc supporting up to 8.5GB.
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Installing the
drive couldn’t have been any easier.
All you have to do is place the drive in
the appropriate open bay in your case.
Then you secure the drive to your case
with the supplied screws. When placing
the drive right above my other Plextor
drive, I immediately noticed how much
shorter the Lite-On drive was. This
allows for a little more room in your
case and makes it easier to plug in
wires to the drive if you have a small
case. After you’ve secured the drive,
then you set the jumper if necessary,
and you plug in the IDE and power cord
to the drive. After that’s done, you’re
done installing the drive. When booting
up my computer into Windows XP, XP
immediately recognized the drive and was
ready to be used.
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As
mentioned, one of the drives has
a maximum recording speed of 8X
and the other has 12X. The 8X
drive is black and the 12X drive
is a white/beige color. Both
the 8X and 12X drive support the
dual format. This means that
they are capable of writing to
both DVD+R and DVD-R discs. The
only other difference between
the drives is that the 8X drive
supports Dual Layer Discs. A
dual layer disc is different
from the conventional single
layer disc because it is capable
of storing up to 8.5GB of data,
which is nearly the twice the
standard 4.7GB discs. |
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This is the part where we
get to take a look at all the different numbers
associated with the drive.
SOHW1213S*
The important speeds of
this drive is that it can read/write DVD’s at a
maximum of 12X, and it can rewrite at 4X. For
CD’s, it can read/write at a maximum of 48X and
rewrite at 24X.
Write :
DVD+R 12X(16200KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD-R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
ReWrite : DVD+RW 4X(5400KB/sec)
by CLV
DVD-RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
Read : 12X(16200KB/sec) maxmium
by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
Write :
CD-R 48X(7200KB/sec) maxmium by P-CAV
ReWrite : CD-RW 24X(3600KB/sec)
maxmium by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read : 48X(7200KB/sec) maxmium
by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
SOHW832S*
The important speeds of
this drive is that it can read/write DVD’s at a
maximum of 8X, and it can rewrite at 4X. For
CD’s, it can read/write at a maximum of 40X and
rewrite at 24X. Notice that it can only write
dual layer DVD’s at 2.4X.
Write :
DVD+R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD-R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD+R9 2.4X(3240KB/sec) by CLV
ReWrite : DVD+RW 4X(5400KB/sec)
by CLV
DVD-RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
Read : 12X(16200KB/sec) maxmium
by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
Write :
CD-R 40X(6000KB/sec) maxmium by P-CAV
ReWrite : CD-RW 24X(3600KB/sec)
maxmium by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read : 40X(6000KB/sec) maxmium
by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
*numbers obtained directly from Lite-On’s
website.
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SMART-BURN
SMART-BURN is the
short name for ‘Smart
Monitoring & Adapting Recording
Technology for burning’. The important
aspect of this technology is that it
avoids the infamous buffer under run
error. In essence, a buffer under run
can occur if your computer can not feed
data to your recorder fast enough. This
technology allows the burner to stop if
necessary and continue without a wasted
CD or DVD.
SMART-X
SMART-X is short for ‘Smart Monitoring &
Adjusting Read-speed Technology for
eXtraction’. Basically, whenever you
use different kinds of discs with your
DVD drive, the technology tries to read
from it at the fastest rate possible,
but with reliability in mind. The drive
will slow down if necessary to read
troublesome parts of a disc to ensure
that the read data is not affected.
VAS
VAS is short for ‘Vibration Absorber
System’. As drives spin discs faster
and faster, it is important that there
is little to no vibration when the disc
is in the drive. The technology
automatically sense the speed that the
drive is rotating and will adjust itself
to ensure the least vibration.
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Before testing the drives, I quickly opened up
Nero’s InfoTool to determine the capabilities of
both drives. As you can see, both drives do not
support the Mount Rainier feature. Notice that
the 832S has the DVD+R DL box checked because it
supports dual layer discs. The read speed shown
for the 832 is not the maximum read speed
because the drive automatically detected the
best read speed for the particular disc
inserted.
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Next we move on to CD and and DVD reading
capabilities. For the CDR reading test, I
inserted one of my motherboard installation
discs. Both drives get awfully close to their
maximum rated speeds and then it drops off at
the end. It is expected that the 12X drive has
an expected higher average read speed. Notice
how the seek times for the 12X drive are
slightly longer than the 8X drive.
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When reading DVD’s, both drives pretty much
reach their peak read speeds. Notice again how
the 12X drive has slightly higher seek times.
When reading DVD’s, the CPU usage is higher
because much more data is flowing per second.
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Burning a DVD on the 8X drive at 4X took 15
minutes and 20 seconds.
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Burning a DVD at maximum speed on the 8X drive
took just under 10 minutes. That is about the
same time it takes to burn a full 80min CDR at
8X. The created DVD used the maximum space
possible on the DVDR. |
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Burning a DVD at 8X on the 12X drive took just
under 8 minutes. This DVD was created with only
4.2GB of data as opposed to 4.7GB. The
performance is pretty much in par with the 8X
drive.
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Now it was time to see how fast the 12X burner
could really go. It finished a full DVD in just
at 8 minutes. That is incredible!
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The last benchmark is done with the 8X drive to
test the dual layer capabilities of the drive.
An 8.2GB disk was created and it took a whopping
38 minutes and 44 seconds. It took that long
because dual layer discs can only be written at
2.4X for this drive.
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Both drives in this review today have performed well.
All the benchmarks have shown that they are right on the
mark. Lite-On has proven that they can make great DVD
recordable drives with excellent features and
performance. Choosing between the drives is a matter of
personal preference. You can either go for greater
speed with the 12X or you can instead go for the support
of dual layer with the 8X drive. Keep in mind of the
current market of DVD media. So far, 8X seems to be
maximum supported speeds for DVD blank media, however,
dual layer discs are not really as available and are
extremely expensive. I look at a website and they were
selling a 2pack of blank dual layer DVD’s for $50!! It
is much cheaper to put your data on 2 regular 4.7GB
discs than trying to fit it all on an expensive 8.5GB
disc. Knowing that these drives sell for a little over
$100, these drives are quite a bargain. I think Lite-On’s
drives are still a bit underrepresented and can easily
take on the big names such as Plextor and Sony. |
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Reviewed by
ronald@digitalreviews.net |
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