Lite-On 16x DVD±RW Drives

[Ian]

Lite-On has released the specs on the SOHW-1633S and SOHW-1613S.

http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... w1633s.asp

http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... w1613s.asp



Writing Speeds:
DVD+R: 16x CAV
DVD+RW: 4x CLV
DVD+R DL: 2.4 CLV (SOHW-1633S only)
DVD-R: 8x Z-CLV
DVD-R: 4x CLV
CD-R: 48x CAV
CD-RW: 24x Z-CLV

Read Speeds:
DVD-ROM: 16x Max
CD-ROM: 48x Max

Access Times:
DVD-ROM: 160ms
CD-ROM: 160ms

Buffer Size: 2MB

[minchin]

What 1633s only has 2.4x DL? Come on LiteOn, you can do better than that!

Oh, well, we will have to use the NEC 3500A for 4xDL and the use 1633s just to burn and Kprobe!

Min

[MediumRare]

I sure hope they have better firmware than the SOHW 1213S. I haven't got a useable disc @12x with this drive (and 8x is marginal too ).

G

[uknown1234]

I sure hope they have better firmware than the SOHW 1213S. I haven't got a useable disc @12x with this drive (and 8x is marginal too ).

G

that statement alone and many like it are reason enough to stay away from liteon drives

[dolphinius_rex]

some people have reported MUCH better results on the 1633s then the 1213s... I wonder if this is a result of LiteON buying all those CATS Analyzers (possibly to replace a strictly K-Probe testing system )

[Ian]

They've never used just K-Probe. If they truly did buy a number of CATS testers, its probably so that they could get the same hardware as media manufacturers. Testing systems give different results, and unfortunately there is no defacto standard.

[dolphinius_rex]

perhaps I should have gone with a (j/k) instead of just the

I didn't actually think that *ALL* LiteON used was K-Probe, but you have to remember that K-Probe was originally created for in house testing. And since every LiteON model offers greatly differing results, and even drive to drive results are often different, LiteON couldn't have been getting any real usable data from these scans.

And as you say, unfortunatly there is not the official testing standard that exists with CD-Rs

[MediumRare]

I sure hope they have better firmware than the SOHW 1213S. I haven't got a useable disc @12x with this drive (and 8x is marginal too ).

G

that statement alone and many like it are reason enough to stay away from liteon drives

Actually what this means is "stay away from new LiteOn drives". LiteOn normally is very good on updating their firmware- they have to be though, because it's "banana firmware" that ripens after purchase. I was expecting some problems, but didn't think they'd keep up through 2 updates in 2 months.

G

[Halc]

I'd kill for a LiteOn drive that mimicked their CDRW drives, i.e. burn usable quality on almost any disc (even if it's pressed out of camel doo-doo).

Of course, if it did all this at 16x, then all the merrier. We are still missing the LTR-52327s of DVD burners: a drive that just burns on almost any media. Not always the best, but almost always usable.

Also, my secret wish is that they'd do something about c1/c2 scanning in DVD burners. The current burners are just way too optimistic for any useful scanning.

The last TY CD-R disc that I scanned (full 79.xx mins of stuff) scanned 0.00/0.00 for c1/c2 respectively (both total and average). That gives you an idea how accurate and useful C1/C2 scans on LiteOn dvd burners are for ANY kind of c1/c2 scanning. Surely there are some errors in reading or then LiteOn has truly invented the optimum compact disc reading machinery :)

However, I don't expect universal compatibility nor c1/c2 scan usefulness out of these.

Still, I must hand it to them, it's a working marketing plan: ship out drives with incomplete firmware, make them slightly better bit-by-bit and give the impression that they can be made great with just firmware upgrades :)

The active hobbyists don't care if the drives are crap out of the box, if there is a promise of better fw in the future...

cheers,
halcyon

[rdgrimes]

Actually, KProbe was never used for in-house testing until the DVD drives came alone, and even then not regularly. Most of the engineers there run their tests in DOS so they can do hot swapping and such. WSES was the default testing utility.

The 1633 firmwares are just as bad as the 1213, with the exception that they use PCAV at 8x, which seems to produce better results. At 12x and 16x they are just as useless, in fact 16x seems to work a bit better. With strat swapping, the 1633 will do very nicely on several popular media types, and a couple even do well with stock strats. But the fact remains that all the "3" series drives are still functionally no more than 8x burners.

I think the blame for this lies with Mediatek, but since MTK just bought the company that was going to make the new chipsets, looks like LiteOn will be continuing to use MTK.

[digitaldoc]

Unfortunately, LiteOn has not been able to make a 52327S for the DVDRW world. If they did, it would surely dominate. Perhaps the Mediatek chipset is holding them back. All the drives based on it seem to have inferior write quality. I wish the companies would pay more attention to the quality, and less to the speed. We're all willing to wait a few more minutes for a better burn in the end.

[Scour]

I sure hope they have better firmware than the SOHW 1213S. I haven't got a useable disc @12x with this drive (and 8x is marginal too ).

G

that statement alone and many like it are reason enough to stay away from liteon drives

Actually what this means is "stay away from new LiteOn drives". LiteOn normally is very good on updating their firmware- they have to be though, because it's "banana firmware" that ripens after purchase. I was expecting some problems, but didn't think they'd keep up through 2 updates in 2 months.

G

I think I won´t buy a drive now that have a very bad writing quality and hope that in some month the FW is much better. How often I have to test it and how many DVD´s i must throw away til the writing quality will be better?

Better buy a drive that was at the release good and maybe will be better in a few month

[MediumRare]

I think I won´t buy a drive now that have a very bad writing quality and hope that in some month the FW is much better. How often I have to test it and how many DVD´s i must throw away til the writing quality will be better?

Better buy a drive that was at the release good and maybe will be better in a few month

Sure- that is the way to go. When I ordered it, though, it was new and there weren't any tests available. If I'd waited a week, I'd have read rdgrimes' trials and would still be waiting. I'm (normally) very conservative with my hardware purchases. Let me repeat why I bought this drive:

I don't need DL (not into movies much) and 8x is fast enough for me. So why a 12x drive? Well, if a drive is laid out for 12x, it shouldn't have too many (mechanical) problems at 8x or less. Also I'm frugal (read stingy) and it's cheaper than the 832S or a (gasp) Plextor.

G

[Bspire]

You said "Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R media"
Is it time problems or it is errors problems?
Could you please tell us which dvd media that this burner is good with.
Is the dvds that was burned with "good" quality media is a good as the
other burners like nec, pioner etc?
I am not sure anymore about getting this drive, hmmm.


Any advice upon what dvd burner i should get?
This is what i need:
-Dual layer
-The one that has the less errors with reading and writing dvds.
-One that has the most anti copy prevention.
-I really don't care about the speeds of reading and writing discs.
-Don't care about dvd-ram.


Could it be that slower burners (8x,4x) are better?
I remember a while back that everything Goldstar "its LG now" made was guarantied to break after 1 year. Did this changed now?

[Ian]

You said "Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R media"
Is it time problems or it is errors problems?

I'm not sure how it is with the latest unofficial (leaked) firmware is, but with BS0C, the PI/PIF rates were very high with some media. Much higher than what people have seen on the 16x DVD writers from say Pioneer and NEC.

I remember a while back that everything Goldstar "its LG now" made was guarantied to break after 1 year. Did this changed now?

LG makes some very good drives. In fact, some people like them better than Plextors.

[Bspire]

"some media"

Is there any media that gets low Pi/Pif with this drive?
[/quote]

[Bspire]

any luck with BS0K?
http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_d ... d%20rw.asp