In House Review - Samsung SH-S162L 16x DVD±RW/RAM

[Ian]

Today, CDRLabs takes an in depth look at Samsung's new LightScribe enabled "Super-Multi" drive, the SH-S162L. Sporting some pretty impressive specs, the SH-S162L is capable of 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL, 4x DVD-R DL and 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. Along with support for LightScribe, the SH-S162L also includes features like 48x CD reading and writing speeds, 32x rewriting speeds, and a software bundle from Nero.

In this review we'll take a look at the features found on the SH-S162L and see how it compares to some of the "Super-Multi" drives from the competition. Does the SH-S162L have what it takes? You'll have to read the review to find out.

[url=http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=285]
Samsung SH-S162L 16x DVD±RW/RAM[/url]

If you have any comments or questions about this review or the Samsung SH-S162L, please post them in the forum by clicking the link below.

[MediumRare]

Good review Ian (as usual)! I don't know where you find the time to do all these tests, with a family, full-time job and moving to boot!, Please keep it up.

All in all, it seems a bit disappointing. 40x reading for CD-R's is too slow.

Also funny that this drive is slower writing to CD-RW's @32x than the Liteon @24x.

The writing quality is "suboptimal". LiteOn gets better quality from the MediaTek chipset. The best results were for the Optodisc (OPTODISCR016), which the drive burned @8x- that suggests that slowing down should help a lot with the burn quality.

G

[Ian]

Yeah, I'll need to take a break from testing for a few days. The movers are coming on Sunday and it will take me a few days to break down my office, pack it up and then set it up again at the new house. I'm not looking forward to packing up all my media either.

Samsung seems to have taken a very cautious approach with this drive. The only reason I can think of for the 40x CD-R read speeds is that they were afraid discs would shatter at 48x. The drive's Z-CLV writing methods with CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW media were not very aggressive either. I wouldn't be surprised if this drive was also being sold to some OEM's.

I don't know if you noticed it, but with some media there was a jitter jump at the 0.8GB mark, similar to what I was seeing with the Lite-On SHM-165H6S. I had thought that Lite-On was doing some weird optimization at this point but this might be in the chipset itself. Thoughts?

[MediumRare]

I don't know if you noticed it, but with some media there was a jitter jump at the 0.8GB mark, similar to what I was seeing with the Lite-On SHM-165H6S. I had thought that Lite-On was doing some weird optimization at this point but this might be in the chipset itself. Thoughts?

Could be. Something sure seems to be happening there that the BenQ doesn't like.

The SH-S162L seems to have some sort of "WOPC" or "OHT"* implemented- in any case there are several dips in the writing graph that indicate power recalibration. The jump in jitter seems to be at the second one (0.8 GiB). For the LiteOn drive, this occurs at the 0.9 GiB recalibration point. Both are somewhere between 8x and 10x speed and the jump doesn't show in the scans of the 8x burns (YUDEN000T02 and OPTODISCR016 / TYG02).

Do you have an 8x writing graph (YUDEN000T02 or OPTODISCR016) so we can see what the OPC is doing at that speed?

G

* Walking Optimal Power Control (BenQ) or Online Hyper Tuning (LiteOn experimental).

[Ian]

Do you have an 8x writing graph (YUDEN000T02 or OPTODISCR016) so we can see what the OPC is doing at that speed?

No, but if I have time tonite I can burn a few.

[MonsterMan]

Ordered one the day before the review hit

Well, gonna use it mostly as a ripper...and for the few cds I burn, from the looks of it...

[Ian]

Here you go MediumRare..

[[buck]]

You know, you'd think two giants like Toshiba/Samsung could come up with their own chipset, and not some crap from Taiwan.

[Ian]

Toshiba used to use their own chipsets but they weren't that great.

btw [buck], I didn't shrink the CD Speed writing quality screenshots this time.

[[buck]]

Toshiba used to use their own chipsets but they weren't that great.

Just curious, about how long ago?

btw [buck], I didn't shrink the CD Speed writing quality screenshots this time.

Nice

[Ian]

I think it was only a few years ago. If I remember right, their 8x drives used their own chipsets.

[Scour]

Good review again, Ian

The Samsung looks very average, I´m not disappointed because I don´t had great expectations from Samsung.

The burn-quality is not so bad for a mediatek-writer, but the Benq-scans are still hard for any burns on MTK-chipsets.

Thanks again for using a Benq for scanning, this is what i miss on other review-pages

[dolphinius_rex]

The burn-quality is not so bad for a mediatek-writer, but the Benq-scans are still hard for any burns on MTK-chipsets.

One of these days I'm going to get some time on a CATS or DATARIUS and proove once and for all whether it's BenQ being hard on MTK chipsets, or everyone else being too lenient.

[Scour]

One of these days I'm going to get some time on a CATS or DATARIUS and proove once and for all whether it's BenQ being hard on MTK chipsets, or everyone else being too lenient.

Sounds good

[Phoenix '97]

Oh dear, those RITEK D01 results don't look so good. :/

[dolphinius_rex]

Oh dear, those RITEK D01 results don't look so good. :/

Looked pretty normal for that media type to me

[Phoenix '97]

Oh dear, those RITEK D01 results don't look so good. :/

Looked pretty normal for that media type to me

I've gotten 1/3-decent (as opposed to half-decent) results from these with my 1640: