In House Review - CenDyne Lightning V 52/24/52 CD-RW

[Ian]

Today we take a look at CenDyne's newest CD-RW drive, the Lighting V. Based on the Lite-On LTR-52246S, the Lighting V offers some of the fastest reading and writing speeds currently available. The drive also has its share of features including Lite-On's SMART-BURN and SMART-X technologies and support for the Mt. Rainier format.

I'm sure that the question on most of minds is how does it perform? Are 52x writing speeds truly as fast as they sound? To find out, you'll have to check out the review.

CenDyne Lightning V 52/24/52 CD-RW

If you have any comments or questions about the drive or the review, please post them in the forum.

[coolestnitish]

Great review Ian, everything looks good on this drive except the RW (but not a lot of people do that much RW). It really does deserve the 9/10 you gave it.

[Ian]

I sent my contact at Lite-On an email this morning about the RW problem. I'll let you guys know what I find out.

[hoxlund]

great review ian, if only newegg.com sold cendyne

[cfitz]

I sent my contact at Lite-On an email this morning about the RW problem. I'll let you guys know what I find out.

Yes, please tell them we are all anxiously awaiting a firmware update to P-CAV 24x rewriting.

cfitz

[Alejandra]

Ian, in which test dou you have better times @24 than @16, inmy tests with CDRW on 52246S burning @24 takes 4:54 and @16 takes 5:07 with nero and similar times with CDSpeed.

Are the worse times @24x with Packet Writing?

By the way, great review.

[Ian]

It took 3:39 at 24x and 3:26 at 16x to write 400MB of data using Nero 5.5.9.17. I tried it with Mitsubisihi and Prodisc media.. same results.

Packet writing with InCD was faster. It took only 3:08 to copy the same files to the disc.

What version of Nero are you using?

[Alejandra]

Sorry about the confusion, I was burning 651MB of data

With 400MB it take 3:37 @24x and 3:18 @16x with Nero 5.5.9.17

500MB: @24x 4:10 @ 16x 4:06

[Ian]

Interesting.. But why is it so much faster when packet writing? I'd expect the times with Nero to be fairly close.

[Action Jackson]

As always, another nice review Ian.

I have no problems using the supplied InCD 3.39.0 on my CDRW's. I wish I could give you some numbers but I only have 1 piece of 24 RW. Unfortunately it's the less than stellar Plasmon. Right now I'm only using 10x RW's.

Interestingly, I downloaded InCD 3.51 and it screwed up my media previously formatted and written with the OEM InCD! Arrrrgh.

[coolestnitish]

Ian, I had one question about the features of the drive. Your review said the drive did 52x (CAV), 48x, 40x, 32x, 24x (P-CAV), 16x, 12x, 8x, 4x (CLV). And some people on the web were confused of this burner's specs and they predicted it would be 52x, 48x(CAV), 40x, 32x, 24x (P-CAV)
16x, 12x, 8x, 4x (CLV). So according to your review it writes 48x at P-CAV. So is this one of the first burners to come with 48x P-CAV? And if so then the LiteOn would be the same too right??

[KCK]

Ian:

I have a question on section "Mt. Rainier Tests - InCD 3.51" of your excellent review. When did the background formatting start and how long did it take to complete? On my Lite-On LTR-48125W VS08, XP Pro SP1, InCD 3.51.61, after formatting starts it takes about 20 seconds before the InCD mounted message appears. Then, if the disc is not used, the burner sits idle (no red LED blinks) for several minutes (I never had the patience to measure it). Is this normal? How do you know that the background formatting is finished?

Action Jackson:

Could you report your InCD 3.39->3.51 experience in the InCD 3.51.61 thread

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7419

as a warning? This might help other InCD users.

[Ian]

To be honest, I'm not quite sure. The media I had would burn at 52x or 40x and not at 48x. I could not get a CD Speed graph of it writing at 48x to find out.

It's very possible that the drive is slowing down its rotation speed for 48x and using CAV. But then again, the writing speeds are only a few seconds slower at 48x than at 52x which makes me think its staying at the same rotation speed and using P-CAV.

I didn't mention this in the review, but the drive did slow its rotation speed down when writing at 40x.



If you find this out, I'd love to know.

[Alejandra]

To be honest, I'm not quite sure. The media I had would burn at 52x or 40x and not at 48x. I could not get a CD Speed graph of it writing at 48x to find out.

It's very possible that the drive is slowing down its rotation speed for 48x and using CAV. But then again, the writing speeds are only a few seconds slower at 48x than at 52x which makes me think its staying at the same rotation speed and using P-CAV.

I didn't mention this in the review, but the drive did slow its rotation speed down when writing at 40x.

If you find this out, I'd love to know.

Oh dear this is simple, follow these steps:

1.- select "current" as write speed in "options"


2.- goto overburning test and select the speed you want to burn at, but you dont need to run the test, just close.


3.- select "Transfer Rate" or "Create Data CD" test.


As you see the Drive is 48x CAV also

Oh, by the way if you select re-run the test you need go to overburning test again and select the desired speed. I noticed after the test it return to the maximum speed.

[Alejandra]

Ian, I think that Packet Writing is a little faster because it doesn't need the Lead In and Lead out portion, well this is my opinion.

[Ian]

Thanks Alejandra. I've never done it that way. Thats a good thing to know.

In most cases, drives take a few seconds longer when packet writing. At least thats been my experience.

[Alexandrus]

Great review.
But I hate the 24X CAVRW speed, it really sucks. I have no idea why LITE-ON would not make 24X RW P-CAV like normal people......

[tchybrid]

hey all, i just got the cendyne/lite-on 52/24/52 drive today, and nero won't recognize any write speeds above 40, and a Read speed of 12... so i'm very confused...

system specs:
800 Duron
ABit KT7A-Raid
Lite-On 16x DVD-Rom
Cendyne 52/24/52 CD-RW

[cfitz]

What specific media (brand and manufacturer) did you put in the drive?

cfitz