LTR-48246S vs. LTR-48246K

[maciejka13]

Hello everyone ,
Heven't been there for almost a year. Here is my question

anyone knows what's the difference between those two stated in the subject, except the color of the boxes of course ??? I couldn't find antything at Liteon.com which would tell me sth about it - the firmware is different, that's all I found.

What's more I have the first one at home, and the second at my sister's (I take care of her comp) and noticed only that I can't do overburning test on the 'S' one, the 'K' one does it, only it says e.g. that my Verbatim Datalife CD-R max capacity is 751 MB. Haven't tried yet if it's really possible but I guess it's not. After brosing the the liteon site I thought maybe the 'K' one is the older writer - but I'm not sure, especially the 'K' one I have was manufactured in Feb, this year, the 'S' one in Dec 2002.

What's your experience about all that? Do you know sth about knew firmware for those writers - what those 'match more media' upgrades do except what the Liteon says ? Is it possible to make an overburning test on any of my writers after any firmware upgrade?
I searched the forum only briefly, looking only for the apropriate subject or any post with LTR-48246K so if there was a question about it before TIA for tip where was it

[cfitz]

The K version is newer. The most authoritative answer we have on the general difference between LiteOn models with different suffixes is that that they have different pickup heads. In this specific instance, the K model is also physically shorter than the S model. The firmware for the two are not compatible, so you can't successfully flash one to the other.

The "match more media" updates generally do just that, although LiteOn make sneak some bug fixes in as well. There is a thread over at CDFreaks that says that the lates firmwares from LiteOn include fixes for the overburn capacity bug of which you speak:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php ... adid=69503

We are still waiting for the 48246S updated firmware, but if you really want to try out some new firmware that reportedly corrects the overburning capacity bug, you can download XFlashFix from Digi (http://digi.rpc1.org/flashfix.htm), use it on the 6S0F firmware for the 52246S from LiteOn, and then convert your 48246S into the latest 52246S.

cfitz

[Inertia]

The firmware for the LTR-48125W that was just released, VS0D, allows a successful overburning test that was not possible with its predecessor. I have tested it and can confirm this result. I would assume that the LTR-40125W has also been fixed with the latest release, but haven't reflashed just to test this capability.

[maciejka13]

Thanks for the info cfitz , I was searching the net in the meantime and I've found some good knews too (only it was exactly about 3 writers: LTR-52246S, 48125W and 40125W - firmware checked and ready for download - same site as your link was quoting,) and (sic!) it was in my mother tongue

I guess I will wait for the firmware dedicated to my writers. I can wait.
I have found sth interesting about that bug we are talking about. When I bought the 246S I did overburning test, (didn't know about the bug yet) it could't find the max capacity, so I tried to overburn it highly (keeping in mind that it can be really bad experience for the drive), I tried to burn 740 MB on 700MB CD-R. And what's interesting I didn't ge t the coaster. Burner did his writng until 720 MB, then stopted, but data on it is perfectly readable. And I got the info about the max capacity that way. It happend by a chance, it's nothing special or what ???

anyone who flashed form Liteon - 48246S to 52246S can say how is the drive behaving ???

[maciejka13]

Inertia,

I've just done an overburning capacity test on on 48246K (firmware SKS7, CD-R 700, Esperanza by DIGITAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGY) and there wasn't a limitation found. And as I mentioned before Nero says I can burn 751 MB on my CD-R Verbatim Datalife by Moser Baer India.
The same was on my 48246S. Maybe it's about the media. But the bug is present believe me.

[cfitz]

You're welcome Maciejka13. And I also have never been able to get a valid overburning capacity test result from my 48246S. I have tried testing in the past with both CD Speed and Feurio. The drive never reports a burning error when the test is running, so there is no way to determine the limit. As far as the drive reports, the disc might just as well have infinite capacity.

Now, it's quite possible I'm doing something wrong since I don't normally overburn (although I have no trouble determining overburn capacity with my Yamaha CRW-3200EZ), but from my personal experience the 48246S doesn't support overburning capacity testing. Whether that is considered a bug or just a missing feature, I won't argue. But I know I can't get it to work on this 6-series drive, so I would agree that there is an issue with the 6-series drives as well as the 5-series drives.

cfitz

[Harrier]

You're welcome Maciejka13. And I also have never been able to get a valid overburning capacity test result from my 48246S. I have tried testing in the past with both CD Speed and Feurio. The drive never reports a burning error when the test is running, so there is no way to determine the limit. As far as the drive reports, the disc might just as well have infinite capacity.

Now, it's quite possible I'm doing something wrong since I don't normally overburn (although I have no trouble determining overburn capacity with my Yamaha CRW-3200EZ), but from my personal experience the 48246S doesn't support overburning capacity testing. Whether that is considered a bug or just a missing feature, I won't argue. But I know I can't get it to work on this 6-series drive, so I would agree that there is an issue with the 6-series drives as well as the 5-series drives.

cfitz

The new V6S0F firmware has fixed the overburning issue, at least for my ltr52446S.
With the previous firmware cd speed used to give me every overburning volume i wanted.
It spinned around till the test finished reading the full data capacity i've put in.
But now:



Only question the pops up in my head right now is why do LiteOn never mention what improvements are brought in with the new firmwares?

[dimitri]

Only question the pops up in my head right now is why do LiteOn never mention what improvements are brought in with the new firmwares?

They probably enjoy reading the forums, laughing at us trying to figure it out...

Seriously tho, there might be a few reasons for that. Having to get someone with a good English language command is one. However, I suspect the main reason is that if they start doing that they will have to touch subjects like copy protection, which I'm sure they rather not.

[maciejka13]

Harrier,
Dimitri,

Personally I believe it's not the copy protection, only it's not easy to say: hey gays we've been selling the drive we haven't tested for any bugs and issues they could have because, you know, competition made us to hurry, we wanted to have our x48 drive before they could do that.
We all know there are certain manufacturers, like TEAC (at least it was the case of Teac before), who never have to follow the bugs reported by the community. They are testing the drive as long as it takes to find out every possible problem before they put it on the market.

That's what I think. On the other hand it's nice when you know someone (manufacturer) is reacting, when the problem occurs, even if they use the firmware made by someone else, and you know you drive can by better than it was when you were buying it.

[cfitz]

The new V6S0F firmware has fixed the overburning issue, at least for my ltr52446S.

Thanks Harrier for the additional confirmation that the bug exists on 6-series drives and is corrected with the new firmware. I knew my drive had the problem, but there was some question as to whether the 6-series drives had the problem in general, or if it was limited to just the 5-series drives.

cfitz