Lite-On DH-4B1S 4x Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer

Model: Lite-On DH-4B1S 4x Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer
Manufacturer: Lite-On IT
Provided By: Lite-On IT America

Lite-On IT got its start in 1995 when its parent company, Lite-On Technology, gathered a group of scientists and engineers to start an optical storage research and manufacturing business. Lite-On Technology quickly established itself as Taiwan’s largest CD-ROM drive manufacturer and by 1999 the business had spun off into a separate company, Lite-On IT. Since then, Lite-On IT has continued to grow. By working closely with companies like BenQ and Philips, they've expanded into the consumer and automotive electronics markets, becoming the world's second largest ODD manufacturer.

With the format war coming to an end, Lite-On has set its sights on the emerging Blu-ray Disc market. Through their partnership with Philips, the company has been given access to numerous patents, allowing them to produce their own line of Blu-ray drives. This summer, the company introduced its second-generation Blu-ray Disc writer, the DH-4B1S. This Serial ATA equipped drive is capable of 4x BD-R, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-R DL writing speeds as well as a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 4x. The DH-4B1S also sports an 8MB buffer and is backwards compatible with most major CD and DVD formats. To top it all off, Lite-On has included a full featured software bundle from CyberLink.

This is just a sample of what Lite-On's 4x Blu-ray Disc writer has to offer. Over the next few pages we'll take a look at the DH-4B1S's features and then see how it compares to some of the the Blu-ray Disc writers from LG and Sony. Does the DH-4B1S have what it takes? More importantly, is it the best bang for your buck? Keep reading to find out.

What's in the box?:

• Lite-On DH-4B1S 4x Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer
• CyberLink Software CD
• User's Manual
• Quick Installation Guide
• TDK 25GB BD-RE Disc
• SATA Cable
• Mounting Screws
• Warranty Information

Physical Features:

The drive Lite-On sent us for this review was manufactured in December of 2007 and had firmware version 7P5A. This is the newest firmware currently available for the DH-4B1S.

From the front, the DH-4B1S looks identical to Lite-On's 2x Blu-ray Disc writer, the LH-2B1S. The two drives not only share the same bezel design, but have many of the same logos. Along with the large "Blu-ray Disc" logo, you can see a few showing support for Ultra Speed CD-RW media as well as the DVD+ReWritable and DVD-R/RW formats.

Below the tray you can see a strip of clear plastic containing three LED's. Off by default, these LED's will light up blue (BD), red (DVD) or green (CD) to show what type of disc is inserted in the drive.

The rear of the DH-4B1S is pretty straightforward. By looking at the picture above you can see the drive's SATA interface and power connector.

Technical Specs:

The specs below have been taken from Lite-On's website and the manual that came with the drive.

More Features:

By looking at the picture below, you can see that Lite-On's new Blu-ray Disc writer is identified as an "ATAPI BD B DH4B1S."

The Nero screenshot also shows that the DH-4B1S has a maximum CD writing speed of 40x and a 2048KB buffer. This buffer is backed up by Seamless Link buffer underrun protection. According to Nero, the DH-4B1S can also write CD-Text and overburn. When testing the drive's capacity, it had no problems overburning up to 99 minutes with our CompUSA media.

Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that the DH-4B1S is a "two sheep" burner. This means that Lite-On's new drive is capable of backing up titles protected by SafeDisc 2, including version 2.51.

Here is a screen shot from Nero's InfoTool. This program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. InfoTool had no problems detecting the DH-4B1S's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.

InfoTool also shows that the DH-4B1S is an RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware. The drive's region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. Unfortunately, a patched RPC-1 firmware is not yet available and utilities like LtnRPC do not work with the drive.

While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the DH-4B1S's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities. By looking at the screenshot above you can see that Lite-On's new drive can read and write to most BD and DVD formats.

Lite-On's new drive also supports a feature called "bitsetting".The DH-41BS automatically sets the book type of DVD+R and DVD+R DL media to "DVD-ROM" without any input from the user. This feature comes in handy if you have an older DVD player that has problems playing recordable media.

CyberLink PowerProducer 3 - With CyberLink's PowerProducer you can create your own movie discs quickly and easily. Right from the start, this wizard based software gives you a number of options to select from. From here you can choose to produce a new movie disc, edit an existing one or record video directly to DVD or BD.

PowerProducer lets you create a number of different movie discs. Looking at the menu below, you can choose to create a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Disc. The software also supports various disc capacities and formats including DVD-VR, DVD+VR and BDAV.

While you can capture your own video, PowerProducer gives you the ability to import video files in a number of different formats. Once added to your production, you can use the built-in editor to trim, merge or split your video clips. PowerProducer also allows you to set chapters within the video content and add your own custom menus, backgrounds, fonts and titles.

CyberLink PowerDirector 5 Express - The DH-4B1S also comes with the CyberLink's video editing software, PowerDirector. To create your own custom movies, simply drag and drop video footage onto the editing timeline and then add scene transitions, background music, or title effects.

You can also use PowerDirector's "Magic" editing tools to clean up video clips and images, condense long video segments and apply pre-designed style templates. When you're done editing your video, you have the option to save it to your hard drive, create a streaming file or write it back to DV tape.

CyberLink Power2Go 5.5 - Power2Go is the main disc burning program included with the DH-4B1S. With this software, users can create various types of CD's, DVD's and BD's or make backups of existing discs. Power2Go also offers enhanced security features, allowing you to password protect and encrypt your data discs.

CyberLink PowerBackup 2 - If you're looking for a quick and easy way to backup your data, PowerBackup is the answer. Depending on your needs, PowerBackup can do full, differential, and incremental backups as well as fast stream-to-disc archiving.

Backup jobs can be scheduled to run at regular intervals so the data is always protected. PowerBackup also offers more advanced features like file filtering, compression and password protection.

CyberLink InstantBurn 5 - InstantBurn is CyberLink's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Nero's InCD, it allows you to use your CD, DVD or BD writer as if it was another hard drive or a huge floppy disk. Once formatted, you can cut, copy, and paste or rename files and folders on a CD-RW, DVD±RW or BD-RE disc.

CyberLink PowerDVD 7 - CyberLink's PowerDVD is one of the more popular software DVD players on the market right now. Along with support for DVD's, it can be used to play back Blu-ray Discs, HD DVD's and other high-def formats including H.264, HD MPEG-2, and WMV-HD. With its support for BD-J and iHD, PowerDVD also gives you the ability to access interactive movie content.

Unfortunately, the version of PowerDVD bundled with the DH-4B1S only supports 2 speaker output. If you want to take advantage of movies encoded with Dolby Digital or DTS, you'll need to buy the retail version of PowerDVD Ultra.

While affordably priced, the Lite-On's new Blu-ray Disc writer delivers a good number of features. The DH-4B1S is capable of 4x BD-R, 2x BD-R DL and 2x BD-RE writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 4x. The drive is also backwards compatible with most CD and DVD formats and includes features like an 8MB buffer, Seamless Link buffer underrun protection and a great software bundle from CyberLink. With all this, it's easy to see why the Lite-On DH-4B1S gets a solid 8 out of 10 for its features.

Along with smaller cable size, one of the biggest benefits of Serial ATA is its ease of installation. Because it uses a point to point connection, setting jumpers has become a thing of the past. In most cases, installation is as simple as plugging in the SATA and power cables and turning the computer on. Needless to say, it took only a couple of minutes to install Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer in our test computer. After making sure that the DH-4B1S was recognized by Windows, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As I mentioned earlier, the DH-4B1S comes with a CD full of software from CyberLink. If you have autorun enabled, the menu pictured below will automatically come up when you insert the disc.

Clicking the "Install CyberLink BD Solution" button will bring up another menu where you can read about the various applications included in the suite. Otherwise, you can start the setup process by clicking the "Install Now" button.

After picking your language of choice, you'll be presented with a number of installation options. From here, you can choose to install PowerDVD, Power2Go, PowerProducer, PowerBackup or InstantBurn. Simply select the components you want and click next a few times. Once the files are copied over, you can start burning your own discs.

The Documentation:

Most of the DH-4B1S's documentation is located in the "User's Manual." Similar to the ones included with Lite-On's other drives, this manual covers a number of topics. It starts out by getting the user familiarized with their new Blu-ray Disc writer. The first section goes over the DH-4B1S'ssupported formats, recording modes and system requirements. The manual also spends a few pages going over the locations and the functions of the buttons and connectors located on the front and back of the drive.

From here, the manual goes right into the physical installation of the DH-4B1S. With no jumpers to configure, this section is relatively brief. Nevertheless, it covers all of the basics including how to install it into an empty drive bay and hook up the cables. The manual finishes up with a few short sections on how to use and maintain the DH-4B1S and troubleshoot any problems that might come up.

Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer also comes with a "Quick Installation Guide." While this small, fold out guide contains a set of instructions that take the user step by step through the installation process, it does not include any pictures or diagrams. With this in mind, you're probably going to be better off with the instructions in the manual than the ones in this guide.

Like the other Lite-On drives we've reviewed, the DH-4B1S was very easy to install. Even though Blu-ray is a relatively new technology, there were no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working correctly. If you do run into trouble, the documentation Lite-On has provided is more than sufficient. However, I would have liked to have seen a little more drive specific information. With this in mind, I give the installation an 8 out of a possible 10.

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For Blu-ray Disc writers, the performance tests are normally broken down into six sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read, DVD write, BD read and BD write. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.7.7.16 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.7.7.16 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write a 4.38GB image to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. For this, 4GB of random files and directories are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

BD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the BD benchmarks, CD Speed v4.7.7.16 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

BD Write Tests: To test the BD write speeds, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature is used to burn an entire BD-R/RE disc. Times are recorded.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Lite-On's new Blu-ray Disc writer performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. While the DH-4B1S's overall score wasn't as high as the Sony's, it had some fairly good transfer rates. It started reading at about 17.1x (2560 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 37.2x (5580 / 150) on the outside.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	31.11x 17.72x 41.13x	30.94x 17.80x 40.63x	25.44x 13.94x 33.63x	24.89x 14.39x 32.83x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	133ms 150ms 201ms	114ms 129ms 186ms	183ms 229ms 376ms	137ms 145ms 273ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 1% 8% 9%	1% 1% 3% 5%	0% 1% 3% 3%

Lite-On's new drive performed a little better in our CD Speed tests. The DH-4B1S started reading at 17.72x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 41.13x. Looking at the other scores, you can see that its seek times were also pretty good.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	31.79x 17.97x 42.18x	31.08x 17.77x 40.83x	25.93x 14.04x 34.40x	25.17x 14.30x 33.29x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	136ms 154ms 204ms	123ms 156ms 229ms	186ms 236ms 366ms	148ms 160ms 242ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 1% 8% 10%	1% 1% 3% 5%	0% 2% 3% 4%

Like the other drives, the DH-4B1S was a little faster when reading CD-R media. Thanks to this speed boost, the drive was able to reach a maximum transfer speed of 42.18x.

Lite-On's new Blu-ray drive had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The DH-4B1S read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 45.26x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	31.22x 17.92x 41.21x	30.56x 17.74x 40.00x	18.99x 10.89x 25.08x	18.54x 10.71x 24.43x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	134ms 150ms 202ms	120ms 135ms 203ms	188ms 217ms 351ms	152ms 162ms 244ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 1% 8% 10%	1% 1% 2% 5%	0% 2% 3% 4%

The DH-4B1S also reads CD-RW media at 40x. As you can see, the drive had no problems reaching this speed in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Lite-On DH-41BS supports accurate stream and caches audio data, it does not have the ability to retrieve C2 error information.

CD Speed	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	31.41x 18.00x 41.55x 10 Yes	30.72x 18.00x 40.30x 10 Yes	25.59x 14.04x 33.84x 10 Yes	18.66x 10.98x 24.75x 10 Yes

The DH-4B1S performed very well when ripping pressed audio CD's. With a maximum DAE speed of 41.55x, it had no problems taking the top spot in our tests.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

CD Speed	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	31.12x 17.95x 41.03x 10 Yes	30.44x 17.99x 39.86x 10 Yes	25.40x 14.17x 33.46x 10 Yes	18.46x 10.88x 24.31x 10 Yes

Lite-On's new Blu-ray drive was a little slower when ripping audio CD-R discs. Nevertheless, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 41x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

The DH-4B1S completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 29.60x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the DH-4B1S was able to read the CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in but failed to read the lead out section of the CD.

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 andDLA 5.20:

For this test I randomly generated 650MB and 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep.

The DH-4B1S has a maximum CD writing speed of 40x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Taiyo Yuden's 52x media, the drive started writing at about 17.57x and reached a maximum speed of 40.74x at the end of the session. This gave Lite-On's new drive an average writing speed of about 27.18x.

To test the drive's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yuden media rated at 52x. The results are below.

Lite-On's new drive did fairly well in our CD writing tests. While not as fast as the GGW-H20L, the DH-4B1S was able to write an entire 701MB CD in 3:34.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52246S (firmware 6S0F) and read the discs at 32x.

Imation 52x (MBI)

Taiyo Yuden 52x

Verbatim 52x

The DH-41BS's writing quality was very good. By looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the discs burned by the drive had a low number of C1 errors. More importantly, there were no C2 errors at all.

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using DLA from Sonic. Verbatim's 24x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

While the DH-4B1S uses P-CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 24x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it uses a total of three "zones" to reach its maximum writing speed. The drive starts writing at 10x and jumps to 16x at the 4 minute mark.The DH-4B1S writes at this speed until about the 46 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 24x and stays there until the end of the session.

Lite-On's new Blu-ray drive didn't do as well as some of the others in our rewriting tests. Due to its Z-CLV writing method, the DH-41BS took 3:35 to write 400MB with Nero and 3:23 to do the same with DLA.

The DH-41BS also erases at 24x. While its Z-CLV writing method didn't have much of an effect on its quick erase time, the drive took 5:46 to do a full erase.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-ROM:

A little editorial note here. Like a CD-ROM, you will get different benchmark results depending on what kind of discs you are using. You are probably going to get varying results from a full data disc to a single layer movie disc. You're also going to get different results for single and dual layer discs.

The DVD Speed website recommends using a single layer DVD-ROM disc with a capacity of at least 4GB. If you use a dual layer disc you probably won't get the best results because most DVD-ROM drives slow down to read them. Some even slow down to read single layer DVD-Video discs. To make a long story short, I am using a 4.37GB single layer, single sided disc for this test.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.33x 5.12x 12.49x	12.28x 6.80x 16.42x	9.09x 4.97x 12.16x	6.15x 3.41x 8.22x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	138ms 158ms 209ms	121ms 141ms 213ms	183ms 214ms 298ms	140ms 156ms 296ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 9% 17% 32%	4% 8% 14% 23%	5% 9% 16% 30%	6% 9% 17% 32%

The DH-41BS performed fairly well when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. In our tests it started reading at 5.12x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 12.49x.Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times were also quite good.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-R and DVD-RW:

First, we'll look at the drive's DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance. For this I made copies of our DVD-ROM test disk using some general use 16x DVD-R and 4x DVD-RW media from Verbatim and then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD-R

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.35x 5.14x 12.49x	9.23x 5.12x 12.33x	7.62x 4.17x 10.19x	6.15x 3.40x 8.22x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	139ms 158ms 212ms	102ms 125ms 183ms	193ms 238ms 366ms	152ms 166ms 305ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 9% 17% 32%	3% 6% 12% 22%	6% 9% 16% 31%	6% 9% 17% 31%

Verbatim DVD-RW

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.37x 5.13x 12.54x	7.69x 4.23x 10.29x	6.26x 3.42x 8.37x	6.16x 3.41x 8.25x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	138ms 159ms 212ms	110ms 136ms 206ms	213ms 258ms 402ms	153ms 219ms 355ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 10% 17% 32%	4% 7% 13% 24%	6% 9% 16% 31%	6% 9% 17% 31%

The DH-41BS performed very well when reading DVD-R and DVD-RW media. In both cases, the drive reached a maximum transfer speed of about 12.5x.

Lite-On's new drive had no problems reading Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media. The DH-41BS started reading at 3.35x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 8.05x.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD+R and DVD+RW:

Next we'll look at the drive's DVD+R and DVD+RW reading performance. For this I made a copy of our DVD-ROM test disk using some 4x DVD+R and 2.4x DVD+RW media from Verbatim. I then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD+R

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.35x 5.13x 12.51x	9.22x 5.10x 12.33x	7.63x 4.17x 10.20x	6.15x 3.41x 8.22x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	137ms 162ms 213ms	100ms 130ms 196ms	190ms 240ms 382ms	156ms 169ms 313ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 9% 17% 32%	3% 7% 15% 24%	6% 9% 17% 31%	6% 10% 17% 32%

Verbatim DVD+RW

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.36x 5.13x 12.50x	7.69x 4.24x 10.29x	6.25x 3.42x 8.36x	6.15x 3.41x 8.22x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	138ms 161ms 213ms	110ms 129ms 191ms	214ms 263ms 402ms	156ms 170ms 338ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 10% 17% 32%	4% 7% 12% 23%	6% 9% 16% 31%	6% 10% 17% 32%

The DH-41BS's performance with DVD+R and DVD+RW media was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R and DVD-RW media.Once again, the drive reached a maximum transfer speed of about 12.5x.

Verbatim DVD+R DL

Reading Verbatim's double layer DVD+R media wasn't an issue for Lite-On's new drive either. The DH-41BS started reading at 3.35x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 8.05x.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-Video:

For these tests I am using the US version of Transformers: The Movie on DVD. The disc is over 4GB and single sided.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	9.24x 5.05x 12.35x	6.06x 3.36x 8.10x	9.01x 4.92x 12.05x	4.61x 2.56x 6.17x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	138ms 160ms 208ms	191ms 231ms 333ms	185ms 224ms 303ms	145ms 162ms 302ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	5% 9% 17% 32%	4% 6% 18% 24%	7% 9% 27% 31%	6% 9% 17% n/a

The DH-41BS didn't slow down very much when reading single layer DVD videos. It started out at about 5.05x and reached a maximum read speed of 12.35x. Lite-On's new drive was also fairly quick when reading dual layer discs. By looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the drive's transfer speeds peaked at about 8x.

To see how well Lite-On's new drive worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace using the bundled version of PowerDVD. The DH-41BS had no problems playing back either movie and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 andDLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of Lite-On's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW and 8x DVD+RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

The DH-41BS uses P-CAV, or Partial CAV, when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Lite-On's new drive starts writing at 4.3x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at about the 4.1GB minute mark.

The DH-4B1S also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

While not nearly as fast as some of the DVD writers we've looked at recently, the DH-41BS performed as expected when writing to both DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the DH-41BS, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SOHW-1673S and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The DH-41BS's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good for the most part.

To test the DH-41BS's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media was used once again.

The DH-41BS performed fairly well in our packet writing tests. While not the fastest drive we've tested, it turned in some respectable times when reading and writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DH-41BS, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and Memorex. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

The DH-41BS had no problems taking the top spot in this test. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive took 19:39 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 21:28 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 2.4x and 8x DVD+R DL media. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits and there were no readability problems. Memorex's 8x DVD+R DL and Verbatim's 8x DVD-R DL also yielded some fairly decent results with KProbe. However, when scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the error rates were fairly high throughout some sections of the discs.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - BD-ROM:

To test the DH-41BS's BD-ROM reading performance, I used the Blu-ray Disc version of The Fifth Element. This single layer disc is about 23GB in size.

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	3.02x 1.67x 3.99x	3.61x 2.01x 4.82x	3.05x 1.70x 4.07x	2.00x 2.00x 2.00x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	108ms 4ms 3ms	117ms 175ms 223ms	148ms 275ms 385ms	123ms 228ms 407ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	2% 1% 3% 4%	0% 1% 1% 2%	0% 1% 2% 3%	0% 1% 2% 3%

The DH-4B1S performed relatively well when reading BD-ROM discs. While not as fast as the drives from LG, it reached a maximum transfer speed of 3.99x.

Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer had no problems playing back The Fifth Element and The Simpsons Movie using the bundled version of PowerDVD. Just keep in mind that if your monitor is connected to your video card using DVI or HDMI, both need to be HDCP compliant to play AACS protected titles. If not, you can still play them by switching the connection to VGA or using software like Slysoft's AnyDVD HD.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - BD-R and BD-RE:

Next we'll look at the drive's BD-R and BD-RE reading performance. For this I created a few data discs using single layer BD-R and BD-RE media from Memorex and then ran our BD read tests with CD Speed.

Memorex BD-R

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	3.02x 1.71x 4.03x	4.55x 2.58x 6.04x	3.06x 1.75x 4.07x	2.00x 1.99x 2.00x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	109ms 4ms 3ms	121ms 167ms 217ms	206ms 317ms 441ms	101ms 215ms 390ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	2% 1% 3% 5%	0% 0% 2% 2%	0% 1% 2% 3%	0% 1% 2% 4%

Memorex BD-RE

	Lite-On DH-4B1S	LG GGW-H20L	LG GGW-H10N	Sony BWU-100A
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	1.99x 1.96x 1.99x	2.30x 2.29x 2.30x	2.51x 1.43x 3.34x	2.00x 1.99x 2.00x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	111ms 10ms 10ms	150ms 263ms 766ms	223ms 330ms 441ms	101ms 219ms 391ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	8% 9% 14% 24%	0% 1% 2% 2%	0% 1% 2% 3%	0% 1% 2% 4%

Lite-On's new drive had no problems reading BD-R and BD-RE media. In our tests, the DH-41BS was able to read BD-R discs at 4x and BD-R DL media at about 2x. For whatever reason, the 1/3 and full seek times were much lower than they should have been.

Sony BD-R DL

Unfortunately, the DH-4B1S ran into some trouble when reading BD-R DL media. I tried a number of discs and the drive would either not recognize them at all or lock up the computer when I launched CD Speed. I finally found one that worked and as you can see, the DH-4B1S read it at 2x from start to finish.

BD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16:

To test the BD writing performance of Lite-On's new drive I used BD-R and BD-RE media from Memorex, Sony, TDK and Verbatim. To get the writing times, CD Speed's "Create Data Disc" feature was used. I also ran the discs through CD Speed's transfer rate test to make sure that the DH-4B1S could read them back. .

The DH-4B1S writes to BD-R media at 4x. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive starts writing at 3.3x and then jumps to 4x at the 1GB mark.

The DH-4B1S performed fairly well when writing to BD-R media.While not as fast as the GGW-H20L, it took a little more than 24 minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. Unfortunately, Lite-On's new drive failed when writing to Sony's BD-R DL media. After 90 or so minutes, the DH-4B1S locked up, causing CD Speed and eventually Windows to hang.

Aside from the problems with Sony's BD-R DL media, burning Blu-ray Discs went off without a hitch. The DH-4B1S wrote to all of our test media at its rated speeds and, looking at the transfer rates, you can see that it had no problems reading the discs back.

Performance Revisited:

While Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer has a few rough spots, it performed as expected throughout most of our tests. The DH-4B1S worked well with all of the BD-R and BD-RE media I tried, but had some issues with BD-R DL discs. Reading and writing to CD's and DVD's wasn't a problem for the drive either. The DH-4B1S had no problem reaching its rated read speeds and held its own fairly well in our writing tests. With all things considered, the Lite-On DH-4B1S gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.

While the DH-4B1S isn't the fastest or most feature packed Blu-ray Disc writer to come through the 'Labs, it just might be the answer for those on a budget. With a price tag of less than $200 in some places, it is currently one of the most affordable Blu-ray Disc writers on the market.

The DH-4B1S is the first drive from Lite-On with the ability to write to BD-R media at 4x. At this speed, it took a little more than 24 minutes to burn an entire 25GB disc. The DH-4B1S wasn't as fast when writing to BD-RE media. However, its performance was on par with the other Blu-ray Disc writers I've tested. Unfortunately, the drive had some problems writing to BD-R DL media. Hopefully, Lite-On can fix this in a future firmware update.

Using the bundled software, the DH-4B1S played all of the Blu-ray movies I had on hand, including those protected by BD+. The drive also performed fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-ROM's and BD-R discs at 4x. However, its speeds were limited to only 2x when reading BD-RE and BD-R DL media.

With a maximum DVD±R writing speed of 12x, the DH-4B1S is no match for the current crop of DVD writers. Nevertheless, it was faster than most of the Blu-ray drives I've tested, burning an entire 4.7GB DVD in a little more than 7 minutes. The drive also had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD±R DL discs. The DH-4B1S was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer data and video DVD-ROM's as well as most recordable media at 12x.

Reading and writing CD's wasn't a problem for the DH-4B1S either. In our tests, it read all types of CD media at 40x and had some fairly good seek times. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at speeds as high as 40x.As a writer, the DH-4B1S performed as expected. The drive turned in some very good times with CD-R media and its writing quality was quite good. Unfortunately, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests.

Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer also has its share of features. To prevent buffer underruns, the DH-4B1S has an 8MB buffer that is backed up by Seamless Link buffer underrun protection. While the drive only utilizes 2MB of the buffer when writing CD's, this system worked flawlessly in our tests. The DH-4B1S also has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R and DVD+R DL media and comes with a great software bundle from CyberLink.

In the end, it usually comes down to price. For what it offers, Lite-On's Blu-ray Disc writer is surprisingly affordable. The retail version of the DH-4B1S can be purchased for less than $270 through the vendors listed on Pricegrabber. Otherwise, if you shop around, you can pick up the OEM version of the drive for around $200.

Highs:

• Writes to BD-R media at 4x
• Writes to BD-RE and BD-R DL media at 2x
• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 12x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
• Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 4x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 12x
• Reads DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 12x
• Reads DVD±R DL media at 8x
• Features 40x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
• Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
• 8MB buffer
• Good CD-R and DVD±R writing quality
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
• Includes software from CyberLink
• Supports 99 minute CD-R media
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Problems reading and writing to BD-R DL media
• Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R DL media
• Reads BD-RE and BD-R DL media at only 2x
• Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
• Buffer limited to 2MB when writing CD's