Lite-On DH-20A3H 20x "Super AllWrite" DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0 andDLA 5.20:

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

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x, the DH-20A3H uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Lite-On's new drive starts writing at about 8x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The DH-20A3H also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

LG's new "Super AllWrite" drive performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the drive from Samsung, the DH-20A3H turned in some respectable times with both DVD±R and DVD±RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the DH-20A3H, 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. For these tests, SmartWrite and OverSpeed were left disabled.

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 SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) 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 (firmware BSLB). 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-20A3H'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.

While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good with most of our DVD-R test media. The only real exception was Memorex's 16x media. When scanned with KProbe and CD Speed, the PIF rate was a little higher than we'd like to see near the end.

To test the DH-20A3H's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

Lite-On's new drive performed pretty well in our packet writing tests. The DH-20A3H turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media, but wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when reading the data back.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the DH-20A3H, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from MAM-A, Memorex, RiDATA and Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

While no match for the drive from Samsung, the DH-20A3H took a respectable 16:46 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Memorex's 8x and both Verbatim's 2.4x and 8x DVD+R DL media. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the other discs. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the error rates were very high throughout some sections of the discs and, in the case of Philips' 8x DVD+R DL media, we saw a large number of PO Failures.

The DH-20A3H performed pretty well when writing to DVD-R DL media. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive took a little more than 17 minutes to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The DH-20A3H yielded some mixed results with the DVD-R DL media from RiDATA and Verbatim. The the error rates stayed well within acceptable limits when tested with KProbe. However, when scanned by the DW1640, the PI rates were a little higher than we'd like to see.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Lite-On's new "Super AllWrite" drive was pretty mixed. While the DH-20A3H had no problems holding its own when writing to DVD+R, DVD±RW and DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±R DL discs. Writing quality was also an issue as the PI/PIF rates were a bit high with some media. Nevertheless, the DH-20A3H was also fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.

The DH-20A3H also did relatively well in our CD read tests. The drive read pressed and CD-R discs at speeds as high as 48x and had some very good seek times. When it came to writing CD's, Lite-On's new drive gave us some mixed results. While the DH-20A3H turned in some impressive times when writing to CD-R media, its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the Lite-On DH-20A3H gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.