Lite-On SHM-165H6S Super AllWrite 16x DVD±RW/RAM

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.16 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Plextor's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 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 16x, the SHM-165H6S uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Lite-On's new drive starts writing at about 6.7x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SHM-165H6S 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.

Lite-On's new drive performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs, the SHM-165H6S turned in some respectable times with DVD+R and DVD-R media.

To check the media compatibility of the SHM-165H6S, 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, Hyper Tuning 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 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.

When tested with KProbe, the SHM-165H6S's writing quality appears to be pretty good. With the exception of Optodisc's 16x DVD+R media, the error rates remained fairly low. Unfortunately, the results weren't nearly as good when scanned with the BenQ DW1640. Looking at the CD Speed screenshots, you can see that the jitter level and PI/PIF rates jumped up considerably near the 0.8GB mark. Surprisingly enough, this didn't seem to have any effect on readability.

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. If you look at the CD Speed screenshots, you can see that in most cases the jitter level and PI/PIF rates jumped at the 0.8GB mark. However, it wasn't nearly as bad as what we saw with DVD+R media.

So what about HyperTuning? Is it nothing more than a marketing gimmick or does it really work? To find out, I retested some of the more problematic media with it enabled. I first burned a few discs to give HyperTuning a chance to optimize the writing strategy. After that, I got the results you see below.

With some media, like Daxon's 16x DVD-R discs, there was a notable improvement in writing quality when HyperTuning was enabled. Unfortunately, these cases were few and far between. With most of the media I tested, HyperTuning seemed to have little effect or, as in the case of RiDATA's 16x DVD+R discs, the writing quality was actually worse than when it was disabled.

Of course, HyperTuning may work better with unsupported media. However, Lite-On has done an excellent job in this regard and we were not able to find any media not supported by the SHM-165H6S.

To test the SHM-165H6S's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 5x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The SHM-165H6S didn't do as well as the other drives in our packet writing tests. When writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media, it trailed behind the PX-750A and GSA-4167B by a good 30 seconds. Unfortunately, this gap grew to as much as four minutes when writing to DVD-RAM discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.0.16:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SHM-165H6S, I used Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL and RiDATA 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 8x was not an easy task. The only media we found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's new 8x DVD+R DL discs. With the other DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 4x.

The SHM-165H6S did very well in this test. With Nero, it took the drive a little more than 17 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good minute faster than the drives from NEC and LG. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media. While there were a few spots where the jitter levels got a little high, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Verbatim's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. While written at a slower speed, the PI/PIF rates were higher this time around, especially when tested with the BenQ DW1640. The worst results were with Memorex's 2.4x DVD+R DL media. The PI/PIF rates were not only considerably higher, there were a number of PO Failures.

The SHM-165H6S also features 4x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA was used.

With its 4x writing speed, the SHM-165H6S wasn't nearly as fast as the drive from NEC. In our tests, it took Lite-On's new drive 28:04 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The SHM-165H6S's writing quality was pretty good with the DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. The PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits when tested with both KProbe and CD Speed and, aside from a few dips at the layer change, there were no readability problems.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Lite-On's new "Super AllWrite" drive was hit and miss. When writing DVD's, the SHM-165H6S turned in good times with DVD±R and DVD+R DL media, but wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±RW and DVD-R DL discs. Writing quality was also an issue as there were a number of cases where the PI/PIF rates were quite high. On the other hand, the SHM-165H6S was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD's at 16x and both DVD±R and DVD±RW media at a respectable 12x.

The SHM-165H6S also did pretty well in our CD read tests. The drive had no problems reading all types of media at its rated speeds 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 SHM-165H6S turned in some very impressive times when writing to CD-R media, its 24x rewriting speed put it at a slight disadvantage. With all things considered, the Lite-On SHM-165H6S gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.