Lite-On SOHW-812S - Page 1

LITE-ON IT CORP. has released the SOHW-812S half-height ATAPI / E-IDE 8x DVD Dual ReWriter. Sharing internal parts and mechanism with the previous LiteOn model (LDW-811S), the drive is capable of writing DVD+R and DVD-R media at 8x, while the rewritable speed is 4x for both DVD+RW and DVD-RW formats.

- Specifications

SMART-BURN avoiding Buffer Underrun Error, automatically adjusting writing strategy & running OPC to provide the best burning quality.

SMART-X function adjusts CD-DA / VCD / DVD data extraction to the fastest allowable speed according to both data request rate from host and disk quality.

According to Nero Infotool, LiteOn 812S does not support DVD-RAM reading/writing, while all other formats are supported.

- Retail package

LiteOn's complete retail package includes two software CD-ROMs, containing the Sonic MyDVD CD/DVD authoring software, CyberLink PowerDVDXP player, installation drivers and a pdf manual.

Included are also two DVD writable media, one DVD+R certified for 8x writing and one DVD-R certified for 4x writing. A quick installation quide, audio cable and mounting screws complete the retail package contents.

- The drive

The drive's front panel has the usual features. The tray door has the RW DVD+ReWritable logo on the left, the DVD R/RW logo at centre, and Compact disc ReWritable logoat right. Between the DVD R/RW and Compact disc ReWritable logos is LiteOn's web url, www.liteonit.com. On the lower half of the drive, below the tray door, starting at left there are the headphones jack, volume control and power/activity led, and on the right the eject button. The emergency eject hole is located just above the volume control. The activity LED lights up green when busy and red when reading/writing is in progress.

On the rear panel there are the analogue and digital audio outputs (SPDIF), the IDE connector and the power input.

Removing the screws and opening the drive's cover voids the drive's warranty. For reference reasons, we post the following pictures. The LiteOn SOHW-812s further incorporates (located on the underside of the controller circuit board), a high-speed DVD dual Optical Disk Controller chipset from MediaTek Inc. consisting of two CMOS ultra-scale integrated circuits, the MT1816E and MT1818E. The MT1816E is the front-end analog signal processor and the MT1818E is the servo control and Endec IC. The pickup system is the Sanyo SF DB 10SA.

- Installation

The LiteON drive was connected to our test PC and was identified as "LiteON DVDRW SOHW-812S" under WinXP. All tests were done with firmware v.US0A

The following pages include test results for the Liteon drive in comparison with the Teac DV-W58G-A.