LG GSA-4120B DL Recorder - Page 21

Conclusion

The LG GSA-4120B is the first ever DVD Multi recorder that not only supports reading/writing of all DVD recording formats (DVD±R/RW and DVD-RAM), but also supports them at the currently available highest recording speeds.

The big advantage of the LG drive is its support for 5X DVD-RAM media. It's already known that DVD-RAM offers the highest reliability among DVD re-writable media with 100,000 re-write times and superior defect management. Unfortunaly, users may have expected superb performance with the announced 5X Zone-CLV speed, however in truth, the actual performance is slightly slower than a 2.4X DVD+RW recorder.

The drive also supports the newly announced DVD+R DL format. The performance was superb with Verbatim, but bad with Ritek's DL media which hopefully will fixed with new firmware..

The supported media list for the drive is rather strict, meaning most of your media will be written either at 8X or even 4X. LG doesn't support the so called "overspeed" (burning media at higher recording speeds than the media's rated speed), which may annoy most of the users. However, we have to note that with specific media, the PI/PIF error rates are simply outstanding!

Going back to the drive's weaknesses, there is no official support for the Booktype setting (a crucial feature for DVD+R DL to maintain compatibility with DVD players), CD Error correction could be better, it cannot backup the latest SD 2.9+ versions, writing performance needs improvement for specific CD/DVD media and finally, it cannot be used to measure -scan- CD or DVD media, a feature that the competition (LiteON/Plextor) includes.

The price for this drive is considerably low (US$92~$110), making it a very good purchase. The LG GSA-4120B sets a new standard in the 12X category with its excellent writing quality! Well done LG!

- The Good

• Supports all DVD recordable/re-writeable formats
• Excellent DVD writing quality with specific media at 12X/8X/4X writing speeds
• Very good DVD error correction
• Good CSS DVD-Video ripping speed
• Can overburn up to 95mins
• Supports CD-Text (reading/writing)
• Quiet operation either when reading/writing
• Can backup accurately up to v2.8x SD2 protected titles
• Can backup Audio protected discs
• Good price compared with competition

- The Bad

• Doesn't support DVD-ROM booktype for DVD+R/+RW/+R DL formats
• Doesn't support Mount Rainier
• Doesn't support overburning for DVD±R formats
• Medium CD error correction
• Very strict supported media list for 8X/12X
• Cannot be used to measure CD/DVD media

- Like To be fixed

• High C1/C2 errors with specific media
• High PI/PIF errors with specific DVD media
• Writing problems with Ritek DL media