- CD Format

Much like the 1673S, the LiteOn 1693S can support up to 48X reading speed for CD media and 32X for USRW media. Below are the transfer rate graphs for the reviewed drive and the comparison drives.

All drives reported similar speeds more or less. Only with RW media the LiteOn drive gets left behind due to the higher supported reading speed of 40X for both the NEC and BenQ drives.

- DVD Format

The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously. The difference here is the reading strategy of the second layer of the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks toward the inner part of the disc.

While in the first case the LiteOn stands up to its name as the "fast reader" with DVD-ROM media, in the latter two cases, the LiteOn drive did not manage to achieve great speeds, reaching its limit at 8X speed.

Once again the drive did not manage to compete with the other two drives, coming last in the readings with all four DVD formats.

LiteOn, gave a nice average ripping speed, coming second to the BenQ drive, while the NEC drive did not manage to achieve such high ripping speeds.

- Appendix

Nero CD-DVD Speed Graphs

• CD Pressed / CD-R / US-RW
• DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed PTP DL / DVD Pressed OTP DL / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW