LiteON SOHW-832S Dual DVD±RW Recorder - Page 11

- Writing Performance

The LiteOn SOHW-832S supports DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW writing. The maximum supported speed for the DVD±R is 8X (6X~8 Z-CLV) and 4X CLV for DVD±RW media. Nero Burning Rom reported speeds, are shown below. Notice that the drive burns CLV at 4X & 6X writing speeds for both DVD±R formats.

By using Codeguys "Speedhacking Tool Pack for LiteOn DVD Writers", we were able to see which media codes are supported for the ±R/RW formats and at which recording speeds (for VS03 firmware):

• 8X DVD+R
  • AML 002
  • BeAll000 P80
  • CMC MAG E01
  • DAXON AZ2
  • DT-D03 004
  • INFODISC R20
  • ISSM 00
  • LD S03
  • MAXELL 002
  • MBIPG101 R04
  • MC MAG F01
  • MCC 003
  • MPOMEDIA 080
  • MUST 002
  • NANYA CHX
  • NANYA CLX
  • OPTODISC OR8
  • Philips 081
  • PHILIPS C08
  • Plasmon c01
  • PRODISC R03
  • RICOHJPN R02
  • RITEK R03
  • SKYMEDIA R03
  • SONY D11
  • YUDEN000T01
  • YUDEN000T02
• 8X DVD-R
• CMC MAG. AE1
• FUJIFILM03
• GSC003
• MCC 02RG20
• MXL RG03
• PRINCO8X01
• ProdiscF01
• ProdiscS04
• RITEKG05
• RITEKG06
• SONY08D1
• TTG02
• TYG02

It is possible that with the Codeguys "Speedhacking Tool Pack", a user can change the maximum recording speeds for lower rated media and burn them at 8X or 6X. However this must be used with caution!

By using Nero CD-DVD Speed's "create disc" function with Plextor's 4X DVD+R media, we are able to see the 8X Z-CLV recording technology being used by the SOHW-832S recorder.

The drive starts writing at 3.96X until 0.1GB where it shifts up to 6X, until 1.2GB where it further shifts to 8X and stays there till the end. The average writing speed is around 7.14X. This recording strategy is used for both DVD±R formats.

- Burning Tests

We burned 4315MB of data on various DVD±R, DVD±RW media. We used the maximum allowed writing speed for each disc, with the SmartBurn feature enabled. The best recording times for the DVD-R format came from Maxell's 8X media with 9:19mins. However, the drive didn't perform very well with That's 8X DVD-R and CMC 8X DVD-R media, aborting with "Illegal Disc" write error inside Nero. Also, no 4X media was allowed to burn at 8X. Certainly, the 832S needs to be improved with future firmware upgrades.

With DVD+R media, we didn't see any write errors, but a rather strict supported media list for the 8X writing speed. The lowest burning time came from Plextor's 4X DVD+R media (based on TY) with 8:38mins, followed by Traxdata 8X DVD+R with 8:58mins. It's rather strange that we see such high time variations between the various media burned at 8X. This could be explained, since the drive kept dropping writing speed at the end of the disc.

Below are all the burning results with the various media types used.

• DVD-R/RW Media

• DVD+R/RW Media

- DVD Overburning Tests

In order to test the drive's DVD overburning capabilities, we used two media types, one from Traxdata 4X DVD-R and one from Plextor's 8X DVD+R. As you can see, the drive refused to start the test with DVD-R media,

while with DVD+R, the test started but when it reached 4.38GB, stopped with an error message.

Therefore, LiteON SOHW-832S cannot overburn with either DVD±R formats.

We used MRW Validation Suite 2.2 by Philips to test the compliance of the drive with the Mount Rainier DVD+MRW format. For the test we used 4X DVD+RW media from TraxData and 2.4X DVD+RW media from Sentinel. The test was terminated immediately after starting prompting us to insert a blank DVD+RW disc. We have seen the same behavior with other drives also and probably when a newer version is released, we will update our review.