S-ATA drives are not that common in the DVD-REC market. Very few brands are released each year, and those mainly from Plextor and Samsung. The SH-W163A is one of those. A SATA interface drive, the Samsung SH-W163A is a 16X±R DVD recorder, a 8X +R DL and 4X -R DL burner as well as a fast reader and writer. This solution would please all SATA interface enthusiasts with its reading capabilities fro both the DVD and CD formats, even though the drive does not support all the highest available writing speeds with all formats.

As a CD reader, the drive stands well near the fastest readers, with quite a good reading speed for all CD formats (CD and CDRW media). The drive also managed to read both 90/99mins audio CDs without errors. With DVD media, the drive reported some good results, being able to read all the way up to 16X for pressed SL media and 8X for pressed DL media. With Write Once and Re-Writable media, the drive managed to achieve good reading speeds, being able to read all the way up to 12X and 8X for each format respectively. Not the highest speeds a drive can manage, but good nevertheless. Concluding the reading capabilities, the drive managed to rip the inserted DVD-Video media at a speed of 6.4X, average performance for any DVD-Rec device.

In the DVD Error Correction arena, the SH-W163A can be described as an average reader as far as CD media are concerned and a good reader with DVD media. As seen during our tests in the previous pages, the drive had few problems reading the 721 CD test disc, reporting an outcome of 76.8 points out of 100. The drive disappointed in the CD-Check Audio test where it didn't clear the 3rd track. On the good side, the DVD error correction mechanism, even if it was a bit slow in comparison to other devices, managed to achieve great results, reading all inserted media, even the 541 and 545 media flawlessly, producing smooth graphs all the way to the end of the reading. And that covers the Error Correction mechanism of the drive.

Despite the fact that our protected audio CDs are a few years old, quite a few drives still fail to successfully create backups. The Samsung drive failed to rip and successfully backup our CDS protected media. Unfortunately, during the ripping process, the drive reported timing problems and the outcome was ripped tracks which produced no sound. Bad performance in this area. As for Protected Games, the drive managed to make quick work of all inserted games, with 30mins rip time for the SafeDisc game, which can be described as a good performance if we were to compare it to some other, latest release drives.

As far as writing quality is concerned, the drive has lots to offer, if the user chooses the right media. The drive's mechanism seems to favour DVD+R media, as seen in the previous pages where the results are better with +R media than with -R. So, writing quality is dependent on the inserted media. With Re-Writable media, the results were not satisfactory for either of the two formats, a performance we also encountered while using DL media. We would like to see future firmware upgrades address this issue.

That covers the review of the SH-W163A S-ATA drive released by Samsung. We hope to see some firmware improvements, especially in the media list and writing quality, since S-ATA drives are not that common at the moment, so good support for what is available would be most welcome.

- The Good

• SATA Interface
• Bitsetting for all media (+R, +RW, +R9)
• Good DVD error correction
• Can read 90/99min audio discs
• DVD writing quality with most DVD±R media
• Samsung Magic Speed Utility
• Can create working backups of Safedisc v3.1

- The Bad

• Doesn't support DVD overburning
• Cannot rip/playback CDS200 Audio Protection
• Writing quality with certain media

- Like to be fixed

• Improved DL, DVDRW writing quality

 

Retail Package
Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features