Lite-On LH20A1H
Mar 17th, 2007 | By Archive
Lite-On LH20A1H
Date
: 03/17/07 – 03:44:13 PM
Author
:
Category
: Optical Devices
Page 1 : Index
Manufacturer
: Lite-On IT Corporation
Price
: $38.99
A few short weeks ago, I published a review on Lite-On's SH-16A7S optical drive and now I'm back with a look at their newest 20X drive. The LH-20A1H is one of four 20X DVDR optical drives currently on the market and what will once again set this drive apart from the rest boils down to low cost with plenty of features.
Lite-On should have no problems in either of those departments. The 20A1H is bundled with LightScribe, a technology that enables users to create direct labels on the disc, and SmartWrite, a feature that will enable higher quality burns and transfer rates faster than what your media is actually rated for.
Page 2 : Package
Lite-On shipped the 20A1H directly from their head office in California; its journey was a long and bumpy one as it made its way out to Toronto via ground. Once I received the package, the trilingual box had the same layout and colors as the SH-16A7S.
We immediately see the rated write speeds and a picture of what LightScribe will do for you. On the other side of the box you will notice more specifications.
Printed on the side of the box are the features, box contents, and system requirements. We will go through all the features and specifications in much more detail later in this review.
On the top flap of the box, Lite-On has decided to emphasize the LightScribe features.
Page 3 : Features and Specifications
It's always important to go over the features and specifications of any product you plan on buying. There's no point in purchasing something you don't need. Lite-On makes it very easy for you to find their optical drive and the respective features or specifications of the drive you're interested in.
Specifications
Features
You will notice that the features do mention LightScribe technology but nothing about the SmartWrite I introduced on the first page. This is why you need to check out the European server to find the SmartWrite webpage.
In a nutshell, SmartWrite offers two innovative features: over speeding and hyper tuning. Over speeding enables you to take regular media and write them at a higher speed. For example, some blank media rated for 8X can be written at 12X and selected 16X media can now achieve the rated 20X. Hyper Tuning can be used to increase the quality of the burn by optimizing the write strategy. We will see these features later in our review.
The other interesting feature about The LH-20A1H is LightScribe. The best summary can be found directly on this page.
Now that we've gone over the main features and specifications of this drive, let's get back to the review!
Page 4 : Package Content
Once I opened up the package, I can tell that Lite-On took the effort of ensuring the drive arrives safe and sound.
The cardboard carton prevents the drive from taking the bulk of any impact and the plastic bag ensures the drive doesn't get scratched by the accessories. Many of you may opt to buy the OEM model in order to shave a few dollars off your final cost. If this is the case, you won't get some of the extra benefits of the retail package, one being the second bevel. In the photo below we see the contents of the retail package; this includes the extra bezel, manuals, mounting screws, and a copy of Nero 7 Essentials.
The most important component of the package is definitely the drive itself. There's definitely no point in paying 40 dollars for just the goods above!
From the top and sides, this drive definitely looks like all the other ones out in the market. In terms of physical dimensions, they're roughly the same. Just as an aside, I was cleaning the house earlier today and tossed away an old 48X CD-ROM, when I picked it up and put it beside the LH-20A1H, I noticed two things: boy it's big and heavy! I'm sure glad technology has made things lighter and more compact.
Focusing back onto the review, the rear of the LH-20A1H is far busier than my recently reviewed SH-16A7S. The entire face of the PCB has some type of jumper on it!
The stock bezel and tray is black and if you have a silver or white case, we'll take you through the bezel changing process on the next page.
Page 5 : Installation
An optical drive installation is quite straight forward. The only challenging part might be the need to change the bezel from one color to another. Lite-On provides a pictorial installation guide on how to change out the bezel; I found it to be fairly straight-forward and the process will take you about a minute or less. The first step is to eject the drive tray with the included pin.
The second step is to flip the driver over and locate two tabs: pull them out a touch and push the tray cover off.
With the tray cover off, push the tray back into the drive. The next step will be to locate the three tabs holding the bezel against the chassis. There is one on each side and another on the bottom.
Once the tabs are off, you will be able to pull the bezel straight off the chassis.
In order to put the white bezel and tray cover on, repeat the above tasks in the opposite order. Start by lining up the tabs on the bezel and popping them in.
Once the tray cover is slid back on, the transformation process is complete and you can proceed with a regular installation.
Page 6 : Software & Test Configuration
With the drive installed, the first thing I did was check Lite-On's website for the latest firmware. When the drive was manufactured, it was loaded with LL05, I was in luck as LL06 was available. After downloading and extracting the zip file, I executed it.
It'll tell you to close any open programs and make sure the drive tray is empty.
It will then prepare itself to flash by telling you which firmware you have, LL05, and which you will be updating to, LL06. Hit the update button and the software will do all the work.
Wait until the flashing is complete.
[center]
You're done...
[center]
…after a system reset.
In order to test the LH-20A1H optical drive, I've collected a variety of discs which I'll turn into coasters through CD-DVD Speed. With CD-DVD speed, I first made a data disc and then ran through the standard transfer benchmarking process. Before moving onto the next sample, I did a disc quality check and a scan disc.
Prior to any data disc creations, I used the LH-20A1H as my main media burning drive. I'm a big fan of using Nero Vision to turn my videos into media discs that I can then play on my standalone DVD player. I'm happy to say that all my videos were etched on to the DVD without any problems and played without a hitch.
Page 7 : DVDR
Finding media rated for 20X is no easy task in this world. I only know of 5 companies that make 20X compatible and only one of those companies make both + and âR blanks. The one company is Taiyo Yudon and media experts know them as one of the best media manufacturers in the world.
I was provided with several Taiyo Yuden blank media samples along with my drive and we can see that they are indeed rated for 20X.
The first thing I did with the blank media was create a data disc.
At about the 2.5GB mark, CD-DVD speed was no longer able to keep up with the transfer rate but we can see the end speed reached very close to 20X. A full DVD can now be created in five minutes flat!
The read tests were pretty more or less in line with all other optical drives in the world. I have yet to see anything transfer faster than 16X.
The high write speed leads to more PI Errors and Failures than usual but the overall âqualityâ of the disc was still 90 out of 100.
There was no doubt in my mind that the surface scan would yield anything less than a perfect run.
I did the exact same set of tests with my sample of Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs. First some information about the disc:
Following that I made the data disc. This time the writing process took a smudge longer than 5 minutes, but it was still under 5.25!
There was a little hiccup at the end of the disc and this becomes more apparent in the transfer tests and the quality checks.
This little hiccup produced a small drop in the transfer speed and was the starting point for the increase in PI Errors and Failures.
Despite this issue, the surface scan was still picture perfect.
Page 8 : DVDRW & DVD+R9
DVD Re-Writeables and dual layer discs are something I generally donât use. Their costs are significantly higher than single write discs.
My Ritek DVD-RW is rated for 4X and thatâs exactly where it coasted along in CD-DVD Speed.
As the disc ages and gets abused and scratched, the quality begins to deteriorate. Compared to the performance seen in the Lite-On SH-16A7S, the scratches have severely reduced the transfer speed.
The disc quality also dropped compared to the results from a few weeks ago, it looks like itâs time I bought a few new blanks!
Despite the issues mentioned above, the data integrity was perfect as the disc scan reported 100% good surface scan.
The results from my 8X DVD+RW are different.
The data disc creation process went without a hitch as we cruised at 8X for most of the write.
The transfer also went along without a hitch and the quality could be considered fairly good for a well used re-writeable.
The disc scan was also perfect, but that probably isnât a surprise to anyone at this point in the review.
The last piece of media weâll cover on this page is a Verbatim DVD+R9. Dual layered discs are great holing a large amount of data and the prices are finally starting to drop!
The data creating process more or less went without a hitch.
The switch to the second layer always causes a little blip to appear on the read and write radars. Itâs definitely not anything to worry about.
In terms of quality, this was a perfect write as noted by the scan disc. The media had a high quality score with reasonable PI Errors and Failures.
Page 9 : SmartWrite
I first heard about SmartWrite after I published my review on the SH-16A7S. One of our readers informed me about the software and suggested I give it ago. As I mentioned in the earlier pages, SmartWrite enables you to do a few things – improve the quality of your burn or over speed your media.
If I stick a piece of blank media into the drive, fire up SmartWrite and click on the button with the CD and the question mark, the application will give you some information about the drive, the disc and what the burn speed limit it. In the picture below, I have done nothing special and it reads that the MCC disc has a limit of 16X.
If you move over to the SmartBurn tab, it starts off as disabled.
A simple click and it'll be enabled.
The next tab over focuses on Hyper Tuning and OverSpeed, both of these features can be enabled. If you attempt to enable OverSpeed it gives you a warning that the quality of the burn can no longer be guaranteed.
If we go back to the main tab and retrieve the disc information now, we see that the maximum write speed is now 18X. Notice that nothing else has changed.
I'll do a very quick test with a stack of Ritek 16X DVD-R blanks and get the results of how each of the features affect the speed and quality of a write. Each piece came from the same spindle and that should help reduce any media variation.
As a basis, I will use burn one disc with all of the SmartWrite features disabled – AKA basic burn with nothing special going on. I will then do a test with SmartBurn enabled, a test with SmartBurn and Hyper Tuning enabled and finally a test with SmartBurn, Hyper Tuning, and OverSpeed enabled.
Page 10 : Smart Write -Tested
Smart Write Disabled
Here's a screen shot of the Nero Disc Info.
Here is the info provided by SmartWrite:
The data created finished at the expected 16X mark.
The transfer test results also completed as expected with an average read speed of 12X and a peak of 16X.
We will be using the disc quality scan's PI Errors and PI Failures as a basis to determine the quality of the burn.
The surface scan indicated a perfect write.
Smart Write w/ Smart Burn
Here's a screen shot of the Nero Disc Info.
Here is the info provided by SmartWrite:
The data created finished at the expected 16X mark.
The transfer test results also completed as expected with an average read speed of 12X and a peak of 16X.
From the disc quality scan we definitely see a drop in the number of PI Errors and Failures. The overall quality score doesn't change.
The surface scan indicated a perfect write.
Smart Write w/ Smart Burn & Hyper Tuning
Here's a screen shot of the Nero Disc Info.
Here is the info provided by SmartWrite:
The data created finished at the expected 16X mark.
The transfer test results also completed as expected with an average read speed of 12X and a peak of 16X.
From the disc quality scan we see a significant drop in the number of PI Failures with a higher number of Errors.
The surface scan indicated a perfect write.
Smart Write w/ Smart Burn, Hyper Tuning & OverSpeed
Here's a screen shot of the Nero Disc Info.
Here is the info provided by SmartWrite:
With OverSpeed enabled, SmartWrite claims we'll see performance of up to 18X.
As the data disc passed the 3GB mark, the write speed was officially off the chart. A final peak of 18X was recorded by Nero.
The transfer test results also completed as expected with an average read speed of 12X and a peak of 16X.
Despite a higher speed burn, the disc quality scan gives us positive results. The number of failures is still significantly lower than the original burn and the number of errors is a touch lower than Smart Write with SmartBurn and Hyper Tuning.
The surface scan indicated a perfect write.
Page 11 : Conclusion
The Lite-On LH-20A1H really is a Super All Write as it comes packed with features. Not only is this drive the fastest on the market by supporting 20X DVD±Rs, Lite-On has made is possible to take regular media and either have them finish their writing process faster or do so with fewer mistakes.
Iâm continually impressed by how low the price of optical drives are, but now the question isnât how fast can they go, but how much longer will they be around for? The media war continues to burn hot and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD will soon render regular optical drives substandard.
Advantages
⢠Affordable
⢠20X Write speed
⢠SmartWrite allows media to burn at higher speeds and higher quality
Disadvantages
⢠Soon to be replaced by HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives
Overclockers Online would like to thank Lite-On for making this review possible.
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