CDFreaks presents: Lite-On SHM-165P6S Super AllWrite DVD Burner Review

You can read the review here.

Please feel free to comment on the review in this forum thread

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Last edited by H3rB3i; 19-04-2007 at 09:53.

Great Test, thanks. I buy on good terms yesterday
Just a question. DVD RAm Driver with udf 1.5 or 2.0? Where to find? With the Update from bhacorp it dont work, i cant format a RAM with this drive in udf.

Regards

Other factors aside, the expected life of this drive is not very good with given MTBF 70,000(POH) is not as high as some other drive, for example, a drive with 125,000(POH) (such as BenQ) is on the average about 80% more durable than a 165P6S.

Thanks for your excellent review, H3rB3i!

Some thoughts in random order:

You use test firmware for burning and you mention the difference between official firmware and test firmware in some places, which I really like.

You mention that the drive will read 16x rated DVD+/-R media at 16x, and lower rated media at 12x.
AFAIK this limitation is removed in the later test firmwares. I'm not sure of which test firmware version, however.
The limitation probably won't be removed in official firmware, however, if I understand Wind correctly.

You mention the feature known as Online HyperTuning (OHT) briefly but you don't explain it. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate choice or not. In order to enable/disable OHT an experimental SmartBurn version 3.1.16t must be used instead of the official version 3.1.16 (without the "t").

You test the Plextor branded Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R (YUDEN000 T03) media and the result has a fairly high PIE level.
Though I don't have this drive myself, I know from all my other drives that there is a significant difference in the PIE levels depending on which T03 batch/lot is used. In fact I started a thread about it a while ago. I'm not sure if or how you would account for that in the review, but it can definitely be a factor when comparing with burns made on other drives!

I understood it in the same way. So let's hope that we where wrong . Anyway, I'll add a note regarding this.

uuups, you are right. I'll correct this too

Thanks for this interesting information. It would be intersting if someone can burn such a disc from a different batch. (maybe Jan70 ). A

Lite-On SHM-165P6S – HT on / OS on / OHT on

Plextor DVD+R 16x - TH001330

Lite-On SHM-165P6S – HT on / OS on / OHT on

Plextor DVD+R 16x - TH000021

Jan70's scans agree with my own and others experience, that the PIE levels/totals (and PIF to a lesser degree) depends heavily on which batch/lot is used.

I have the same two batches as Jan70, and I get the same difference in PIE levels and totals between these two batch numbers - this is almost independent of the burning drive.

This makes comparing burns made on different drives difficult, unless the same batch/lot is used.

Toshiba website. Ask Iris for DVD RAM driversBHA update works, but it needs a previously installed version, that's why it's called updater.

Michael

H3rB3i, excellent review. Thanks.

There's certainly a lot of bang for your buck in this drive.

Did I miss it, or was there no mention of the lead in problem on -R DVD?

You must be kidding.

8-year X 365-day X 24-hour = 70080 hours

It is way more than enough for me.

I'm new here, so sorry if I'm wrong but would I be right in thinking that firmware MSON fixes the lead in problem ?

Is there somewhere that describes each firmware's benefits?
The LiteOn site doesn't seem to give any info.

I bought a Liteon SHM 165P6S (MV7U) mainly for scanning. I did a couple of burns with Smartburn loaded and was not overly impressed.

A couple of days ago I tried it again 8X - on a system without Smartburn - a typical scan is attached - better than anything I got with Smartburn.

your kprobe setting is wrong. PI sum setting should be 8, not 1.

Thanks - hadn't noticed. have a vague memory that I read somewhere that for drives like the Liteon it was "better" to use 1 rather than 8 - so made the change and forgot to change back.

Would be interested to know why you think PI sum setting should be 8 ?

seems to make little difference to the scan ?

From which version of firmware is the lead in problem on -R DVD fixed please?
(if at all)
thanks

Had mine for about a week & 1/2 & had to do an RMA on it. It worked perfectly on CD & DVD media. Best I ever had. Then all of a sudden the 'please insert blank disk' & 'not enough room on media' messages started. Sure sign of a drive gone bad. Put my old BenQ DW1540 in & all the same stuff worked fine with just the drive change. Got the RMA back today. I hope this one lasts longer cause I really like it. Never had a DVD burner that could do CDR disks this good.

IMHO
isepiq

Hi,What drive are you using to check CD-R quality? I hope, it is not this Litey, as recent Liteon DVD writers are unuseable CD-scanners.

Michael

I thought it was about time I burnt an image with the LiteOn, so I have with a Panasonic brand TYG03 DVD-R.

Model : 1-0-1-0 H:LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S MS0K
Disc : DVD-R , TYG03 [Taiyo Yuden Company Limited]
Speed : 4x KProbe - CDSpeed Burn & Tests @8x
ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1
Scanned range : 0 - 2152478
Sampling count : 109958
Errors : 3
PI Max : 13
PI Average : 1.13
PI Total : 18140
PIF Max : 2
PIF Average : 0.02
PIF Total : 328

Lite-On SHM-165P6S = Sony DWG121A ?

Close, but not quite:

LiteOn SHM-165P6S = Sony DW-G120A
LiteOn SHM-165H6S = Sony DW-G121A (includes LightScribe)

Hi,

Thanks for the review !

Something new about that ? Can we find any firmware that enable 16x speed reading on 12x/8x rated media ?

Thanks.

Just download and upgrade to the latest test firmware, you can find it in this thread Test Firmware ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Thanks,
Indeed it was not so far away, I saw these ones but I wanted to be sure of their effects on reading speeds. It was worth to mention it in this particular thread IMO.