Lite-On 20A1L and audio CDs

Try to burn at 48x. I have better results burning at that speed. Check this.

http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/6...ng.html?rnd=20

BLV3 for LH20A1L
LLV3 for LH20A1H

Thanks edwin
Do you plan to fix other A1 drives too? (like 20A1P/20A1S)

Thanks for this firmware. I flashed to this version earlier today and here's a scan from a disc I burned at 16x. Looks much better than the others. I will know tomorrow if it will play in my friend's player.

The firmware is?

Okay. Tried out the CD in my friend's CD player and it works now. Thanks so much for that firmware. I don't even know what you did to it so that my drive works better now, but thank you so much!!

Um, now my test player decided to recognize those CD-R's burnt previously. It accepts them in some 90% of attempts (it scans them very long, though... they are shorter, but I don't really remember if it mattered in the past...).

The interesting thing is that the disc which was burnt the first (in a series of five) didn't work only once in a number of attempts even then, when I was burning them, while the other ones almost never worked. Now I got them mixed though And they mostly work

I burned a single one, this time at 48x (all Mitsubishi AZO). This strategy hasn't been changed anyway, has it? Anyway, this one hasn't failed any of a number of attempts (intermingled with others). Here the scan image should show up FWIW:

Thanks edwin, I hope they can become official.
I'd like to do some test with the firmware 9PV2 (for DH-20A4P) but I need the version for Mitsubishi LD. Do you think it's possible to have it?

Hi

How can i update to the BL05 firmware? All i get is an error message.

Thanks
NBK

This is due to the non-standard BLV3 having been loaded. To avoid the check, get CodeKing's flasher here:

http://codeguys.rpc1.org/firmwares/d...BL05.stock.rar

You can then do future updates with official flashers. BTW, the current firmware version is BL06.

superhero

Thanks superhero!!!

NBK

Hi

BL06 does not work with audio CDs. The burned audio CDs will not play in my car stereo! I guess its back to the BETA firmware...

Thanks
NBK

Hi NBK, BL06 isn't the official version of BLV3. So go back to BLV3.

I tried LL0D and have the same problem. So I will go back to LLV3.

I have to report back that although my A3 drive burns Audio-Cds that play in my car, this only works if burned at 8x. If I try to burn them at 16x they will not play in the car. So basically the difference to me seems that the A3 is somewhat "better" because it allows 8x burns, while on my earlier A4 the minimum burning speed was 16x. Is it possible that the marginal solution in this series was to allow 8x burns? I know it's a different chipset, etc, but I'm still not too happy with this solution.

Are there any recommended FW upgrades for the A3's that might improve Audio-Cd burning? Mine is being reported as "Optiarc DVD RW AD-7190A 1.01 2007/07/24 14:56".

At the store they also had an LG DVD-RW drive (not sure about the model but I could inquire), I wonder if I should return this Sony rebranded A3 Lite-On and just take the LG home and be done with all this problems. Do LG writers have any reported problems with Audio-CD burning?

Some LG drives don't like 48x or 40x burning on CDs, and doing so produces C2 errors that are unacceptable, typically toward the end of the burn. I don't think lower speeds are affected with good media.

Thanks, good to know, so in other words stay away from LG too. In my opinion one should not be worried about what media to use to make a burner work properly, unless the media is absolute junk, then of course all bets would obviously be off. But I wonder whatever happened to the good ol' days when you just had to load your CD, press the burn command and get a perfect Audio-CD every time. It seems now a days the far-east manufactures have imposed a burden on us, the end users, so we are now the ones actually responsible to compensate for their product's shortcomings by choosing the best media/writing speed in order to try and get a usable Audio-CD. That really-really sucks big time.

Another interesting question: why is it that comparable present day Pioneer burners really work well in every respect (not tested them myself but everyone speaks wonders about them), and these Lite-On units are soooo troublesome... to say the least.

Why can't Lite-On and others for once try to copy something worthwhile from another manufacturer: make their writers perform as they should, without putting us, the users, to work for them every time we want to make an Audio-CD that is universally playable?

And stop with the damn "X" number race, or hold the release at least while your product has obvious bugs and problems... again, just to say the least.

I mean, honestly, who would want to burn a DVD at 20x anyway, let alone get any reasonable priced media that supports that speed. I really would not try to burn a DVD faster then 8x, but actually most of the time only use 4x or maybe 6x. I really couldn't care less for the nowadays 18-20x ratings, they mean nothing to me, not even the "since the max speed is now 20x, it must be burning at lower speeds so much better" notion, because that is a bunch of BS. But I do care when I am not able to turn out a single decent Audio-CD as it happened with my earlier A4 unit, or my current A3 (rebranded Sony I got in exchange for the A4) that barely is able to make Audio-CDs but only if one uses 8x speed.

As it stands now, next time I need to purchase a burner, or someone asks me to recommend one, I would definitively stay away from the current crop of troublesome manufacturers, mainly LITE-ON and possibly other chinese stuff.

With all the unhappy customers, maybe there is enough potential for a new website: http://www.lite-on-sucks.com/

Yes, this is true but if you burn at 16x or 8x, you are going to have excellent results, low jitter and any C2 errors.

I hinted at that, but thanks for clarifying which speeds are "lower speeds".

Wondering whether edwin12355's awesome work ever become official PLDS firmware. Are there any known issues with these test versions?

Just wanted to let everybody know that I also got fed up with that other Lite-on A3 in disguise "Sony" burner I got in exchange of the original A4 unit. Ordered a Pioneer DVR-115 through Amazon, got it today and just dropped it in. Just finished burning a couple of Audio-Cds, both on HP and (god forbid!) that so called "terrible" Princo media, and surprise: they ALL played perfectly in my car player on the first try!! no problems at all.

I wonder why my two earlier Lite-on units could not accomplish this...

SIMPLY BECAUSE LITE-ON SUCKS!!!!! Forget about that piece of trash, and save yourself a lot of headaches: buy Pioneer burners, they cost about the same, and REALLY deliver.

And yes, this is kind of a vindictive post, payback to Lite-on for all that sh...t I went through. So if this forum is biased towards them, which I hope is not the case, it'll probably be deleted. Users have to be warned about not buying that junk until they get their act together.

Hi all,

I have posted more DVD/CD of LH-20A1L firmware BLV3 'quality scans' here http://club.cdfreaks.com/f44/lh-20a1...1/#post2121094

NBK

Any news (or prediction) of an official firmware including the Jitter improvements ?

Since the mod works very well, and the problems were real, I don't understand why it hasn't been included in any new official firmware ...

Gyxx

A probable answer is: they're busy working on other things. It's unfortunate that less and less attention is given these to "older" models that were being made only 1 year ago.