CDFreaks presents: LG GSA-4166B Super Multi DVD-Writer with LightScribe Review

Thanks, Italian Job.

Would you know where can I find product specs on H20LB? Or list of changes from 4166 to H20LB? As I wrote previously, I can only find info on H20LB in German (which I do not understand inspite of having studied it in high school...).

I tried to edit my previous post but I do not have an edit button. I suppose this is because I am new to the forum (however, the FAQ does not mention any restrictions on this).

Anyway, what I wanted to add is the following: I was advised by the shop were I intend to buy the burner that, after some inquiries, they realize that:
- They can get H20LB through the official channels / LG Portugal.
- They can get 4166 through parallel imports.

But I am stuck with the original doubt: are they exactly similar? And if not, what are the differences?

From what I know, the GSA-Hx0 chipsets are evolutions of the GSA-416x chipset (not exactly the same chipset number). Firmwares are different and crossflashing is not working.

The choice is up to you between "CdFreaks safe buy" GSA-4166 and the all new-unknown-unpreviewed and exciting GSA-H20L

I own the drive and love it

Hi,

Thought this interesting.
Verbatim Brand MCC 03RG20 @ 12x P-CAV
Burn time: 6:05

Yes it is interesting. 12x P-CAV in 6:05 is fast!

I have not been able to get decent burns on the 4166. My 4163 did very well but then, this is a different chipset.

However, it loves MCC 003 for those who still have some around or want to take advantage of Newegg's $25 rebate.

I have seen nothing out there that does a good job on MCC -R, just average or worse.

Hello.
I recall an older CDRW from LG. I was impress with the "belt" tray mechanism. I use it a few times at my job. I was kind of jalous compare to my Yamaha SCSI CDRW N-O-I-S-Y geared tray mechanism. I have a Lite-On LTR-481248 now with that same N-O-I-S-Y geared tray mechanism. I hate those trays.

I wonder if the LG GSA-4166B, 4167B have the same smooth'n cool belt driven tray?
Do you know of any other brands offering DVDRW with the belt tray mechanism ?

By the way, I was wondering what you think about drives with "Slot" instead of trays. Myself, I own a slot DVD-ROM by Pioneer and I really like those type of drives. I was wondering why manufacturers cannot offer cool products. I am about to purchase a laptop and they all have trays (only Macs offer slot drives). The slot drive should be mandatory for laptops.

Anyone have an idea why the tray is still on market? Is there any logical reasons to that?

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'm no expert on the subject, but it has been discussed in this forum in the past and experienced users indicated the problem of dust that gathers around the opening of slot drives. I recall one user mentioning that his laptop slot loading writer got so dirty around the opening, it used to mess up brand new media as it was sliding in and out.

I personally prefer the old fashioned tray, especially on my laptop. The reason for this is that you can actually see the drive's lens when it's ejected, which is great because then you can clean the thing! I usually leave the tray ejected, turn the laptop off, then use a small bubble blower to blow any dust from the lens mechanism or the tray itself. You cannot do this with a slot drive...

You can get a blower in most photography shops. They sometimes come with solutions/cotton buds/wipes, if you decide to clean your laptop drive, do not use any of those! Only use the plastic blower (with its brush removed if it comes with one) to gently remove any dust paticles. Make sure that the blower doesn't touch the lens, leave a good 2 inches distance and let the air do the cleaning.

Do not use compressed air sprays either, I know someone who did and damaged his drive. The air stream in those is too strong.

Thanks! I am not that new. Since a few months now I check reviews and I downloaded some updates for my CDRW. I was impress with the quality of the reviews. This is my reference website for CD/DVD drives now on. Very complete.

About slot drives, I did not think about it. My slot drive is only a DVD/CD-ROM reader though. Now that you are talking about cleaning lense, I must admit, I never cleaned them.

I know of disc product that you insert like a CD to clean the drive. But the brush is a sure thing since top photographer use them on ther thousand dollar lenses. Thanks for the tip!

- How do you like your LG GSA-4167B ?
- Between this LG and the Benq 1655, which one would you recommend?
- Does the LG has the belt tray mechanism?

Thanks

My 4167 is great, the only thing I don't like about it is the inability to do quality scans with Nero, and the fact that it's picky with x4 +R media. I have to say that my best writer is still my BenQ 1640, (its firmware has matured too), but if you want a newer writer go for the 1650, or the 1655 (if you want Lightscribe). These two will hopefully be fine-tuned by the BenQ firmware engineers in the near future. A BenQ would be the best choice for me because of their SolidBurn and Overspeed features and QSuite in general. Both my 1640 and my 1650 can overspeed cheap Datawrite RICOHJPN x4 DVD-R media all the way up to x12 with great quality scores of 96-98, which is great for such a massive overspeed.

I hope to get a drive soon! within a month. I read the review about the 1640. It looks like the sure thing to buy. The 1650 could be interesting. I'm definitely not interested in lightscribe technology. I just want a reliable drive. With my Lite-On CDRW my yield is about 60%... YES! I must scrap 4 discs (CD-R) for each 6 discs I want to burn! It's about time to upgrade for me.
Thanks for your suggestions. Without this website and the help of competent people like you, buying an optical drive is a real jungle.

Hi all,

I recently bought this drive and i'm using B's Recorder 7 Gold for burning. But it says this drive is not supported. When i look in the drive support table all GSA models are listed under HL-DT-ST. Is this the same as LG?
Also i can only burn at 'maximum', does this mean i don't use the best burn strategy?

Thanks

I can't answer your other questions as I'm not familiar with B's Recorder. However, HL-DT-ST does mean LG - it stands for Hitachi LG Data Storage.

A Plextor DVD+R 16X (YUDEN T03) in 50-spindle, burned @12X on my LG 4166 1.02 :

Good Burner ........... I bought it and very happy with it.

go buy this burner, its the best bang for your buck

I got this drive about 1 month ago and it has been fantastic. I've been using Verbatim, Sony and Maxell made in Japan media and I had good quality burns all of the time. I tend to use DVD+R media as I have an older DVD player that only accepts recordable media when book type is set to DVD-ROM.

Lightscribe works as started. It produces washed out labels (at least for me) but the really bad thing about it is that it takes around 30 minutes to get a decent label. This is a limitation of the Lightscribe disc coating and not by the drive itself, so it may improve over time.

earlier in this thread it was mentioned that the GSA-4166B has a panasonic chipset and is directly comparable to the sony 820a........are the drives clones except the Lightscribe tech? And also I saw that even modifing the registry that the burner won't do quality scans. Is that because of the chipset? And if not to much trouble would it be possible to explain to me how to edit that black list?

Thank you so much for any help

Hi
I'm planning to buy this dvd burner and I would like too know what king on makers dvds this burn. What happens is that I bough dvds DL from Ritek (Ritek D01-01) and they don't burn in mt laptop burner with a NEC. I want to use them!

Cross posting isn't allowed. Please don't do that again. It would have been better to just start a new thread and ask about all the models of writers you are looking at buying.

RITEKD01 is poor quality media and very few drives are able to burn it properly. Even if you can find a drive that burns those properly, many DVD players hate those discs and you will have problems there too. If you're trying to find a drive to burn those discs, you're going to have a hard time. I'd suggest dumping those discs and getting Verbatim DVD+R DL discs instead. That is about the only brand that really works well on most writers. Buying a new drive is a waste of money if that's the only reason you want to do that.

Hello karangguni,
Sorry I don't mean to break the rules but thanks anyway. I really want to buy a new drive for my pc is not because of the dvds. So I think I'll go for this one. Anyway next time I will look for verbatim DL althought their price and little hard to find in Portugal.

This model is quite old, actually. See if you can find the GSA-H10L, GSA-H20L or better yet, GSA-H22L as those are newer models than the GSA-4166B and all support lightscribe.

Hi everybody.
I bought LG GSA-4166BI DVD+-RW DRIVE LIGHTSCRIBE about three month ago. I have hard time to burn the label on the dvd. I realized that I don't have software for this drive. Does anybody know where I can download the software for my Dvd drive? Or can everybody let me know where can I get the software.

www.lightscribe.com