Suggestions and Feedback for LG

This sticky thread is where you can post your suggestions and feedback for LG - things like features you would like to see and problems you would like corrected.

CDFreaks works very closely with many of the drive manufacturers now. Reviewers feedback problems that they find during the reviews and quite often they are fixed before the review is finalized. This is just an extension of that, so that the manufacturers can see what problems users are experiencing and what features will sell more drives.

Some of the manufactures even read the forums but obviously, as we all well know, it’s a very time consuming task to read all of the threads. So the intention of this thread is to create a central point for all suggestions and feedback that the manufacturers can easily read.

This sticky thread is common to all the Optical Drive forums now and through our Review Coordinators and Reviewers I will ask if they can try to encourage the manufacturers to read these threads.

When you post in this thread, please follow the below rules. If your post fails to meet these rules it will be deleted without warning or notification!

1. No flaming, complaints and/or praises. Only serious feedback and suggestions.
2. When posting feedback and/or suggestions, be detailed. Comments like "improve the firmware" will not do.
3. No questions, use the main LG forum for questions.
4. Again, no flaming! If you have a problem with your LG drive, post in the LG Forum. If you have a problem with someone's post, either report the post or contact me.

Rules may be added and/or changed later.

Thanks to G@M3FR3@K for the original format of this post.

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Last edited by C0deKing; 27-08-2005 at 16:18.

Firmware suggestions

1. enable permanent auto-booktyping, it is a PITA to remember doing so (I use S3 sleep, alexnoe's utility isn't as useful to me)
2. develop DVD error scanning capability with CD-DVD Speed (so I don't have to use another burner just to scan)

Provide a dedicated LG DVD-RAM driver, like the Panasonic driver. Preferably, one that works.

Cheap external Super Multi drives wanted!

I agree with quality scanning, it would be a an excellent feature to add to new drives or existing firmware.

I just bought the DVD-ROM 8163B.It's soooooooo slow with DVD+/-Rs that i can't beleive it.I bought it to couple it to the DVD-R 4163B.

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Last edited by C0deKing; 03-09-2005 at 03:41. Reason: Edited because it failed rule 1

Some better overspeeding of quality media would be appreciated. I mean, how about some 16X lovin' for TY02, TYG02, and Maxell RG03, for starters?

No rip lock.

DVD-RAM Cartridge support would be nice for all my existing DVD-RAM cartridges, until then I will have to keep the Panasonic in use as well as the LG.
And Permanent Booktype setting and Error Scanning would be great also.
And DVD-R DL support for the LG GSA-4163 in future firmware would be good seeing how the drive is only 2 months old.

My 4165B came with LG auto firmware updater.
It would be nice if this included program actually worked.
It would probably be quite handy for the Newbie who doesn't know where to look for the files.

Hi,

I've got an LG-5163D and a Panasonic E85H DVD recorder. I'm astonished to have discovered an almost well known (in forums, at least) DVD-RAM incompatibility between the two. The LG drive (apparently quite a few LG models) definitely has a part to play in this incompatibility and it would be nice if there was some recognition of this incompatibility and a fix available. The same goes for Panasonic! Until then, I'm seriously considering returning my LG drive and getting a Panasonic one.

Thanks,
Vipul

Like to be fixed on 4163B A105:

1. support beyond 4x for CMC AM3 16x media
2. competitive write quality on MEDIAID001 4x media, sure this is low quality media but lots of other burners such as my TS-H552U, PX-716A, DVR-109, ND-3500A, almost anything for that matter burns circles around all of my LG 4120B, 4160B and 4163B's on this media. For example on the TS-H552U PIF rates are 1/3, PIE rates are 1/10, and jitter is 2% lower
3. very bad PIF rates on MKM A02 DVD+RW 4x media; PIF rates average around 10 whereas my DVR-109 burns this high quality media with a PIF rate of 0.04, strange to see such horrid RW quality on an LG; other drives seem to have troubles with high PIF rates on this media as well but my ND-3500A and TS-H552U score far better; all testing done with initial burns on new media
4. extremely high PIE rates (~140) on VDSPMSAB001 code media. Again, sure it's low quality media but my ND-3500A PIE rates are about 15 times lower on the same discs
5. I'm not sure if this is the 4163B's fault or the TS-H552U's fault, but on a VIA chipset DMA won't enable on the TS-H552U US06 unless the 4163B is set as slave

Bring back Firewire for external drives.

Drive LED (Light) like other burners which let the user know what the drive is doing, such as orange when idle but disk is loaded, green when reading disk and red when burning.
You make good drives LG (I have 4163B) but with a few improvements they could be amazing drives! Listen to your customers, they know what they want!!

I just found an issue on my 4167B DL12--it burns coasters of Plasmon media (Tacana 52x black face, silver surface) at 48x. During the burn it compensated to 40x and then finally to 32x beyond the 77 min mark.

I burned the same discs fine with no elevation in C1's near the end on both my 4163B A105 @ 40x and my DVR-109 1.58 @ 32x so it isn't a media problem. Here's an analysis of the 4163B A105 burn to give you an idea of the media quality. Jitter and C1 rates on the DVR-109 burn were very similar so I won't post it.

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Last edited by cbjwthwm; 30-10-2005 at 02:48. Reason: additional info

8527B 1.02 @ 52x has problems too with C2's around the same area (causing a slowdown as well), although it doesn't coaster the disc. Nice quick burn @ 2:39 though...confirmed they burned fine @ 48x on my PX-716A 1.09. It slowed down with a spindle C1 spike @ around the same area but no C2's, no coaster, and no significant variation in jitter either.

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Last edited by cbjwthwm; 30-10-2005 at 02:20. Reason: additional comparative data

On a 8525B 1.05, problems burning Gigastorage (Kodak 48x) media with plenty of C2 errors at high speeds and while attempting to adapt as per the following scan. For comparison sake my 4163B A105 also burned this media with less than 1/3 the number of C1 errors as well, albeit at 40x. Jitter was similar.

I'd really like to see the GSA-4163B support 8X DVD+RW discs that have the Ritek 008 media code. After waiting months for 8X DVD+RW media to arrive in Canada, I recently purchased a 10-pack from an online retailer but was disappointed to see that the LG GSA-4163B cannot write to these discs at all (even with the latest A105 firmware). If LG does not add support to write to these discs, I'll have to switch to the BenQ DW1640 or DW1650.

Verbatim 32x CD-RW also burn with very high C1 rates and jitter as well on the 8525B 1.05. This C1 rate is over 80 times higher than Verbatim 24x CD-RW burned on the same drive!

1. i was really disappointed by the lack of CD/DVD scanning capabilities of the LG GSA-4163b.. as it can only read C2 errors on CD's and NOTHING on DVD's... as scanning have become crucial with the many strange habits of this drive...

2. please, try to add a DVD-R/RW booktype bitsetting..

3. an imroved writing quality on high speeds with both good/bad quality media is a must.. several CDs/DVD-R/+Rs have became into coasters after burning on 40X for CDs & 12x for DVD+R & 16X for my beloved Verbatim 16X DVD-R, they were turned into coasters...

4. a better compatibility with some media, as it keeps on locking on burning my 52X CMC CD's to 16X CLV if i choose any higher speed to burn.

5. an improved error correction, as it can't beat my Lite-ON LTR-52327S or SONY CRX-320EE in reading scratched and damaged CDs.

6. yet again... Error Scanning capabilities.. that's the second most important thing in a DVD burner, as it can even diefine it's abilities of writing/reading..

thanx.

Yes, scanning capabilities would be greatly appreciated. I will always choose a BenQ as my first drive (if I could only have one) because of this feature, as I MUST be able to evaluate the quality of my burns in some quantitative way. LG's may be very reliable and generally have excellent burn quality, but they do choke quite badly on some lesser quality media and I really cannot evaluate this behaviour without my trusty BenQ's. Without this feature, LG really does not have a hope of becoming the enthusiast choice regardless of how well they tune their firmware. I may sell them to my clients as reliable backup devices, but I will not trust them as my single choice for my first burner to decide what I will implement for people.

Despite your complaints about their CD error correction issues, kudos to LG on their excellent DVD error correction. I just recently got a messed up original DVD disc which I have been trying to rip and reburn so I can watch it smoothly in my DVD player. Most drives had severe problems reading the disc to any degree (tried on six recent Pioneer, Samsung and BenQ current models) if at all, whereas the LG's (4163B and 4167B) scanned through most of the disc up until near the very end where it finally failed. Head and shoulders above my other drives, I was very surprised--it was a stunning difference.

well, i think it can hardly be noticed, unless combined with Error scanning capabilities, so you might actually see what your drive is really reading..
that reminds me of my temporarily-retired Mitsumi CRW-487 ETE CDRW drive.. it was my perfect reader... CLEARLY SEEN IN CD-SPEED ERROR SCANS

For GSA-4167B need to decrease minimum reading speed for CD from 10x to 1x
for precise audiograbing and reading old disks.

As all pie/pif test( i dont want to buy another drive!!!, i just replace my nec 3520a with lg 4167b, so i want to use it and test all burned dvd's Riplock free. Overspeed of some media.Bitsetting dvd+rw.And there is a problem with some dvd's burned in lg, my old nec (3520a letest bios)dosn't want to see the disc (verbatim pastel)

ok, more suggestions (or demands :P)

1. support Overburning for DVDs and CDs at ALL SPEEDS... it can overburn some Cds on some speeds, others not, and cant write/overburn my 99m Melody (SHENZHEN SGSAST DIGITAL OPTICAL DISCS CO.,LTD.) for more than 96minutes!!! and unfortunately, i have spindles of'em... so, back to my Lite-ON

2. a better overspeeding compatibility.. example: Matrix DVD+R 4x MCC 003, are supported on 8X & 12X.. but in both cases... COASTERS!!!! 12X has tooooooooooo many PIFs, and 8X failes to write Lead out...ALWAYS.. 4X.. almost perfect...

3. demanding lower reading speeds reaching 1x or 4x at least instead of 10X, so we can use the drive for reading extremely scratched discs or high C2 error cds, and for better compatibility with the old Cyanine CMC and Verbatim cds.

thats all 4 tday.... and unfortunately, the GSA-4163b didn't impress me much... u still need too much work ppl... i really appreciate the time ur spending trying to improve these things, but we need results afterall