First scans of LiteOn LH20A1H - Interpreting results

Blank Media
#1

I finally received my second scan drive, a LiteOn LH20A1H and immediately proceeded to make scans from discs I’ve already scanned in my Plextor 716, scanned at 2x and known to be a reliable scanner.

Having no time to assemble my new PC and wanting to test this drive’s scan capabilities asap, I hooked it up via a USB2.0 bridge. This seems to work fine. I used Nero CD/DVD Speed to make the scans.

I scanned at 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x and some results are a bit surprising. All scans report a similar level of PIE errors, except the 8x, where the number is slightly lower. It’s peculiar that 2x and 4x scans show higher PIE, but the difference isn’t that big. More interesting is the vast difference in PIF errors. On a particular disc, at 8x I get about 3200 PIFs, whereas the same disc results in 1600-1700 PIFs at all other speeds (slower and faster).

Both PIE and PIF are about half of what the Plextor reports (taking the result of 8x scan, at other speeds especially the number of PIFs is much lower than on the Plextor).

No jitter is reported, although I selected this test. Is this the USB2.0 connection interfering or is the LH20A1H not capable of jitter scanning?

How do I interpret these results? I trust the Plextor more than I do the LiteOn, but the LiteOn is know to have pretty consistent results. I’ll do more disc tests and if they show the same trend I have a faster scanner, I just need to multiply the resulting error rates by a factor. What I’m asking about isn’t the LiteOn vs Plextor results but the rather puzzling difference in results (of PIF errors reported) at different speeds of the LiteOn. Is this merely the result of the lesser number of samples taken at 16x, that gives the same result as the slower speeds? And the 8x result at high number of samples simply gives more errors because of the higher scan speed?

edit: Moderators: I thought I posted it in the media forum, now it’s in the firmware forum but no comment by a moderator that it was moved. Did I make a mistake or was it moved?

Moomin

#2
    • Thread moved to Blank Media forum and title expanded * *
#3

I have the LH-20A1P and experienced the same problem with the first 15-20 quality scans I did…then I discovered that there is (for some unknown reason) an extra step needed…you have to click on the “Advanced” button and actually check off the box labeled “Jitter (DVD)” to enable the test. Do that and also have “Show Jitter” ticked off on the Disc Quality page, and you should be good to go for future tests.

Hope you can get answers to the other parts of your question…I’m not experienced enough to know what to advise you on the varying PIE/PIF levels…

#4

I can no longer edit my first post so some addenda here:

  • forget about jitter, my mistake, got it to work.

edit: posted at the same time. Thanks for the tip, that was it.

  • Firmware LL0A, just updated to LL0C (via USB, it worked, nice!)

Moomin

#5

LiteOn drives sometimes have performance enhancements in reading/scanning with early firmware updates, so you might want to recheck if you still have the same difference in PIE/PIF levels.

#6

You should post pics :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve got an explanation in my head but pics would be great hehe.

#7

I’ve no idea about Plextor but my BenQ 1640 reports nearly identical results when comparing my LH20A1H burns.

3200 PIFs? sounds very strange.
However, the Liteon 20A1H is somehow Laser different to older models. My 1640 can write Sony media no problem, but that Liteon seems to have a problem with too darkish data surfaces. That is the only limitation I’ve seen so far - otherwise, this burner gives stunning burn results (for me) never seen before with older models. PIEs never exceeding 10, PIFs hardly ever above 4 (usually ~2) especially true for even +RW media.

#8

I like my Liteys for disc quality scanning mainly because I don’t want to wear out my dedicated burners by using them as scanners. They’re great as impartial scanners for media burned by all sorts of different drives, but you don’t want to be counting PIE or PIF totals with them to compare with other scanners. They’re good readers and can show you trends with a DQ scans. Thats about it.

warning: incoming opinion pulled from thin air: My SHM-165P6S dropped samples, and so does my LH-20A1P. After a 4x disc quality scan the 20A1P might report a scanning interval of 1.15 ECC. By my reasoning, it looks to be skipping about 13% of the disc it just scanned. If that’s true, then its PIF reports are going to be more optimistic than a BenQ scanning at 8 ECC with a reported 8.0x ECC scanning interval or a Plextor scanning at 1 ECC with a 1.0x ECC scan interval.

The variation in reported PIFs by your Lite-on, however, is WAY out there. Maybe cd pirate will have something to say after you’ve posted some scans. Here’s a look at what I get @ 4x, 8x & 16x with my Litey: Litey scans: 4x, 8x & 16x

#9

Here are the scans from the LiteOn, LL0A fw. I’ll try asap to redo the tests on LL0C, but since LL0A was already a fairly mature fw, I’m in doubt it will change much.

In order: CDDVDspeed same disc, at 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x. Followed by a Plextor 716 scan at 2x with PXscan.

Edit: I had to remove the Plex scan, I used it in another thread here

Notice the big difference in reported PIF in 8x vs the rest of the LiteOn scans.

LiteonTest2x.GIF645×523 45.1 KB

LiteonTest4x.GIF645×523 44.8 KB

LiteonTest8x.GIF645×523 45.7 KB

LiteonTest16x.GIF645×523 45.2 KB

#10

Seems fairly normal. The only reason I can think that 8x shows more errors is that it doesn’t drop many samples like 16x and it’s also fast enough to cause more reading issues than 4x, thus the extra few PIF. But the errors stay very similar regardless of speed so it’s a fairly consistent drive.

#11

Yes, but the 4x with more samples is the same as the 16x with lots less. So I am wondering if this can be caused just by the difference in numbers of samples.

The 8x is the closer one compared to the Plextor scan, although it still reports only about half the number of PIFs.

#12

LL0C reduces especially the PIF error rate (at least here)

#13

Do you mean on burns or scans?

Moomin