Lite-On SOHW-1673S DVD Burner Review

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Review: Lite-On SOHW-1673S
DVD-Writer
Reviewer: OC-Freak
Provided by:
Lite-On
IT
Firmware: JS04
and JS05
Manufactured: December
2004

It's just a
short while since we tested the SOHW-1653S, but now there is a new drive
already; The SOHW-1673S. We are familiar with Lite-On drives for several years
and their drives do usually perform very well and has many features compared to
their low price. Let us see if this drive continues this trend and could keep up
with the competition, especially from NEC and BenQ that have made some
exceptionally good DVD-Writers. Let's take a look at the already well know
Lite-On history.

Some Lite-On
history:

In 1995
Lite-On gathered some elite scientist and engineers from ITRI (Industrial
Technology Research Institute) to start an optical storage research and
manufacturing business in Taiwan. Currently they have over 130 engineers with
Master & Ph. D. degrees in their Research & Development team, that are
dedicated to the development of their patented anti-vibration mechanical design,
advanced circuit design, firmware programming & performance tuning. The
Research & Development team achievement is a key factor that has ensured
their success in product development.

In 1997,
Lite-On established a large manufacturing facility in China enabling them to
provide optimum OEM/ODM support to all 1st-Tier PC makers, which further
demonstrated their success in the worldwide Optical drive market. Today, they
are among top-3 optical drive manufacturer worldwide, mostly due to attractive
pricing and quality filled products, along with large OEM contracts. They have
also received top brand name recognition in many regions. These achievements,
plus superb management visions and planning, enabled them to continue their
growth and profit even at times when the optical drive market experienced
"price-wars" and many optical drive manufacturers were forced out.

In 1999, they
created LITE-ON Information Technology Corporation, another proud member of the
Lite-On Group, to concentrate on developing and manufacturing optical drives to
stay strong in the storage business. They are going to carry on the tradition of
developing optical drives to expand their research and manufacturing capacity to
new generations of products such as DVD drives, High speed CD-RW drives and
COMBO drives to stay strong in both the retail and OEM/ODM market.

At
9^th July 2001 Lite-On IT signed a co-operation contract with JVC, a
famous Japanese electrical company, to be in alliance with each other. Two new
companies was established, one is the optical drives manufacturing sales
company, named as JVC LITE-ON IT Manufacturing & Sales, Limited (JLMS) , the
other is pick-up head developing & manufacturing company.

JVC is a
pioneer in development of key components of optical drives and consumer
electronics as well, Lite-On IT is excellent in volume manufacturing and
developing, also skilled in IT industry. That kind of strategic alliance would
benefit both companies.

If you have
read our previous Lite-On reviews you may already feel familiar with this
company information, so let us now take a look at the specifications of this
drive:

Drive specifications:

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These are the
specifications of this drive, found at the Lite-On
webpage:

SOHW -
1673S 16x 8x / 16x 6x
/ 16x / 4x + 48x 24x 48x Half-Height DVD-Dual

• ATAPI / E-IDE Half-Height
  internal DVD+R / DVD+RW / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R9 / DVD-ROM / CD-R/
  CD-RW / CD-ROM combination drive
  
• Support Double Layer DVD+R9
  Recording Function
  
• SMART-BURN avoiding Buffer
  UnderRun Error, Automatically adjusting writing strategy & running OPC to
  provide the best burning quality
  
• SMART-X function adjusts CD-DA /
  VCD / DVD data extraction to a fastest allowable speed according to both data
  request rate from host and disk quality
  
• VAS® system reduce vibration and
  noise during recording and reading
  
• Support Fixed Packet, Variable
  Packet, TAO, SAO, DAO, Raw Mode Burning & Over-Burn
  
• DVD read compliant : DVD single
  / dual layer ( PTP / OTP ), DVD-R ( 3.9 GB / 4.7 GB ), DVD-R multi-borders,
  DVD+R, DVD+R multi-sessions, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW
  
• CD read compliant : CD-DA,
  CD-ROM, CD-ROM / XA, Photo-CD, Multi-session, Karaoke-CD, Video-CD, CD-I FMV,
  CD Extra, CD Plus, CD-R, and CD-RW
  
• Supprot both 8 cm and 12 cm disc
  of CD and DVD family
  
• Conform to Orange Book : Part 2
  CD-R Volume 1, Part 2 CD-R Volume 2 Multi Speed, Part 3 CD-RW Volume 1 ( 1x,
  2x, and 4x ), Part 3 CD-RW Volume 2 : High Speed, Part 3 CD-RW Volume 3 :
  Ultra Speed

Supported transfer
mode : PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 and Ultra DMA mode 2

The specifications
are very good, and we can't find any noticeable drawbacks. It should also write
with CAV technology, which is promising for low recording times and high average
recording speeds.

What's inside the box?

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Let us start
out pretty easy by taking a look at what we got and what the box
contained.

 

The drive we
received was a retail drive that came in a nice looking box, pretty identical to
earlier boxes we have seen from Lite-On. Let us take a look at the content of
the box:

Looks like a
very small bundle but to make sure that we do not miss anything, we list what we
got below:

This is what
the Retail bundle consists of:

•        The drive
  itself
  
•         Cyberlink PowerDVD
  software CD
  
•         
  Nero software
  CD
  
•         
  Quick
  installation manual
  
  
•         
  Screws
  
•         
  Audio
  cable
  

Far from the
best bundle we have seen, we are missing an IDE-Cable, a thicker manual and some
empty media.

Now it's time
to take a look at the drive itself:

 

Nothing new
under the sun here, it uses the usual Lite-On front that we have gotten quite
used to now.

 

Our sample was
produced in China and has a production date of December 2004.

 

Still no
changes on the back either; from the left: undocumented pins used for
calibrating the drive at the factory; digital audio connector; analogue audio
connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or master;
IDE connector and finally the power connector.

Now, let us
connect the drive and check out the features and program bundle of this drive on
the next page…

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