LG GSA-4167B Super Multi DVD-Writer Review


Review:
LG GSA-4167B
Reviewer: Jan70
Provided by: LG '“
Germany
Firmware:
DL11 &
DL12
Manufactured: August
2005

LG '“ Germany was
kind enough to send us their latest DVD-writer the LG GSA-4167B
Super multi DVD
Writer. This drive supports 16x DVD+R/-R, 8x/6x
DVD+RW/-RW, 5x DVD-RAM and 6x/4x DVD+R DL/-R DL writing, allowing Double/Dual
Layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.

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Company
information:

Let us take a look
at some of the company information found at the LG
website.

The Foundation of
LG

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LG was established
in 1947 as Korea's first chemical company, also becoming the nation's first
electronics company with its expansion into home appliances in 1958. The new
Corporate Identity was launched including the change of the group name from
Lucky-Goldstar to LG in 1995.

Business
Fields

The wide array of
activities that LG conducts are coordinated within three highly focused business
sectors: Chemicals & Energy, Electronics and Telecommunications &
Services. Each sector has undergone systematic changes, with improved financial
compositions, restructured business portfolios and realigned equity investment
structures.

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The split of two
holding companies LG Corp. and GS Holdings Corp.

On March 2003, LG
introduced the holding company structure and recently, the demerger of two
holding companies - LG Corp. and GS Holdings Corp. took place on July 1 to
separate the manufacturing and technology related businesses from the service
and retail operations. The separation is meant to maximize profits of LG
shareholders by boosting business specialization of key LG companies.

Increasing R&D
investment in 2004

With the
anticipations and expectations for the new structure, LG has set an ambitious
management goal for this year. In 2003, LG's ordinary profit stood at KRW 3.1
trillion on sales of KRW 85 trillion. In 2004, LG plans to raise ordinary profit
and sales by 42% and 12% year-on-year respectively. This year's ordinary profit
target is KRW 4.4 trillion and the sales target is KRW 95 trillion. LG plans to
increase the R&D investments by 31% from last year to KRW 9.4 trillion in
2004.

If you are
interested in reading more company information, please visit www.lg.co.kr/english

Drive specifications:


Now let us
take a look at the specifications of the LG GSA-4167B, found at LG's UK
website:

Access
time

DVD-RAM

175
ms

DVD-ROM

145
ms

CD

125
ms

Buffer
Memory

2MB
with buffer under run prevention technology

Data
transfer rate

CD

Max
7,200KB/s

DVD

Max
22.16 Mbytes/s

Dimensions
W x D x H (mm)

146
x 170 x 41.3

Interface
type

E-IDE
/ ATAPI

OS-Compatability

Windows
ME, 2000 Professional, XP Home Edition,
Professional

Supported
disc Formats

Write

DVD-RAM,
DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD+-R DL, CD-R/RW

Read

DVD-RAM,
DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD+-R DL, DVD-ROM, CD-R/RW, CD-ROM Mode 1, 2
CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, Mixed CD, CD-Extra, CD-Text, Super Audio CD,
Photo-CD, Video CD

Weight
(kg)

0.75

Writing
Method

DVD-RAM

Random
Write

DVD+R

Sequential
Recording

DVD+RW

Random
Write

DVD+R
DL

Sequential
Recording

DVD-R
DL

Disk-at-Once,
Incremental Recording, Layer Jump Recording

CD-R /
RW

Disk-at-Once,
Track-at-Once, Session-at-Once, Packet Write

DVD-R
/RW

Disk-at-Once,
Incremental Recording, Restricted Overwrite (DVD-RW only)

Write
Speed

DVD+R

2.4x,
4x CLV, 8x ZCLV, 12x, 16x PCAV

DVD-R

2x,
4x CLV, 8x ZCLV, 16x PCAV

DVD+RW

2.4x,
4x CLV, 8x ZCLV

DVD-RW

1x,
2x, 4x 6x CLV

DVD-RAM

2x,
3x ZCLV (Ver.2.2), 3x-5x PCAV (Ver.2.2)

CD-R

4x,
8x, 16x CLV, 24x, 32x, 40x, 48x ZCLV

CD-RW

4x,
10x,16x CLV, 24x, 32x ZCLV

DVD+R
DL

2.4x,
4x, 6x CLV

DVD-R
DL

2x,
4x CLV

Read
Speed

CD-ROM

Max
48x

DVD-ROM

Max
16x

Colour

Ivory,
Silver or Black

Loading
Type

Motorized
Tray

What's inside
the box?


On this page
we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the
drive and its technology.

Front

Back

Top

Bottom

Left Side

Right Side

Below you will
see the contents of the retail box:

  • The
    internal drive itself
  • Nero 6 OEM
    Suite
  • LG DVD
    Writer Solution CD:
    1. PowerDVD
    2. PowerProducer Gold
    3. Nero
      Express
    4. InCD
    5. Acrobat
      Reader
  • Super Multi
    DVD Drive CD:
    1. Owner's
      Manual
  • IDE cable
  • Audio cable
  • 4 mounting
    screws   
  • Quick Guide
  • Guarantee
    information

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

On the neutral looking bezel we
found;
an eject button, an emergency eject hole and a LED (green - for read
and write - we prefer a different LED colour though for writing). The logos
located on the loading tray include the Super Multi logo, a DVD Alliance DVD+R
DL logo, the LG logo, a DVD Forum DVD-Multi Recorder logo, and a CD-RW Ultra
Speed logo.


Top

On top of the drive we found one
sticker, and we can read it was manufactured in China (bottom left), dated
August 2005.

Underside

Side

On the back of
the drive starting from the left, we can see a reserved connector; analogue
audio connector; pins and jumper to set the drive to cable select, slave or
master; IDE connector and finally the power connector.

We installed
the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero
InfoTool:

 

From the
screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt.Rainier and CD+G support and a
larger buffer size. Our drive came shipped with firmware DL10, which was later
updated to DL11 and DL12.

And another
shot from Nero Burning ROM:

 

But let us continue
this review and see how it really performs.

On the next page we
will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive
features…………


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