We recently received the latest DVD burner from LiteOn, the LH-181AP. The drive offers the fastest available DVD recording speeds of 18x for DVD SL and 8X for DVD DL media, together with a high CD recording speed of 48x. It also supports DVD-RAM, with the impressive recording speed of 12x. At 18x writing speed for DVD-R / +R media, a 4.7GB compilation can be burned in around 5 minutes.

This review is a preview, concentrating primarily on the drive's quality with various media brands. A full review will follow soon.

Below is a summary of the specifications for this device:

12x DVD-RAM writing speed is supported with compliant media, currently available from Maxell and Panasonic. However, the availability of such discs (RAM2) is very limited - if at all - in Europe. Maxell will not ship the new media to Europe at all, which will disappoint many European owners of the new drive, to say the least.

Drive features include:

• SMART-BURN avoiding Buffer Under Run 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.
  
  
• ABS system reduce vibration and noise during recording and reading.

Drive Info