LiteOn's latest release, the DVDR SHW-1635S is mainly an upgrade of the previous release, the 1693S. The drive offers a higher R9 writing speed, reaching up to 8X for the +R DL media and 4X for the -R media. Apart from this, writing quality has been improved and with the recent firmware upgrade, version YSON, writing quality has been further improved with certain media. Although this is good, DL quality must be checked and improved with a future firmware. But let's start from the beginning.

With CD reading speed, it has become standard that LiteOn drives are among the fastest, if not the fastest DVD-Burner readers available on the market today. So, the 1635S can read any inserted media at a speed up to 48X for all CD formats. In the Error correction department, the LiteOn 1635S has a good position. Even though CD error correction is not as good as expected, DVD error correction is pretty good, almost great. So, no problems there and owner of defective media can rest easy.

A good question would be "did LiteOn improve protected media ripping capabilities"? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The ripping capabilities of the 1635S are almost the same as the 1693S, almost to the sec. As seen in the preview pages, the drive cannot accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs. Protected audio media ripping remains the same too, which in this case is a good thing because of the drive's ability to successfully rip and backup all tested media.

Moving on to burning quality and CD quality in specific. The drive managed to produce good quality CD burns according to Plextools, while the CDX Clover Systems scan indicated two out of five burned media as "pass". These two media were the ones with no C2 reported during the Plextools scans. DVD burning quality has improved from the previous model. All inserted media were burned at their stated speeds. Note here, that as it can be seen from the quality measurements pages in this review, the burning quality is much dependent on the inserted media brand.

With DVD±RW media, the burning quality is not satisfactory, though it is not a drive of bad quality burns. Further improvement with a future firmware would be welcomed. Lastly, DL writing quality was good, though once more, very dependent on media brand used. A firmware upgrade is welcomed to improve this minor issue too.

When it comes to features, the LiteOn 1635S can claim the most complete title as far as the "basics" are concerned. The Bitsetting feature is fully supported with all DVD+ media (+R,+RW,+RDL) and the user can change the booktype to the desired type prior to burning in order to maximize compatibility with stand alone players. The Region Free option is also available. Last but no least, the retail package includes an extra black bezel, enabling the user to change the drives "look" in order to suit his needs.

The price at the time of the review for the retail package of the LiteOn SHW-1635S burner was close to US$43 at newegg.com.

- The Good

• Good DVD error correction
• Supports protected Audio discs
• Fast CD Reader
• Bitsetting for all media (+R, +RW, +R9)
• Region free utilities
• Can be used for DVD media error measurements

- The Bad

• Doesn't accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs
• Doesn't support DVD overburning
• Cannot read 90/99min audio discs

- Like to be fixed

• Improved DVD writing quality with specific media

 

Retail Package
Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features