LiteOn SOHD-167T - Page 12

The LiteOn SOHD-167T DVD-ROM reader offers 16X DVD-ROM maximum read speed and 48X max. read speed for CD-ROMs. With the CD reading tests, the drive showed good performance with good seek times and very fast DVD video ripping speed. It didn't have problems reading DVD-R/RW & DVD+R/RW media and with an un-official firmware, can read up to 16X.

The CD error correction results were good, but with test discs having large scratches, the drive did not produce good results exhibiting high error rates. In the DVD error correction tests, it managed to playback all of our test discs without reporting any read errors or problems.

The drive offers fast ripping times only with PSX, whereas with the SecuROM and especially with SafeDisc v2, it reported slow ripping times.

According to the DAE tests, the drive returned good performance only with the CDS200 protection scheme but with some timing problems and unsuccessful read&test CRC comparisons for most of the tracks. With the Key2Audio protection scheme, the CD was unreadable under Windows XP OS. The drive managed to play 90 & 99 minute AudioCDs. The LiteOn 167T is fast with the CDR audio test disc, resulting in high quality performance for audio extraction.

The LiteOn SOHD-167T when compared with the AudioDev SA300 DVD CATS system reports similar PI errors with some media and totally different with other. This is more or less the same behaviour as with the previous models, the LTD-163 and LTD-165H.

The LiteOn SOHD-167T costs about $30, which is an affordable price for almost any end user.

- The Good

• Low price
• Good CD Error correction
• Very good DVD error correction
• Very high CSS DVD-Video ripping speed
• High C2% accuracy, with light scratched discs
• Supports CDS200 protected Audio discs
• Big unofficial community support (KProbe, Speedhacks, RPC1 utilities)
• Can read DVD±R/RW SL media up to 16X with un-official firmware
• Frequent firmware updates from LiteON

- The Bad

• Not very good performance with highly scratched Audio CDs
• Slow rip with SafeDisc v2 & SecuROM protected game titles
• Doesn't support reading of DVD-RAM media
• Retail package didn't include internal IDE cable
• Doesn't support Key2Audio protected Audio discs

- Like to be fixed

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