LiteON SOHW-1633S Recorder - Page 25

The LiteON SOHW-1633S is a fast CD/DVD reader, reporting high reading speeds. Video ripping was also fast and with no problems or delays. Great DVD error correction capabilities were observed but only average CD error correction. Nero CD/DVD Speed reported very good Audio Extraction speed, giving the drive a perfect score of 100. Not even protected Audio CDs could stop the drive from ripping flawlessly and fast. On the other hand, protected games were not a strong point of this LiteON drive, since it managed to make working backups of SafeDisk protected games up to v.2.8.

The drive offers 48X CD writing speed, the highest that is offered by all recorders on the market for now. On the other hand, writing quality at 48X is not as good as expected, and users might consider writing discs at lower speeds to achieve improved quality.

16X CAV writing speed for DVD+R media makes the drive one of the fastest available. It takes only 5:48mins to burn a full Single Layer disc. Quality at such a high speed is a real headache for recorders, and LiteON needs some improvements. We hope to see future firmware releases resolving minor problems that occurred with certain media written at different speeds. 8X writing speed for DVD-R media is more or less usual for all DVD recorders hitting the market lately, but there are several others that offer a higher writing speed (16X).

A big advantage of this drive is the Booktype setting support. With Double Layer media, we observed medium write performance. The SOHW-1633S offers 2.4X writing speed with DL media. Writing quality can be further improved with future firmware releases.

- The Good

• Low priced
• Very good DVD error correction
• Supports protected Audio discs (CDS200, Key2Audio)
• CD reading speed
• Can overburn up to 99mins
• High DAE speed
• High DVD ripping speed
• Region free utilities
• Supports booktype setting changes.
• Can be used for DVD media error measurements

- The Bad

• Poor CD error correction
• Doesn't accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs
• Single Layer media writing quality
• Cannot write certain +R 16X certified media at high speed
• Doesn't support DVD overburning

- Like to be fixed

• DVD writing quality needs improvement with certain media
• Limited support media list for 16X DVD+R writing
• High C1/C2 errors with specific media at 48X

Constantinos Kioulafas