Conclusion

The LiteON SOHW-1653S 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. Regarding protected Audio CDs, the burner faced problems reading Key2Audio protected discs. Moreover, 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 current speed offered by recorders on the market currently. 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 only took 5:48mins to burn a full Single Layer disc. Quality at such a high speed is a real headache for burners and the LiteON is no exception, needing further improvements here. We hope to see future firmware releases resolve problems that occurred with certain media written at different speeds. The 12X writing speed with 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) with this media.

A big advantage of this drive is the Booktype setting support. With Double Layer media, we observed medium writing performance. The SOHW-1653S offers 4X writing speed with DL media. Writing quality should be further improved in future firmware releases.

- The Good

• Low priced
• Good DVD error correction
• High CD reading speed
• Can overburn CD 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

• Average CD error correction
• Doesn't accurately backup SafeDisc2 v2.9x+ protected discs
• Single Layer media writing quality
• Doesn't support DVD overburning

- Like to be fixed

• DVD writing quality needs improvement with certain media
• High C1/C2 errors with specific media at 48X

Retail Package
Reading
Error Correction
Protected Discs
Writing
Features