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  Lite-On SHW-16H5S LightScribe

  Aalaap Ghag, Jan 23, 2006 1010 hrs IST

  LightScribe teams up with the venerable Lite-On to bring us a very affordable burner that also lets you print CD labels.

  Good read/write speeds, great quality LightScribe printing, great price

  DVD-R DL at 4X max, slow DAE

  Expert Rating :

  

  

Page 1 - Intro and LightScribe Page 2 - Test Results and Conclusion

Now let's take a look at the specifications of the drive. The SHW-16H5S does DVD+R at 16X, DVD+R DL at 8X, DVD+RW at 8X, DVD-R at 16X, DVD-R DL at 4X, DVD-RW at 6X, DVD-ROM reading at 16X, CD-R at 48X, CD-RW at 24X and CD-ROM reading at 48X.

Here is Nero's InfoTool screenshot to understand the capabilities of the drive:

We took the drive for a spin with our usual set of DVD-ROMs, CD-ROMs and audio CDs to come up with some good reading results:

DVD Speed Average Transfer Rate: 12.37X
DVD Assorted Read: 7:21

CD Speed Average Transfer Rate: 30.11X
CD Assorted Read: 2:48

Digital Audio Extraction: 13:40
Quality of Extraction Average: 99.9%

Apart from the slow DAE result, the other read scores are fairly in sync.



Now let's burn some stuff.

16X DVD+R: 5:54
KProbe2 PIF Max / Average: 231 / 0.06

16X DVD-R: 6:25
KProbe2 PIF Max / Average: 115 / 0.09

8X DVD+RW: 8:20

6X DVD-RW: 10:25

CD-R Data: 3:15
KProbe2 C2 Max / Average: 1134 / 0.32

CD-R Audio: 3:16

Decent scores out here. Low errors and timings that are again in sync with other Lite-On models. We noticed no abnormal slowdowns in the tests except for one pre-test DVD-RW burn, which was just a coincidence. The drive was very reliable even after 10 burns in quick succession. It was also not very noisy at the maximum speed.

Both from a performance and feature point of view, this is a very good drive to buy if you're also interested in LightScribe labeling. The cost of the drive is only Rs. 3,975 which is only around Rs. 1,000 more than a standard non-LightScribe Lite-On 16X burner. The drive burns everything - dual format, dual layer at the max speed (other than DVD-R DL) - and also does LightScribe. The DVD-R DL speeds are not an issue since it doesn't look like we'll get DL media at an affordable price here anytime soon. Everything you could ask for at a modest price. Pick it up.

Test unit sourced from: Mediatech India

Page 1 - Intro and LightScribe Page 2 - Test Results and Conclusion

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