Lite-On expands 20x line-up with USB & SATA (hurray!) burners

[Bob Crabtree]

Following on from the ATAPI/IDE 20x internal DVD burners that Lite-On IT unveiled in November, the company is introducing two further versions of what's claimed as the world's fastest DVD writer.

One is external and USB, the other internal and (three cheers!) serial ATA.

The LH-20A1S will likely be the world’s first 20x DVD burner with a SATA interface when it arrives mid-February at a recommended price of £32.

More.

[DeSean]

*grumble*

I bought a new SATA Samsung drive a couple of days ago along with a faster (sigh) lightscribe Samsung on IDE, so this is too late for me.

My previous one was hardly used and seemingly died - somewhat appropriately - at the hands of a faulty IDE cable...

[dodgybob]

Isn't 20x dvd roughly equivalent to 60x cd? Doesn't sound like you'd want to try and burn cheap media at full speed in this drive.

[Bob Crabtree]

Isn't 20x dvd roughly equivalent to 60x cd? Doesn't sound like you'd want to try and burn cheap media at full speed in this drive.

The 1x data rate of DVD is, as I recall, over nine times greater than the 1x data rate of CD.

If that's so, then 20x on a DVD is more like 180x (or greater) on a CD.

Makers of burners - and Lite-On for sure - would argue that they have in place technologies that let their products deal with cheapo media.

But, of course, what that may well mean is that the burn speed is cut back radically.

However, for certain tasks, I'd judge it unwise to burn at full speed even when that is possible.

Additionally, as my recent review of Samsung's 18x USB burner showed, these high-speed burners don't actually write to disc at their headline speeds.

[Bob Crabtree]

*grumble*

I bought a new SATA Samsung drive a couple of days ago along with a faster (sigh) lightscribe Samsung on IDE, so this is too late for me.

My previous one was hardly used and seemingly died - somewhat appropriately - at the hands of a faulty IDE cable...

I don't agree - have you ever tested out high-speed burners to see what speeds they actually achieve?

I did just that recently with the Samsung USB 18x (not for the first time, I might add) and the results show that you really do not achieve anything like the claimed burn speeds.

That's because, in the main, the burn strategies used meant that data isn't written at top speed except towards the outer edge of the disc.

But all is explained in that review.

So, being highly practical about it, I'd not be worrying whether a burner I just bought didn't burn at 20x or didn't burn at 18x or didn't burn at 16x - it will burn fast enough (and too fast for some operations - when you're better off burning at slower speeds, creating movie DVDs, being one instance).

More important - is the burner good enough? And I suspect, from my experience with the Samsung USB 18x, is that what you've just bought will actually be rather good.

[dodgybob]

I was thinking in more in terms of angular velocity than data rates, sorry didn't make that clear. But thanks for the info

I've always been a little worried about high speed optical drives and cheap media after an old 32x AOpen CD burner smashed a cheap CD-R disk. The drive would always spin media up the full 52x when reading, no matter what the state of the disk. This would cause an annoying pause whilst accessing the disk, more so than other drives and would make listening to an audio CD a frustratingly loud experience. Optical drives these days, at least from other manufacturers, seem to be more careful about ramping up but the speed that this drive appears to theoretically hit still makes me wince a bit.

*waits for Bob Crabtree to tell him he's wrong about the angular velocity too *

[Bob Crabtree]

I was thinking in more in terms of angular velocity than data rates, sorry didn't make that clear. But thanks for the info

I've always been a little worried about high speed optical drives and cheap media after an old 32x AOpen CD burner smashed a cheap CD-R disk. The drive would always spin media up the full 52x when reading, no matter what the state of the disk. This would cause an annoying pause whilst accessing the disk, more so than other drives and would make listening to an audio CD a frustratingly loud experience. Optical drives these days, at least from other manufacturers, seem to be more careful about ramping up but the speed that this drive appears to theoretically hit still makes me wince a bit.

*waits for Bob Crabtree to tell him he's wrong about the angular velocity too *

Ah! Okay.

As for me correcting you - I'd suggest that you double-check your own assumption, though I'm happy to do that myself a bit later in the day.

My starting point would involve the following facts/assumptions:


* A DVD has a capacity of 4.3GByte - formatted

* A typical CD has a capacity of 604MByte - formatted (that would be a 700MB CD, not a 650MByte disc)

* 1GByte = 1024MBytes (yes, I'm a Luddite, like that, as will be further confirmed below)

* 1MByte = 1024KBytes (or, if you like, 1,048,576 bytes)

* 1KByte = 1024 bytes

* The 1x data rate for DVD is 1.385MByte/sec (or, if you like, 1418.24KByte/sec)

* The 1x data rate for CD is 150KByte/sec

If provided with the back of a fag packet of suitable size, and the above info, I reckon that anyone could double-check your reasoning (though, of course, my reasoning there may be - as it sometimes is - quite false, butI won't know that myself until I sit down with my own fag packet or someone pulls me up about it).

One further assumption I'd make (a false one, but necessary, perhaps, so as not to do my head in) would be that the speeds we are talking about (20x, 18x, 16x, whatever) are achieved in a strictly linear fashion - as though a tape were passing a read/write head at a constant speed - rather than getting involved in the real-world situation with DVD and CD where the speed at which data is being written or read actually varies at different parts of the discs.

[dangel]

The SATA Liteon DVD drive I have has some fangled facility to adjust it's speed depending on the quality of the media you feed it (apparently)..

[Bob Crabtree]

The SATA Liteon DVD drive I have has some fangled facility to adjust it's speed depending on the quality of the media you feed it (apparently)..

As, indeed, do the two new Lite-On products - as the news story explains!

[Pdog]

Sweet might have to get one of the internal ones. Finally do away with the horrible IDE cable in my machine. If it is £32 thats a good price.

[dangel]

As, indeed, do the two new Lite-On products - as the news story explains!

You're assuming people can be arsed to read it

[Bob Crabtree]

You're assuming people can be arsed to read it

No, I make no such assumption.

It's just that I point out such an option is available.

[Clunk]

Could anyone tell me, if, on the internal version, the power connector is a standard 4 pin molex as on normal IDE opical drives, or does this have a SATA power connector?

Thanks

[DeSean]

I don't agree - have you ever tested out high-speed burners to see what speeds they actually achieve?

I did just that recently with the Samsung USB 18x (not for the first time, I might add) and the results show that you really do not achieve anything like the claimed burn speeds.

That's because, in the main, the burn strategies used meant that data isn't written at top speed except towards the outer edge of the disc.

But all is explained in that review.

So, being highly practical about it, I'd not be worrying whether a burner I just bought didn't burn at 20x or didn't burn at 18x or didn't burn at 16x - it will burn fast enough (and too fast for some operations - when you're better off burning at slower speeds, creating movie DVDs, being one instance).

More important - is the burner good enough? And I suspect, from my experience with the Samsung USB 18x, is that what you've just bought will actually be rather good.

Cool! lol.

I think it was more about enhancing my e-penis rather than genuine disapointment. Besides, my IDE Samsung Lightscribe and SATA Samsung look actractive as they are almost identical - i'm not a geek btw