16x Dvd+-rw Dl Dvd Writer Comparison Guide
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.
Motorola dumps LiMo for Android!
Motorola is busy focusing on Google’s Android these days, and has quit the LiMo Foundation. Christy Wyatt, vice president, software applications and ecosystems, Motorola, mentioned that she was no longer on the board of the LiMo Foundation, as reported by PC World. The company has decided to remain as an associate member and retain an active role as a contributing member. As a result, Motorola is now no longer listed as a founder member on the LiMo website; it is also now ineligible to run for a board seat. In 2010, the company plans to release a host of mobile phones that will use Google’s Android OS.
Palm to open doors to WebOS
Following up on the release of the beta app catalogue e-commerce programme, Palm is planning to open its app distribution programme to the entire Palm WebOS developer community by the end of the year. Under the programme, developers will receive 70 percent of the revenue after tax deductions. Developers who charge for their software will need to set up a PayPal account to receive their share of revenue from Palm, who will keep 30 percent. Customers will initially be able to purchase applications with MasterCard and Visa.
The company’s membership-based programme will have a $99 annual fee for developers of proprietary applications, while developers of open source software won’t be required to pay the programme, states the company blog. As announced in August, the company is accepting applications to the beta app catalogue e-commerce program for distribution on the catalogue.
Palm also plans to launch a full-scale developer program to encourage third-party applications for its WebOS platform by the end of the year, and is making a special pitch to open source developers.
Oss changing the face of content management: Report
The content management market is seeing dramatic changes thanks to new open source and commercial open source entries that are making significant inroads with customers. According to The Definitive Guide to Today’s Content Management Systems and Vendors, a new 150-page report series from Basex, a knowledge economy research firm, the advent of open source software has significantly changed the process of selecting a content management solution. The report series looks at 32 key content management vendors and 43 platforms, and provides an analysis – including market trends, drivers, and barriers – to guide decision makers in the selection process. Basex estimates that the US market for content management was $4.1 billion in 2008 and will reach $10 billion by 2014. Open source content management is gaining traction in some circles and the overall open source software market is growing rapidly. The report reveals that choosing the right content management system is far from straight forward and requires an in-depth understanding of both the organization’s needs and what the market has to offer. It points out that companies need to be prepared to manage multiple forms of content, including wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, social networks, podcasts and video. Also, companies that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars for content management systems might do equally well with platforms that cost one-tenth that amount.
Seagate Momentus 500 GB
The Momentus series of 2.5 inch drives from Seagate are great notebook storage solutions. The ST9500325ASG model that has a capacity of 500 GB with an 8-MB cache.
Seagate has used a two platter design for this 2.5 inch drive. This drive is 9.5 mm thick which is the standard for notebook hard drives now.
Synthetic benchmarks aside, this drive did well in real world tests too. It took 56.4 seconds to write a 4-GB sequential file and 72.7 seconds to write 4-GB assorted data resulting an average write speed of about 64.48 MBps (sequential and assorted) as per sources. Read times were also mighty impressive as 4-GB of sequential data took 60.6 sec while 4-GB of assorted data took 67.7 sec giving an average read speed of also 64 MBps.
This is a great drive if you want an upgrade for your notebook, especially if you like to store a lot of data on it. This mighty little thing will cost you at around Rs.5000/-
for more details click here
Password Protection Errors in Flash Drive
Be sure not to misuse this Password protection errors with flash drive If you are unable to copy or format your pen drive, by whatever reasons may be if is it infected with viruses or may if you have given it to someone may be your friend. then you can try some of the tricks. Try using USB writeprotector(www.gaijin.at/dlusnwp.php) to unlock the drive. With any flash drive or memory card, one of the simplest ways to remove the write protection is to delete the partition. Click on Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Click on the flash drive, right click on the only partition and delete it. Remember that this will delete all data on the drive. If nothing works, it might be worth trying to format the drive also. If you are using Nokia phone, use an application called FExplorer and access the memory card. The password should be present in a text file in the root folder.
Classmate comes with UBUNTU
The commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, has released an agreement with Intel Corporation to deliver Ubuntu as an operating system for the Intel powered Classmate PC’s. The new Intel powered Classmate PC (a netbook specifically designed for the education market) features a larger screen, more memory and larger SSD and HDD than he original classmate PC. It will also features a modified version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix for the first time, improving the experience on smaller screens. The Intel powered convertible Classmate PC features a touch screen on which users can rest their palm to write or draw, converts from clamshell to tablet PC, and auto-adjusts between landscape and portrait, depending on how the machine is held. Ubuntu will support all these use cases.
“Not only is this a significant step for an open operating system, it is a significant step for any device to be able to offer these capabilities, at this cost, on standardised hardware.” said Jon Melamut, general manager, OEM services, Canonical. ” Our goal has always been to take the best technology and make its available to everyone. Coupling our software with a fantastic, affordable education device like this is a concrete realisation of that ambition.”
Active Desktop Recovery error
Even though if you will click on to restore the desktop it ask you to debug and nothing happens if everything fails then try something like this.
click- start-run
type-regedit and press enter
then go to
HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\Components.
There you will find DeskHtmlVersion click on it and click on Modify from Hexadecimal to DEcimal the value will change to 272 change it to 0. and you will get your desktop
Explorer.exe error in XP
If you are getting explorer.exe errors
This problem occurs because of a race condition in the Explorer.exe process.
Some antivirus applications and some print applications use notification balloons to display messages. These applications may cause a race condition. Therefore, the Explorer.exe process crashes.
Resolution:
The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the Windows XP package now.
For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.
Prerequisites
// <
