I've never posted before, just been a lurker.

Any thoughts on this problem? I'm trying 1 more media test (buying some verbatim tomorrow) and then I guess give up and purchase a new drive unless someone has any ideas?

It's a fairly new S182M. I just started worrying about quality due to some problems i was having and I'm sad to say my quality has apparently been horrible since day 1 I tested one of my oldest DVDs and it looks the same quality wise as freshly burned ones.



It's a sh-s182m/bebn h/w: a ver.m Dec 2006

I've tried the burner in 2 very different systems so pretty sure it isn't the rig.

I've tried SB03, SB03 freaks edition, and SB04.

I've tried burning at 4x,8x,12x,16x.

Media i've tried is the spindle I had, plus some discs from 2 different friends (all TDK oddly enough)

• TDK DVD-R x16 TTH02
• TDK DVD-R x16 CMC MAG. AM3
• TDK DVD+R x16 TDK003

The 3 media codes you listed are decent, so if you're getting similar scans with all of them then I suspect that it's probably not the media. It then could be a burner issue, or it could be a simple matter of your particular drive not being a good scanning drive - while the new Samsung drives are generally decent scanners, some peoples' drives have not been good/'accurate' scanners. You're also scanning at maximum, another scan at 8x would be helpful for comparison, the slower scan may look entirely different and 8x is the typical scanning speed that is seen with Samsung drives so it's hard to make a comparison when scanning at maximum. If you have access to a Benq, Liteon, or even another Samsung to perform some scans in, that would also be helpful in deciding if what your drive is showing in its scans is translating with other drives.

I tried several scanning speeds. Any speed during quality scan gives horrible looking results.

How about a LG GSA-4163B? I just tried on that and the quality scan looked as bad.

One other important thing I didn't elaborate on originally is it isn't just quality scans making me nervous. The reason i even looked at those is because of initial problems i had with reading data off some discs and dvd playback issues. The Benchmark on a lot of discs is poor. some cap at 2x for awhile then fail. others will have a nice normal curve then flip out after 3-3.5G. The most annoying though is that some discs have a nice pretty read curve, but then have problems reading all the data off or on video dvds playback in a dvd player & 3 different computer dvd drives has problems.

I have a feeling i'm in the market for a dvd drive. I was hoping you would say, "All those media suck!" =P

LG drives don't perform quality scans...

If you're having problems with reading back and playback of all of those discs, then I'd be concerned about the drive at this point.

You may, if possible, want to exchange the drive for the same model. This one may simply have a manufacturing or alignment defect. The Samsung external version of this burner, which I purchased a few weeks back, is honestly not that bad.

Personally, my favorite media is Taiyo Yuden DVD-R, 8X maximum write speed, which I usually order online. I'm not crazy about purchasing name brand media that's made in Taiwan, as I've found it to be a grab bag in terms of quality...the TY discs, though, give me consistently decent results.

My Samsung SH-S182M doesn't scan very well, especially compared to my BenQ DW1650. I don't think think Samsung makes very good scanners, but I have seen alot worse.

Whoops you are right. The quality scan captures I was looking at that were just as bad were from the same drive when I stuck it in the machine that normally has the LG

Based off of all your feedback, I think I will do a little more testing over next few days & keep close track. I'll save my create disc & benchmark captures and writing that # on the disc etc.

If I find 1 little problem I'll read through the forums and track down a lite-on or benq and get some TY at the same time.

Thanks!

Hi and Welcome!

Many SH-S18x drives have horrible scanning capabilities. There is a reason, why the author of CD/DVD speed has disabled these drives, isn't it?

As you also seem to own a LG 4163, just do a reading benchmark test. With good discs you should get a smooth reading graph.

If you want a good scanning drive, then get either a Liteon or a Benq DW165x (if you still can get one).

Michael