You can read the review here.

Please feel free to comment on the review in this forum thread.

Thanks pchilson, look forward to reading it.

Excellent review and a good result. Thanks a lot pchilson.

One thing I think does need to be noted is that the drive only reads 16x rated DVD+-R media at 16x and all slower DVD+-R media is read at 12x. And personally I see the 8x read speed of DL ROM media a negative as well.

Thanks for the review. I've yet to try the LightScribe feature, but it looks promising.

Thanks for the review!

In your conclusion you list as a negative point:

• Limited Overburn length for 80 minute CD-R

But in your advanced tests section you successfully overburn a CD to 83:14 which is quite respectable!

In general the overburning capacity depends on the media, and some CD-R media cannot even be overburned by as much as 2 minutes.

You're not expecting to burn 90 minutes onto 80 minute CD-R media I hope?!

pchilson
Nice review.

LiteOn region policy is strange and this one is not available in Europe

Wow great review,

I absolutely love the 165H6S.
A few comments maybe, from all the media I tried, only the DVD+RW MKM A02 (verbatim branded) gave me trouble. All others gave me great results.

I did quite a lot of lightscribe in the last couple of years for the business. I was using a BenQ1625 (xflash from a HP640E). The 165H6s does real good on lightscribe but the it is limited by the contrast of lightscribe itself. The contrast utility on lightscribe site helps significantly.

Codeking you mention that reading speed is limited for non-16x media. Isn't that corrected in the last firmware like HV8Q on this site (obviously they are not released officially by Liteon)? Hopefully the same would happen with DL reading.
rgds, soso

Just because the reading speed has been increased in the test firmwares doesn't in any way guarantee that this change will be implemented in any official firmware. That remains to be seen...

I guess you could consider that a matter of perspective...
From the review of the HP dvd640e which is a rebadge BenQ DW1625 it is capable of doing 85:42.03 or a +05:42:06 on an 80 minute CD-R.
Point being that every drive has its capabilities and I have seen drives doing longer overburns and doing them successfully than what this drive was capable of.
I only list it as a negative for the people that care about overburning on CD-R. Personally, I never overburn for my own use.

At this time, the 16x read for all +-R and the 12x read for DL ROM is only in the test firmware, as a special favor from Wind. I doubt that it will be in the official release for this drive.

I would also like to see the the results of this drive using the latest firmware when it's released. Knowing the improvements that have been made to the strategies and HT, it should be an amazing drive.

Excellent review as always. Very disappointed to hear about the poor CD-R/RW writing quality on this drive, cos with previous LiteOn's it was excellent.

Howcome CD Freaks has not reviewed the 165P6S?

be patient

excellent review pchilson, but you already know this

I've got a question regarding the BookType section of the review, on this page:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/274/2

It's concerning the screenshot of Nero CD-DVD Speed's BookType settings window. I've got the same drive, and have the same greyed-out +R DL secion. Is there any explanation as to why the +R DL BookType settings apparently can't be changed? And is this limited to Nero, or applicable to the drive itself?

The 165H6S is still Lite-On's most current drive, there still must be several firmware updates for this drive in the future before they stop... personally I don't see why it's so unlikely that Lite-On couldn't implement the same things in their official firmware. Assuming they know about all the test firmwares and stuff, they must realize there's a demand for that feature in the official firmware.

its the same for all drives I would've thought when it comes to bitsetting. Even my sony drx-800ul has that part greyed out.

+R DL is set to DVD-ROM by default. Why would you like to change it to anything else.

Just for the sake of flexibility, I guess. Not everything I burn onto DL discs is a movie backup.. and what's the point of booktyping data DVDs to DVD-ROM?

The point is compatibility with older drives that refuse to read DVD+R media unless it's booktyped to DVD-ROM!

My previous laptop had such a drive (Matshita SR-8175) that refused to read any DVD+R/RW/RDL media unless it was booktyped.

My old Panasonic DVD Recorder refused to play +R that was booktyped. It was a real pain, and I knew from experience that most other players preferred it, so I ended up using -R for video backups, for quite a while.

yeah, i was wondering the same. BTW, what IS the difference between the p6s and h6s? only LS function? liteon's website didn't elaborate too much between their different drives...

CKA

humbly asking any of the "experts" out there for an answer?

CKA

Yes LightScribe is the only difference between the P6S and the H6S. There is also a 160x6S and a 165x6S. The 165 model has the aditional feature of being able to read/write DVD-RAM at up to 5x burn speed.

So the review also applies for the 165P6s too except Lightscribe ? And the firmwares are practically identical ? If so that sounds very good indeed!

MUCHAS GRACIAS, codeking! that definitely helped a liteon newbie!

CKA

as usual i am perplexed by something. by the way i own THREE lite on products. TWO are SHM-165H6S , but one is pre super all write. but as i said i love my lite-ons and have both in the same machine. my question is 2 part. am i in for a conflict down the road. set master and slave the new one is e: the old is f:
and second they are seen as the same in bios and to the naked eye. what is the difference.



amd 3500+ venice
asus a8v rev 1.xxxx
2 GB ram
TWO SHM-165H6S {love my lite-ons }
one sata hd 160 gb
one simplte tech 160 gb usb
and diamond stealth 256 gb 9259 vid card
and wintv,