As you might know, this drive used to be a non audio caching model till and including firmware version GH5E - which is quite old by now. Nevertheless, this is the only Liteon dvd model that does not cache audio, and many EAC freaks have stuck to GH5E for that reason.

To make a long story short: I have just discovered that Dell's latest firmware for this drive, GDHG (Dec-23-2002) is NOT caching! Secure mode is flying again like in the 'old days' when this drive was crowned "the king of DAE" by Erik Deppe

And yes, it's an excellent overall firmware for this drive, I've been testing it for a week now, and it makes it appear as "LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163" no Dell no Jlms

You can get a binary version of it for use with Mtkflash here:
http://digi.rpc1.org/binaries.htm

Or, if you're not comfortable with Mtkflash, get Dell's original distributed utility here:
http://digi.rpc1.org/dellfw.htm
This will make a boot floppy that will proceed flashing automatically.

Two (obvious) warnings though:
- Should you want to make it a JLMS(liteon) again you will have to use Mtkflash.
- Your drive = your risk. I can take no responsibilities.

Excellent work once again Mango!

Just to share some light:
Why is better for an audio-reader not to cache the information read ?
Shouldn't be much more quickier caching the stream?
Shoulldn't the correct audio information depend *ONLY* on the optical precision and construction tecnology of the drive ?

H2O

Hi H2O, this was very thoughroly discussed already many times and I wouldn't like to side-track this thread. It concerns ONLY the secure mode of EAC where audio data caching slows the process enormously. It has nothing to do with quality of extraction in burst mode, or extraction with other applications.

Thank you for understanding, but you'll find a lot on the subject by doing a search or by going to the eac forum

Some report images:

hmm i noticed you get max dvdrom speeds
from uncatchable data !

why is that with it turned on max speeds from dvdrom is about 6x hehe

your getting 15x there i see this must be better then so why is it people add catche as yes and not no ?

i would use this if there was a region free bin file out there

thx for the info mate;.................

ViRuS2k, all you need to do is flash with the firmware, then use RPCDE to make it region free!

yeah mate 10 minutes after posting it i thought to my self this is a question a newbie would ask hehe

im looseing my marbles thx again buddy

Will this work on an LTD-163D, or is that just a stupid question? (sorry, don't know the difference between the 163 and 163D).

Originally posted by ViRuS2k
hmm i noticed you get max dvdrom speeds
from uncatchable data !
This has nothing to do with caching, I'm getting similar dvd results with regular Jlms firmware be it not so smooth as this one

why is that with it turned on max speeds from dvdrom is about 6x hehe - your getting 15x there
The high speed comes from testing a single layer non protected dvd

i see this must be better then so why is it people add catche as yes and not no ?
We are only talking AUDIO data here, for the rest this firmware is as all the othres

i would use this if there was a region free bin file out there
dhc014 already answer this, Rpcde2 makes it region free in a jiffy, but i shall add a region free bin as well, why not?

thx for the info mate;............
no problem at all

Yes it will work. Some EAC users had flashed their 163D with GH5E for the same reason. They say it worked without a problem.

However, I definitely do NOT recommend it.