Samsung officially announced 16x DVD writer this week. They are planning to sell them from early August. It's not the first time for Samsung to leap ahead of LG.

Seriously, the only competition Samsung takes seriously is LG.

According to Digital Times of South Korea, year 2004's DVD writer market will look like this.

Total 38 million shipped units
LG ships 7-8 million
Next will be: NEC, Pioneer, Samsung Electronics, Lite-On IT, Matsushita

I'm not sure why the article says Matsushita is the one of the two makers producuing 16x DVD writers. The other is Taiwan's BenQ. Perhaps the reporter is confusing Matsushita with Pioneer.

Samsung will produce 16x DVD writers in their Philippinnes factory. LG has capacity of over one million DVD writers a month in Pyungtaek factory of South Korea though they also have factories in China. Samsung wants to take the top seat by the end of next year and plans to sell 15 million DVD writer units in 2004. They expect the yearly shipped number of DVD writer market in 2004 will surpass 50 million. I think the number could be much higher than 50 million depending on competitions and how PC makers like HP and Dell will include 16x DVD writers as standard as FDDs and HDDs.

I am quite aware that most people here don't care much about Samsung DVD writers. However, that doesn't affect the market by that much. Who said Samsung DRAM was best 5 years ago or even now?

http://www.zdnet.co.kr/news/digital/...9129393,00.htm

The model name is TS-H552B.

The specification is:

16x DVD+R
12x DVD-R
4x DVD+RW
4x DVD-RW
DL

Among others, it also supports the following technologies for more stable and pleasant burning.

SAT (Speed Adjustment Technology)
TAC (Tilt Actuator Compensation)
Double OPC (Optimum Power Control)
SPWM (Silent Pulse Width Modulation)

I posted the specs some days ago at the front page http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10200

I missed the news posts. Perhaps CDFreaks news pages can be adjusted to make lazy browsers like me to view all in one, with a single-page version like CDRLabs and dvd-recordable.org.

The information contained in the first post is from some interview with TSST Korea representative at ZDnet.co.kr and Digital Times. LG and Samsung always do that through interviews. One first starting something and then the other reputing some hours or days later, to the same source because they are usually in the same city.

Aren't the other companies' 16x's dual 16's? If so seems like a step backwards or lazyness in terms of features.

Well for example Pioneer A08's 16x write speed is a joke as they use ZCLV and it's actually slower at 16x than at 12x according to reports. It looks like Toshiba-Samsung uses (P)CAV so the TS-H552B should easily be faster at 12x than what the Pioneer is at 16x (or 12x). You can't just look at the specified max write speed...

Hmmm, are the 2510As (P)CAV? I ordered mine and didn't check that fact.

I thought the A08's poor performances were due to immature drivers, I guess i skipped a few posts on the subject.

It's ZCLV. But @8x it doesn't really matter. In fact, their speed jump coming a little bit late for 2510A may be a bigger drawback.
At 8x 2510A became one of the slowest writers, but their burning quality is worth the sacrifice of 30sec ~ 1 min.

In terms of performance to cost, Plextor is probably the laziest of all. Plextor PX-708A is still more expensive than BenQ DW1600. Plextor PX-712A costs more than TS-H552B.

I think Toshiba and Samsung must have sacrified some features to make it faster than Hitachi-LG. Imagine it in terms of a large amount of money poured into factories and distribution channels. It's not easy for the managers to produce hundreds of thousands of units in weeks and then having to recall all of them. This is one of the most competitive markets.

Samsung released and started shipping their first 16x DVD writer this week from their Suwon factory. The official ceremony was done yesterday, Friday, August 6.

Initially, Samsung will concentrate on the "distribution" market by which they mean retail domestic market and later from the fourth quarter this year, they are going to ship to major PC makers like Dell and HP. The target is one million units per month by the end of year 2004. Samsung hopes to replace LG as the No. 1 manufacturer of DVD writers by then. The main competitors are Hitachi-LG, NEC, and Pioneer.



Samsung

There are four models selling right now.

TSH542AKRAD

TSH542AKRBD

TSH552BKRAD

TSH552BKRAD

542 supports 12x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 12x DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM for 150,000 Won
552 supports 16x DVD+R, 12x DVD-R, 16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-ROM for 180,000 Won

http://www.danawa.co.kr/comindex_rig...DRWTSH542AKRAD

http://www.danawa.co.kr/comindex_rig...DRWTSH542AKRBD

http://www.danawa.co.kr/comindex_rig...DRWTSH552BKRAD

http://www.danawa.co.kr/comindex_rig...DRWTSH552BKRBD

Unfortunately they are stuck using Toshiba chipsets thanks to TSST*. Do they really have a truely competitive product or is it just cheap? Dell and HP like things that are cheap, and cheapness will win out over performance. In the consumer space performance wins awards and makes sales, price is a factor, but if the drive sucks the informed buyer will stay away.

From where we're sitting, we'd bet on BenQ over TSST, and LG's not going to just roll over.

Waiting to be impressed...

Brother Vlad

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...px?NewsId=9128
*Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology

That's a wrong guess. TSST is not 99% owned by Toshiba. Samsung also has half of TSST. They don't need to use Toshiba technologies only. If such was the case, LG with HLDS shouldn't ever be able to add support for DVD+R and DVD+RW which was what some people, even among well-respected reviewers, seemed to expect.

Traditionally, informed buyers and reviewers seemed to like both Samsung and Toshiba products in the long run. TS-H552 is TSST's first DVD writer product and it's already bashed so much without ever being tested once, but this is not the first time I see responses like this among the "informed" people. Same thing happened with Ricoh, Philips, NEC, Lite-On, among many for DVD writers alone.

Popular perception is not always the key factor in deciding an industry's fate. Drive and determination play a more crucial role sometimes. The current generation of Samsung people has a memory of creating the world's most successful electronics company out of a under-US$100 income per capita country blocked by North Korea and former-imperialist Japanese in 40 years. There's a lot of potential in Samsung yet to be discovered in terms of "valid entropy".

We never said anything about 99%, in fact the article we pointed to cites a 49/51% split.

Do the TSH542A and TSH552B use Toshiba chipsets? Do Toshiba have any other design wins? NEC and Philips, and to a lesser extent Sanyo and Ricoh, are the key players in DVD burner chipsets.

Samsung makes great monitors and hard drives, their optical storage products just haven't been very good to date. If they can resolve that then they will have more success. Like we said we're WAITING to be impressed, we haven't judged the TSH542A and TSH552B yet.

Brother Vlad

Well, I have always thought Samsung optical drives were at least better than Lite-On drives but then this is CDFreaks and so I should not have it.

The partnership with Toshiba is strategic just like the new partnership with Sony which allows Sony to use half of the LCD panel products. Toshiba is leading in the HD-DVD area which should be more interesting to Samsung.

You said Samsung is "stuck" using Toshiba chipsets because of TSST. Since it is not 100% controlled by Toshiba, Samsung also plays a key role in designing the drives and chipsets. Your remark was not limited to TS-H552. One of Samsung's long-term plans is to have 70% of the optical drive chipset market though it may still be a few years away.

Anyway, I am one of the uninformed buyers who have bought Samsung optical drives that suck that were designed for the uninformed mass in the first place so forgive me saying all of the above.

I ordered both 12x and 16x drive from Samsung and they'll be here tomorrow.

They arrived here on Wednesday along with my first AMD Barton mobile processor even though I don't have a motherboard for it.

Here's some of the early screenshots of mine.

TS-H552B Firmware TS00

http://www.storageinfo.co.kr/EzMODse...ic.php?t=21243

1. NeroInfoTool



2. Taiyo Yuden CD-R Writing (at 40x)



3. 4x DVD+R Writing (at 12x)









My very early tests seem to confirm that Samsung indeed made some pressure on their engineers to release a 16x DVD writer before LG. Most of all, I was disappointed to see only 12x with Taiyo Yuden yuden000t02 media especially when I have only T02 and ricohjpnr02 for 12x to 16x speed and even the 12x started from about 5.1x, not 6x, and because it's CAV 12x writing, it was actually slower than Plextor's P-CAV 12x DVD+R and LG's Z-CLV 12x DVD+R. I didn't bother to test this drive at all for two days because it was apparent TS-H552B didn't support 16x writing for TY T02 media, but then I paid a lot just to test these drives so I decided to try a little.

TS-H542A tests are being done and ricohjpnr02 will be also used later. I'll try to see whether there will be ready firmware updates to make it a little better.

http://www.storageinfo.co.kr/EzMODse...=137145#137145

1. Taiyo Yuden 8x DVD+R Media Writeen at 12x speed



Starts at 5.27x and ends at 12.25x making it an average 9.38x. Unlike TS-H552B, TS-H542A uses P-CAV for 12x DVD+R writing which is a little better than CAV to shorten the total writing time. However, only after 3.5GB it starts to write at near 12x.

KProbe v2.3.0 scan

TS-H552B TS00 Firmware to Fusion 4x DVD+R T02 Media at 8x P-CAV

Next come 8x P-CAV writing results with Nero CD-DVD Speed v3.1.2.



8:27 or 507 seconds is not very impressive for 8x DVD+R writing.

http://www.storageinfo.co.kr/EzMODse...=137174#137174

4x DVD-R Tests

Fusion 4x DVD-R

Media code as seen by DVD Identifier

Samsung 16x TS-H552B and TY 4x DVD-R

4x CLV Writing with Nero CD-DVD Speed v3.1.2



KProbe v2.3.0 PI/PIF Scan at 4x



Nero CD-DVD Speed Transfer Rate at Max



Samsung 16x TS-H542A and TY 4x DVD-R

4x CLV Writing with Nero CD-DVD Speed v3.1.2

The price of TS-H552B has fallen to 152,000 Won by August 13. It was 180,000 Won on August 6.

The price of TS-H542A has fallen to 123,000 Won by August 13. It was 150,000 Won on August 6.

Resuming...

http://www.storageinfo.co.kr/EzMODse...ic.php?t=21415

Samsung 16x TS-H542A and TY 4x DVD-R

4x CLV Writing with Nero CD-DVD Speed v3.1.2



KProbe v2.3.0 PI/PIF Scan at 4x



Nero CD-DVD Speed Transfer Rate at Max

http://www.storageinfo.co.kr/EzMODse...=137198#137198

Samsung TSST TS-H552B TS00 Firmware and RICOHJPNR01

KProbe v2.3.0



Nero CD-DVD Speed reading the disk back while doing a lot of other tasks



Nero CD-DVD Speed reading the disk back while doing a lot of other tasks but with Nero CD-DVD Speed given "real-time" priority in Windows XP

I'm a bit tired because I was doing several other things at the same time testing and posting. For now, I can think of one thing. I will get a few more TS-H552B if I can use better firmware and 16x media by the end of August. By next week or the week after next week, there will be some 30 or more free TS-H552B and TS-H542A for review purposes and TS-H552B price will fall under 120,000 Won.

More tests of TS-H552B and TS-H542B will be done but the links might be moved or renamed. If I can find still more peace, I'll try to compare some of the 8x, 12x, and 16x DVD writers.