- Joined
- Oct 5, 2004
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Well, I just received my Samsung SH-S203B 20x Sata burner and there was a thread earlier asking about which DVD burner to get.. Well.. 10 DVD+R's later.. Here is my review!
For every test I was using Verbatim 16x DVD+Rs and they were burned to full capacity using create disc using CD/DVD Speed.
Let's start off with the Firmware from Samsung.
Samsung Firmware
Benchmark
12x Burn
Disc Created in 7:18
16x Burn
Disc Created in 5:37
20x Burn
Disc Created in 4:36
Now for those of you who have no idea what you are looking at, I will explain it after the screen shots of the other firmware I used.
Secondly I tested CDFreaks c0deking's Firmware which speeds up reading speed and boosts the 12x Burn speed.
C0dekings Firmware
Benchmark
12x Burn
Disc Created in 6:04
16x Burn
Disc Created in 5:38
20x Burn
Disc Created in 4:36
You can see the differences in the Benchmark and 12x burn time with c0de's firmware.
Don't be thrown off by the Benchmarks CPU usage of 22% etc, the average cpu usage when actually burning info is way lower.
So, what does this mean? And what should you be looking for? The numbers you are most interested in are the PI Errors and PI Failures.
The Disc Quality test, tests the quality of the burn on the DVD and gives you the result with the PI Errors and PI Failures. I run the Disc Quality test at 8x because at this speed it will pick up most if not all of the errors, whereas if you run the test at a higher speed, it has a good chance of missing errors.
So it then brings up the question of what is the limit for PI Errors and Failures?
The specified max PI Sum is 280 for quality discs is a good guideline. A few readers have problems reading discs when the PI failures is over 300 and many players starts to have problems when the PI failures reaches 600 and most players have problems with discs exceeding 900 PI errors or more.
In all of the tests the maximum PI Error value I received was 61 which is way under the 280 standard. ( And that was burning a 16x DVD at 20x speeds!! )
Conclusion
No matter which firmware you decide to go, whether you want more consistent quality, or faster reading/writing speeds, the Samsung 203B is an all around amazing SATA DVD Burner.
One last thing to remember, buying a spindle of crappy quality DVDs will result in crappy quality burns!
For every test I was using Verbatim 16x DVD+Rs and they were burned to full capacity using create disc using CD/DVD Speed.
Let's start off with the Firmware from Samsung.
Samsung Firmware
Benchmark
12x Burn
Disc Created in 7:18
16x Burn
Disc Created in 5:37
20x Burn
Disc Created in 4:36
Now for those of you who have no idea what you are looking at, I will explain it after the screen shots of the other firmware I used.
Secondly I tested CDFreaks c0deking's Firmware which speeds up reading speed and boosts the 12x Burn speed.
C0dekings Firmware
Benchmark
12x Burn
Disc Created in 6:04
16x Burn
Disc Created in 5:38
20x Burn
Disc Created in 4:36
You can see the differences in the Benchmark and 12x burn time with c0de's firmware.
Don't be thrown off by the Benchmarks CPU usage of 22% etc, the average cpu usage when actually burning info is way lower.
So, what does this mean? And what should you be looking for? The numbers you are most interested in are the PI Errors and PI Failures.
The Disc Quality test, tests the quality of the burn on the DVD and gives you the result with the PI Errors and PI Failures. I run the Disc Quality test at 8x because at this speed it will pick up most if not all of the errors, whereas if you run the test at a higher speed, it has a good chance of missing errors.
So it then brings up the question of what is the limit for PI Errors and Failures?
The specified max PI Sum is 280 for quality discs is a good guideline. A few readers have problems reading discs when the PI failures is over 300 and many players starts to have problems when the PI failures reaches 600 and most players have problems with discs exceeding 900 PI errors or more.
In all of the tests the maximum PI Error value I received was 61 which is way under the 280 standard. ( And that was burning a 16x DVD at 20x speeds!! )
Conclusion
No matter which firmware you decide to go, whether you want more consistent quality, or faster reading/writing speeds, the Samsung 203B is an all around amazing SATA DVD Burner.
One last thing to remember, buying a spindle of crappy quality DVDs will result in crappy quality burns!
