Samsung SH-S182D 18x DVD±RW/RAM

With other drive manufacturers starting to push DVD writing speeds to 18x and beyond, Samsung has answered the challenge with the SH-S182D. Featuring some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available, the SH-S182D is capable of 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, and 8x DVD±R DL writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, the drive can read and write to DVD-RAM media at 12x, the fastest speed currently available. The SH-S182D also includes features like 48x CD reading and writing speeds, 32x rewriting speeds, Super Link buffer underrun protection and an impressive software bundle from Nero.

With features and specs like this, it's hard not to be impressed by Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive. To give you an idea of what to expect from the SH-S182D we'll take a look at its features and then see how it stacks up against the 16x and 18x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does Samsung's new drive have what it takes? Is it the best bang for your buck? Read on to see what we had to say.

The SH-S182D we received from Samsung was the bulk, or OEM, version. While they were able to provide a copy of the software CD, the drive did not come with anything else.

Physical Features:

The drive Samsung sent us for this review was manufactured in May of 2006 and came preloaded with firmware SB01.For this review we used firmware versions SB02 and SB03.

While Samsung has given the SH-S182D faster reading and writing speeds, they haven't done much to change the way it looks. From the front, it's almost identical to their 16x DVD±RW drives. It not only shares the same basic bezel design, but has many of the same logos. Along with the large "Samsung" logo, you can see a few showing support for the DVD+ReWritable and DVD Multi specifications, as well as Ultra Speed CD-RW media.

Below the tray you can see the SH-S182D's single LED. Off by default, this LED lights up green when the drive is reading or writing.

The rear of the SH-S182D is fairly straight forward. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's IDE interface, power connector and audio output connectors.

Starting from the left of the IDE connection you'll see the jumper switch for master, slave and cable select. Next to the jumper block is the analog audio connector. The connector on the far left is the digital audio output.

Technical Specs:

The specs below have been taken from Samsung's website and the manual located on the software CD.

More Features:

By looking at the picture below, you can see that Samsung's new DVD writer is identified as a "TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182D."

Nero also shows that the SH-S182D has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer. This buffer is also backed up by MediaTek's Super Link technology. Along with support for the Mt. Rainier format, Samsung's new DVD writer can also write CD-Text and overburn. When testing the drive's capacity, it had no problems overburning up to 99 minutes with our CompUSA media.

Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that the SH-S182D is a "two sheep" burner and is capable of backing titles protected by SafeDisc 2.90. Like most drives, it did not pass the "three sheep" test.

Here is a screen shot from Nero's InfoTool. This program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. InfoTool had no problems detecting the SH-S182D's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.

InfoTool also shows that the SH-S182D is an RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware. The region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. Unfortunately, a patched RPC-1 firmware is not yet available for this drive.

While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the SH-S182D's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities. By looking at the screenshot above you can see that Samsung's new drive can read and write to DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL and DVD-RAM media.

Samsung's new DVD writer also supports a feature called "bitsetting".The SH-S182D automatically sets the book type of DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media to "DVD-ROM" without any input from the user. This feature comes in handy if you have an older DVD player that has problems playing recordable media.

Samsung has once again turned to Nero for their software bundle. The CD that comes with the SH-S182D contains copies of Nero Express 6, NeroVision Express 3, Nero Recode 2, BackItUp, Nero ShowTime 2 and InCD.

Nero Express 6 - With Nero Express, Nero has taken the features and performance people have come to expect from Nero Burning Rom and combined them with a user friendly interface. While the interface has been simplified, Nero Express still supports more advanced features like VCD and DVD creation, CD/DVD duplication, overburning, CD-Text and realtime audio filters

The version of Nero Express that Samsung included with their new DVD±RW drive is 6.6.0.19. You can download the latest version of the software from Nero's website.

NeroVision Express 3 - NeroVision Express 3 is Nero's video authoring application. Using a user friendly interface very similar to that of Nero Express, NeroVision Express makes it easy for users to capture, edit and then burn their favorite videos to VCD, SVCD or DVD or export it to Nero Digital format.

NeroVision Express also lets users add things like transitions, custom backgrounds, animated menus and text effects. You can even use it to turn your photos into custom slide shows.

Nero Recode 2 - This program from Nero can copy unprotected DVD videos onto recordable DVD media. If the source disc is larger than 4.7GB, Nero Recode 2 has the ability to remove unwanted material and compress the contents so that it will fit onto a single blank DVD disc.

Nero Recode 2 will also let you convert your DVD movies to Nero Digital. Using Ahead's own MPEG-4 audio and video encoder, an entire DVD movie can be compressed so that it will fit onto a CD. Better yet, Nero Recode 2 does this without any loss of quality.

Nero BackItUp - If you're looking for a way to quickly and easily backup your data, Nero BackItUp is the answer. This new program from Nero lets you backup your data to CD/DVD, hard disc, image recorderor another computer on your LAN.

Nero ShowTime 2 - Nero ShowTime is Nero's software DVD player. Along with support for DVD's, ShowTime can be used to play back VCD's, SVCD's and miniDVD's as well as any MPEG or AVI files you might have on your hard drive.

Nero Media Player - Nero Media Player features on-the-fly encoding of audio CD's to MP3, HE-AAC, TwinVQ, WMA, and WAV format.The MP3 encoder uses the latest audio codec technology from Fraunhofer.While most of the plugins are unrestricted, the MP3 encoder included with this version of the program is limited to only 30 audio tracks.If you need to encode more you will probably want to upgrade to Nero's NeroMIX.

InCD 4 - InCD is Nero's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Sonic's DLA, it allows a person to use their CD-RW or DVD±RW drive as a big floppy disk. The person can then drag and drop files onto a CD-RW or DVD±RW disc. Many people consider InCD to be one of the best packet writing tools because of its simplicity and performance.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S182D isn't short on features. Their new "Super-Multi" drive not only supports all major DVD formats, it sports some of the fastest DVD reading and writing speeds available. The SH-S182D is capable of 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, it can read and write DVD-RAM media at 12x. Samsung's new drive also includes features like Super Link buffer underrun protection, support for bitsetting and a great software bundle from Nero. With all this, it's easy to see why the SH-S182D gets a 9 out of 10 for its features.

Like the other Samsung drives we've reviewed, the SH-S182D was very easy to install. From start to finish, the entire process took only a few minutes. After taking the drive out of the box, I left the jumper set to master and installed it on the secondary IDE chain of our test computer by connecting the IDE cable and power connector. When I turned on the computer the BIOS detected it as a drive supporting UDMA 33. After making sure that the DMA was enabled in the Device Manager, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As I mentioned earlier, the SH-S182D comes with a CD full of software from Nero. If you have autorun enabled on your computer, the menu shown below will automatically come up when you insert the disc.

As you can see, this menu is pretty straight forward. To install the writing software, you will want to choose the "Install Nero OEM Suite" option. After that, you will be taken to the Nero installation menu.

By now most people should be pretty familiar with this menu. From here you can choose to install Nero 6, Nero Vision Express, the Nero Media Player or InCD. You can install each component individually, or everything but InCD in one shot. Once you reboot, you'll be ready to start burning your own discs.

Documentation:

While the drive we received from Samsung did not come with any printed documentation, there was a copy of the manual on the software CD in electronic format. Normally, I'm not usually a big fan of this sort of thing. However, Samsung has gone the extra mile here.Instead of just throwing a few PDF files onto the CD, Samsung has created an easy to navigate, HTML based guide.

The guide starts out by going over the buttons and connectors located on the front and back of the SH-S182D. Everything is labeled clearly and the functions of each are explained very well. The guide continues on by going over the physical installation of the drive. This section covers all the basics including how to set the jumpers, install the drive into an empty drive bay and hook up the cables. The pictures Samsung has provided are very good. They've even included a few diagrams showing what a master and slave configuration should look like.

The guide finishes up by going over the basic operation of the SH-S182D. Along with information on how to use and maintain the drive, there is a short troubleshooting section containing a list of common problems as well as their solutions. Last but not least, Samsung has provided a comprehensive list of specifications for the SH-S182D.

In the end, installing the SH-S182D was very easy. I had no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working. If you need help for some reason, the documentation Samsung has provided is pretty good, even though it is in electronic format. Overall, I give the installation a solid 8 out of a possible 10.

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.51 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to give the track by track extraction speeds and to check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.51 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Samsung's new DVD writer performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. While the SH-S182D's overall score wasn't as high as the Plextor's, it had a low access time and some very good transfer rates. It started reading at almost 22x (3265 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 43.7x (6560 / 150) on the outside.

CD Speed v4.51 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

Silence Mode

High Speed Mode

	Samsung SH-S182D	LG GSA-H10N	Plextor PX-760A	Lite-On SHM-165H6S
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	36.54x 20.89x 48.30x	35.57x 20.42x 46.78x	36.76x 21.27x 48.63x	36.68x 21.95x 48.50x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	105ms 114ms 178ms	114ms 130ms 175ms	96ms 113ms 172ms	103ms 116ms 168ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 3% 6%	1% 1% 3% 21%	0% 1% 2% 4%	2% 4% 7% 12%

Out of the box, the SH-S182D would not read pressed CD's at anything faster than 40x. Once I enabled the drive's "High Speed Mode" using Samsung's Magic Speed utility, it had no problems reaching its rated speed. Looking at the other scores, you can see that its seek times were also quite good.

CD Speed v4.51 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The SH-S182D wasn't nearly as fast when reading CD-R media. Even with the "High Speed Mode" enabled, it reached a maximum transfer speed of only 41x. On a positive note, the drive's seek times were again quite good.

Samsung's new DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The drive read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 44.81x.

CD Speed v4.51 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

Samsung's new drive also reads CD-RW media at 40x. As you can see, the SH-S182D had no problem reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.51 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Samsung SH-S182D supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Samsung SH-S182D	LG GSA-H10N	Plextor PX-760A	Lite-On SHM-165H6S
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	31.09x 17.78x 41.08x 10 Yes	30.73x 17.95x 40.68x 10 Yes	31.35x 17.97x 41.48x 10 Yes	37.03x 21.26x 48.93x 10 Yes

The SH-S182D did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not nearly as fast as the drive from Lite-On, it hadno problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 41x.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks.

While the SH-S182D started out a little faster when extracting our test CD with CD DAE, its average and maximum speeds were slower than what we saw with CD Speed.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.51 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

While the SH-S182D was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 40x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Samsung's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 29.30x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the SH-S182D was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well Samsung's "Super-Multi" drive can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The SH-S182D handled scratched discs relatively well. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 59.4% of the CD to be "damaged". More importantly, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

Here too, the SH-S182D did pretty well. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained relatively low.

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andDLA 4.95:

For this test I randomly generated 650MB and 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and out times too. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Fuji's 48x media, the drive started writing at about 21.82x and reached a maximum speed of 49.15x at the end of the session. This gave the SH-S182D an average writing speed of about 37.23x.

To test the drive's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yuden manufactured Fuji media rated at 48x. The results are below.

The SH-S182D did fairly well in our CD writing tests. While not as fast as the drive from Lite-On, it was able to write an entire 650MB CD in 2:39.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52246S (firmware 6S0F) and read the discs at 32x.

Fuji 48x (Taiyo Yuden)

Memorex 52x (Prodisc)

Verbatim 52x

The SH-S182D's writing quality was very good. By looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the discs burned by the drive had a low number of C1 errors and there were no C2 errors at all.

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using DLA from Sonic. Verbatim's 32x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

While the SH-S182D uses CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 32x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it uses a total of three "zones" to reach its maximum speed. The drive starts writing at 16x and jumps to 24x at about the 7 minute mark.The SH-S182D writes at this speed until about the 27 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 32x and stays there until the end of the session.

Samsung's new DVD writer didn't do as well as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests. Due to its Z-CLV writing method, the SH-S182D took 2:20 to write 400MB with Nero and a whopping 3:26 to do the same with DLA.

The SH-S182D also erases at 32x. While it didn't have the fastest quick erase time out of the four drives here, it was able to do a full erase in a respectable 3:18.

Nero CD Speed v4.51 - DVD-ROM:

A little editorial note here. Like a CD-ROM, you will get different benchmark results depending on what kind of discs you are using. You are probably going to get varying results from a full data disc to a single layer movie disc. You're also going to get different results for single and dual layer discs.

The CD Speed website recommends using a single layer DVD-ROM disc with a capacity of at least 4GB. If you use a dual layer disc you probably won't get the best results because most DVD-ROM drives slow down to read them. Some even slow down to read single layer DVD-Video discs. To make a long story short, I am using a 4.37GB single layer, single sided disc for this test.

The SH-S182D performed very well when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. In our tests it started reading at 6.75x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 16.31x.Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times were also quite good.

Nero CD Speed v4.51 - DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM:

First, we'll look at the drive's DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance. For this I made copies of our DVD-ROM test disc using some general use 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW media from Verbatim and then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. For the DVD-RAM tests, media from Maxell was used. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD-R DL

The SH-S182D had no problems reading DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, the drive was able to read DVD-R discs at a respectable 12x, but slowed to about 8x when reading DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media.

Maxell 12x DVD-RAM

Samsung's new drive has a maximum transfer speed of 12x when reading DVD-RAM discs. By looking at the screenshot you can see that it starts reading at 5.99x and accelerates, reaching 12x at the 2.7GB mark.

Nero CD Speed v4.51 - DVD+R and DVD+RW:

Next we'll look at the drive's DVD+R and DVD+RW reading performance. For this I made a copy of our DVD-ROM test disc using some 4x DVD+R and 2.4x DVD+RW media from Verbatim. I then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

The SH-S182D's performance with DVD+R and DVD+RW media was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R and DVD-RW media.The drive read DVD+R discs at 12x and DVD+RW media at 8x.

Verbatim DVD+R DL

Reading Verbatim's double layer DVD+R media wasn't a problem for the SH-S182D either. The drive started reading at 3.48x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 8.34x.

Nero CD Speed v4.51 - DVD-Video:

For these tests I am using the US version of Transformers: The Movie on DVD. The disc is over 4GB and single sided.

The SH-S182D didn't slow down very much when reading single layer DVD videos. It started out at about 6.65x and reached a maximum read speed of 16.15x. Samsung's new drive was also fairly quick when reading dual layer discs. By looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the drive's transfer speeds peaked at about 8.60x.

To see how well the SH-S182D worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace using WinDVD 4 and PowerDVD 5. The drive had no problems playing back these movies with either program and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 andDLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Samsung's new drive I used Verbatim 16x DVD+R, 16x DVD-R, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 18x, the SH-S182D uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at about 7.6x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SH-S182D also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. In both cases the drive uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum writing speed.

Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive performed pretty well in our DVD writing tests. While not as fast as the drives from LG and Plextor when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media, the SH-S182D turned in some of the fastest DVD+R and DVD-R writing times we've seen.

To check the media compatibility of the SH-S182D, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

The SH-S182D's media compatibility was a mixed bag. While the drive wrote to most of our test media at its rated speed, only three types worked at 18x.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates.For these tests I used a Lite-On SOHW-1673S (firmware JS07) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The SH-S182D's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. The PI/PIF rates were fairly good for the most part. However, there is still room for improvement, especially with the discs from Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim. For whatever reason, we saw an excessive number of PI Failures when writing to the Taiyo Yuden media at 18x. The PI rate was also a bit higher than we're used to seeing on the Verbatim media. In both cases though, this had no effect on readability.

To test the SH-S182D's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The SH-S182D's packet writing performance was pretty mixed. While it turned in some very good times with DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as the other drives when reading and writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SH-S182D, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 8x was not an easy task. The only media we found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL discs. With RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 6x and the other discs would not work at anything faster than 2.4x.

While no match for the drives from LG and Plextor, the SH-S182D took a respectable 18:34 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality wasn't as good as I had expected with Verbatim's DVD+R DL media. In both cases, the error rate started out fairly low but jumped up considerably on the second layer. Unfortunately, RiDATA's 8x DVD+R DL media didn't fair any better. While written at only 6x, the error rates were very high on the second layer. The writing quality was a bit better with RiDATA's 2.4x rated discs. However, there was still a sizable PI spike at the layer change.

The SH-S182D also features 8x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and RiDATA was used.

The SH-S182D performed very well when writing to DVD-R DL media. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive only took 18:43 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

While the writing quality was fairly good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media, their new 8x rated discs yielded some mixed results. When scanned with the DW1640, the PI rate was very high on some sections of the disc. The worst results were with RiDATA's 4x DVD-R DL media. The PI rates were not only very high, there was a large PIF spike at the layer change which caused some major readability issues.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive was hit and miss. While the SH-S182D turned in some very impressive times with DVD±R and DVD-RAM media, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD±RW discs. Writing quality was also a big issue with some DVD±R DL media. On the other hand, the SH-S182D was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer data and video DVD's at 16x and DVD±R media at a respectable 12x.

The SH-S182D also did relatively well in our CD read tests. Along with some very good seek times, it had no problems reading all types of media at its rated speeds. When it came to writing CD's, Samsung's new drive gave us some mixed results. While the SH-S182D turned in some impressive times when writing to CD-R media, its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage in our rewriting tests. With all things considered, the SH-S182D gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.

Earlier this year, I reviewed one of Samsung's first "Super-Multi" drives, the SH-S162L. While affordably priced, the drive offered a good mix of features and performance. With the SH-S182D, Samsung has brought much of the same to the table. However, they've upped the ante, adding things like 18x DVD±R and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds. While welcome additions, there were a few performance aspects that kept the SH-S182D from getting top marks in our review.

The SH-S182D is one of the first drives with the ability to write to both DVD-R and DVD+R media at 18x. At this speed, it took the drive a little more than five and a half minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD, beating Plextor's 18x DVD±RW drive by a small margin. The SH-S182D also performed very well with DVD-RAM discs. However, its Z-CLV writing method put it at a disadvantage when writing to DVD+RW and DVD-RW media. The SH-S182D's DVD±R DL writing performance did make up for this somewhat. Thanks to its 8x writing speed, the drive took less than 19 minutes to burn 8GB of data.

When it came to media compatibility, the SH-S182D gave us some mixed results. While the drive wrote tomost of our test media at its rated speeds, only three types worked at 18x. Also keep in mind that if you want to write to DVD±R DL media at 8x, you will need to buy media rated at this speed. On the other hand, the SH-S182D's writing quality was fairly good, at least with most single layer DVD±R discs. The same can't be said for DVD±R DL media though. As you saw in our tests, the PI/PIF rates were pretty high, especially with the discs from RiDATA.

Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive also performed relatively well in our DVD read tests. The drive was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD-Videos at 16x and had some very good seek times. Reading recordable media wasn't a problem for the SH-S162L either. In our tests, it read DVD±R and DVD-RAM discs at 12x and DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at a respectable 8x.

When it came to reading CD's, the SL-S182D's performance was a mixed bag. While the drive read pressed media at 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x. This is a bit odd considering most drives can read pressed and CD-R media at the same speed. As a writer, the SH-S182D performed as expected. The drive turned in some very good times with CD-R media and its writing quality was quite good. Unfortunately, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives in our rewriting tests.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S182D also has its share of features. Along with support for all major CD and DVD formats, it has a 2MB buffer that is backed up by Super Link buffer underrun protection. While this buffer is a little smaller than what we'd like to see on a 16x DVD writer, this system worked flawlessly in our tests. The SH-S182D also includes support for the Mt. Rainier format and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media. To top it all off, Samsung has included a great software bundle from Nero.

For what it offers, Samsung's new "Super-Multi" drive is surprisingly affordable. Available in your choice of black or beige, the the SH-S182D can be picked up for less than $40 through some of the online vendors found on Pricegrabber.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 18x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 8x
• Reads and writes DVD-RAM media at 12x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD±R media at 12x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 8x
• Features 48x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good selection of writing and rewriting speeds
• Low seek times
• Features Super Link buffer underrun protection
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
• Includes software from Nero
• Supports 99 minute media
• Supports the Mt. Rainier format
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R DL media
• Slower than other drives when writing to DVD-RW, DVD+RW and CD-RW media
• Cannot write to 8x DVD±R media at 16x
• Reads CD-R media at only 40x
• Has a 2048KB buffer