Samsung SH-S203N 20x DVD±RW/RAM

Model: Samsung SH-S203N 20x DVD±RW/RAM
Manufacturer: Samsung Electronics
Provided By: Samsung America

When it comes to consumer electronics, Samsung is one of the most respected names in the industry. Founded in 1969, this Korean company has grown to become one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers, offering everything from tiny semiconductors to huge projection televisions. Samsung is no stranger to the optical storage industry either. Working closely with companies like Toshiba, they've lead the way in this area, developing and manufacturing a wide range of products for the OEM and retail markets.

One of the latest additions to Samsung's line of "Super WriteMaster" drives is the SH-S203N. Featuring some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available, the SH-S203N is capable of 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 12x DVD-R DL and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, it's one of the few drives to offer both 16x DVD+R DL and 12x DVD-R DL writing speeds. The SH-S203N also includes features like 48x CD reading and writing speeds, 32x rewriting speeds and support for HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system.

With features and specs like this, the SH-S203N sounds like it has a lot of potential. To give you an idea of what to expect from Samsung's new DVD writer, we'll take a look at some of its features and then see how it compares to some of the 20x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does the SH-S203N have what it takes? Is it the best bang for your buck? Keep reading as we find out.

What's in the box?:

• Samsung SH-S203N 20x DVD±RW/RAM Drive
• Software Installation and Electronic User's Manual CD
• Setup Guide
• SATA Cable
• Mounting Screws
• Warranty Information

Physical Features:

The drive Samsung sent us for this review was manufactured in September of 2007 and came preloaded with firmware SB00.For this review we used firmware versions SB00 and SB01.

The look of Samsung's drives really hasn't changed much over the last few years. While they've gotten new features and faster speeds, the basic design has remained the same. The SH-S203N is no exception. From the front, it's almost identical to Samsung's previous DVD writers, sharing not only the bezel design, but many of the same logos. Along with the large "Samsung" and "Super WriteMaster" logos, you can see a few showing support for the DVD Multi specification as well as HP's LightScribe technology.

Below the tray you can see the SH-S203N's single LED. Off by default, this LED lights up green when the drive is reading or writing.

The rear of the SH-S203N is fairly straight forward. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's SATA interface and power connector.

Technical Specs:

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

LightScribe:

Note: We took a much closer look at LightScribe technology in our review of the BenQ DW1625. In this review we'll just go over some of the basics and see how the DH-20A3H performs with the bundled software.

The SH-S203N is one of the latest drives from Samsung to feature LightScribe technology. Developed by HP, LightScribe lets you burn durable, silk screen quality labels directly onto your CD's and DVD's using the same drive that burned the data. According to HP, it's as simple as burning the data, flipping the disc, and then burning the label.

Of course you can't do this with just any drive, media or software. While LightScribe capable drives use the same laser when burning both the data and label, they have to be able to accurately control the laser's focus and position as well as the spindle speed. They also must be able to recognize LightScribe media. These special discs have a thin dye coating on the label side that absorbs laser light. This triggers a chemical reaction that produces a color change, allowing the user to print text, artwork or graphics.

Even if you have a LightScribe capable drive and media, you will need software that supports it. Most major software companies have pledged support for the technology. However, at the time of this review, the list of compatible software is still relatively short. For the SH-S203N, Samsung turned to Nero. Using the bundled software you can both create and burn LightScribe disc labels.

Once you've created your LightScribe label, you're ready to print it. Before you can do this, though, you will need to choose the contrast. Keep in mind this option not only changes the level of detail, it also affects the amount of time it takes to print the label. The higher the quality, the longer the process will take.

How long does it take to print a label? For testing purposes, we printed a disc using Memorex's LightScribe Cool Colors (v1.2) CD-R media, and the quality was set to "best". The results are shown below.

Memorex LightScribe CD-R (v1.2) - 34 minutes

More Features:

By looking at the picture below, you can see that Samsung's new DVD writer is identified as a "TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203N."

Nero shows that the SH-S203N has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer, which is backed up by MediaTek's Super Link technology. According to Nero, 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-S203N 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-S203N's maximum reading and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.

InfoTool also shows that the SH-S203N 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-S203N'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 Samsung's new drive supports the Mt. Rainier format and 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".Using software like Nero, you can set the book type forDVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media to "DVD-ROM". 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-S203N contains the Nero 7 Essentials suite which includes Nero Express, Nero Vision, Nero Recode, Nero BackItUp, Nero ShowTime and InCD.

Nero Express 7 - 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. Redesigned to maximize ease-of-use, Nero Express gives users the ability to quickly and easily burn audio, data and video to CD or DVD.

The version of Nero Express that Samsung included with their new DVD±RW drive is 7.9.6.4. You can download the latest version of the software from Nero's website.

Nero Vision 4 - Nero Vision 4 is the latest version of Nero's video authoring application. Thanks to a user friendly interface, Nero Vision 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.

Nero Vision 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 Nero'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 with little loss of quality.

Nero BackItUp 2 - If you're looking for a way to quickly and easily backup your data, Nero BackItUp is the answer. This program from Nero lets you backup your data to CD/DVD, hard drive, image recorderor another computer on your LAN.

Nero ShowTime 3 - 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, AVI or Nero Digital files you might have on your hard drive.

InCD 5 - 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.

With the SH-S203N, Samsung has delivered one of their most feature packed DVD writers to date. This Serial ATA equipped "Super WriteMaster" drive not only supports all major DVD formats, it sports some of the fastest DVD reading and writing speeds available. The SH-S203N is capable of 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. More importantly, it's one of the few drives to offer 16x DVD+R DL and 12x DVD-R DL writing speeds. Along with support for LightScribe, the drive 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-S203N gets a 9 out of 10 for its features.

Along with smaller cable size, one of the biggest benefits of Serial ATA is its ease of installation. Because it uses a point to point connection, setting jumpers has become a thing of the past. In most cases, installation is as simple as plugging in the SATA and power cables and turning the computer on. Needless to say, it took only a couple of minutes to install Samsung's new DVD writer in our test computer. After making sure that the SH-S203N was recognized by Windows, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As I mentioned earlier, the SH-S203N 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 default the the setup program for Nero 7 Essentials will install everything but InCD onto your computer. If you don't want to install the entire suite, select the custom installation. From here you can choose the components you want. Once you reboot, you'll be ready to start burning your own discs.

Documentation:

Most of the SH-S203N's documentation is located on the software CD in electronic format. While I'm not usually a big fan of this sort of thing, 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-S203N. 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. With no jumpers to configure, this section is relatively brief. Nevertheless, it covers all of the basics including how to install the drive into an empty bay and hook up the cables.

The guide finishes up by going over the basic operation of the SH-S203N. 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-S203N. Unfortunately, the guide has very little information on LightScribe. For this, Samsung refers you to Nero's help files.

The SH-S203N also comes with a small "Setup Guide". Like the manual, this fold out guide goes over the drive's buttons and connectors. It also contains a set of instructions that take you step by step through the installation process. While a little short on words, Samsung has included a number of diagrams showing what to do. For most people, the "Setup Guide" will be all they'll need to get the drive up and running.

In the end, installing the SH-S203N was very easy. I had no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working. If you do run into trouble, the documentation Samsung has provided is more than sufficient. Even then, I would have liked to have seen some information on how to create and burn LightScribe labels. With this in mind, I give the installation an 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 and CD Speed 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 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 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. In the transfer rate tests, the SH-S203N started reading at 20.3x (3040 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 43x (6450 / 150) on the outside. The drive's access time and overall score were also quite good. However, its CPU utilization was a little higher than I would have liked.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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.

	Samsung SH-S203N	Lite-On DH-20A3H	Samsung SH-S203B	LG GSA-H55L
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.96x 20.75x 47.55x	35.81x 20.82x 47.36x	35.97x 20.88x 47.57x	35.57x 20.47x 47.04x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	102ms 105ms 177ms	98ms 110ms 184ms	98ms 104ms 174ms	103ms 104ms 174ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	6% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%

The SH-S203N didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 48x, Samsung's new drive came up a little short of this number in our tests. On a more positive note, the SH-S203N's seek times were very good.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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-S203N wasn't nearly as fast when reading CD-R media. Like the SH-S203B, it reached a maximum transfer speed of only 41x.

Samsung's new DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The SH-S203N read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 44.64x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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-S203N had no problem reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - 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-S203Nsupports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Samsung SH-S203N	Lite-On DH-20A3H	Samsung SH-S203B	LG GSA-H55L
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	30.93x 17.76x 40.86x 10 Yes	30.30x 17.64x 40.03x 10 Yes	30.94x 17.85x 40.88x 10 Yes	31.43x 18.12x 41.52x 10 Yes

The SH-S203N did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not as fast as the drive from LG, it hadno problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 40x.

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-S203N 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 v4.7.7.7 (DAE) - 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-S203N was a little slower when extracting audio from CD-R media, this didn't keep it from reaching amaximum DAE speed of 40x. 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 29.14x. 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-S203N 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 DVD writer 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-S203N handled scratched discs relatively well. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 56% 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-S203N 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 7.10.1.0 andDLA 5.20:

For this test I randomly generated 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 WriteMaster" drive has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Taiyo Yuden's 52x media, the drive started writing at about 21.88x and reached a maximum speed of 48.05x at the end of the session. This gave the SH-S203B an average writing speed of about 37.01x.

To test the drive's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Taiyo Yudenmedia rated at 52x. The results are below.

The SH-S203N took longer than expected to complete our CD writing tests. In our tests, it trailed behind the drives from Lite-On and LG, taking 2:55 to write an entire 701MB CD.

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.

Imation 52x (MBI)

Taiyo Yuden 52x

Verbatim 52x

By looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the writing quality was very good with the media from Imation and Verbatim. The number of C1 errors remained very low throughout the entire session. Unfortunately, the SH-S203N didn't handle Fuji's Taiyo Yuden manufactured media quite as well. While there were no C2 errors, the C1 errors were very high through out the later half of the disc.

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-S203N 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 9 minute mark.The SH-S203N writes at this speed until about the 29 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 performed relatively well when rewriting with Nero, taking 2:22 to write 400MB of data. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as fast when packet writing with DLA. As with the SH-S203B, the SH-S203N's packet writing speed seemed to be limited to only 16x, even when 32x Ultra Speed media was used.

The SH-S203N 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 3:14.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - DVD-ROM:

For this test I used a single layer, single sided data DVD-ROM disc that is 4.37GB in size.

The SH-S203N performed very well when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. In our tests it started reading at 6.70x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 16.20x.Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times and CPU usage were also quite good.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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-S203N had no problems reading DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, the drive read DVD-R discs at 16x, and both DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media at a respectable 12x.

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 5.93x and accelerates, reaching 12x at the 2.7GB mark.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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.

Verbatim DVD+R DL

The SH-S203N's performance was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media.The drive read DVD+R discs at 16x and both DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media at 12x.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.7 - 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-S203N didn't slow down very much when reading single layer DVD videos. It started out at about 6.63x and reached a maximum read speed of 16.04x. Lite-On'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 12x.

To see how well the SH-S203N worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace using Nero Showtime. The drive had no problems playing back these movies with either program and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0 andDLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of Samsung's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 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 20x, the SH-S203N uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at about 8.3x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SH-S203N also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

The SH-S203N performed very well in our DVD writing tests. The drive turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD±R and DVD±RW media, beating both the LH-20A3H and GSA-H55L by a small margin.

To check the media compatibility of the SH-S203N, 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.

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 SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) 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 (firmware BSLB). 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-S203N'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. The only real exception being RiDATA's 16x DVD+R media. When scanned with the BenQ DW1640, the PI rates were very high near the end.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were pretty good for the most part.

To test the SH-S203N's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

Samsung's new drive performed very well in our packet writing tests. The SH-S203N turned in some very good times when reading and writing to DVD+RW, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.10.1.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SH-S203N, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from MAM-A, Memorex and Verbatim. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

While a small number of manufacturers have begun to produce 16x DVD+R DL discs, they have not made their way to the North American market quiet yet. Thankfully, Traxdata was able to provide some of their media this review. These discs worked fine when creating a data disc with CD Speed. However, when burning our test data with Nero, it would hang at the layer change.

Due to the problems I had with Nero, Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL media was used in this test. When writing at 10x, the SH-S203N took a little more than 13 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good minute faster than the GSA-H55L and more than three minutes faster than the DH-20A3H. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with the DVD+R DL media from Verbatim and MAM-A. Aside from a few isolated spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed within acceptable limits. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with Memorex's 8x DVD+R DL media. When tested with KProbe and CD Speed, the error and jitter rates were very high at the layer change.

The SH-S203N also features 12x DVD-R DL writing speeds. Unfortunately, media capable of these speeds isn't available yet. Once discs rated at this speed start to ship, I'll go back and rerun these tests. Until then, here are some results with media that is currently available.

The SH-S203N performed very well when writing to DVD-R DL media. While not as fast as the GSA-H55L, the drive took only 13:33 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The SH-S203N yielded some mixed results with the DVD-R DL media from RiDATA and Verbatim. The error rates stayed within acceptable limits when tested with KProbe. However, when scanned by the DW1640, the PI rates were a little higher than we'd like to see.

Performance Revisited:

When it comes down to it, the performance of Samsung's new "Super-WriteMaster" drive was pretty mixed. The SH-S203N turned in some impressive times when writing to DVD±R, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. However, there were a few cases where the writing quality could have been better. The SH-S203N was also fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.

Unfortunately, the SH-S203N's performance wasn't as impressive when reading and writing to CD's. While the drive read pressed media at speeds near 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x. The SH-S203N also took longer than some of the other drives when writing CD's and had some trouble with Taiyo Yuden's CD-R media. With all things considered, the Samsung SH-S203N gets a 7 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.

Last fall, I reviewed Samsung's first 20x DVD writer, the SH-S203B. Aimed squarely at enthusiasts, the drive offered an impressive mix of features and performance. With Samsung's new LightScribe enabled drive offering similar specs, I went into this review expecting much of the same from the SH-S203N. While the two drives are alike in many ways, there were a few performance aspects that kept the SH-S203N from getting top marks in our review.

TheSH-S203N performed very well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x. At this speed, it took the drive less than 5 minutes to write an entire 4.7GB DVD, beating both the Lite-On DH-20A3H and LG GSA-H55L by a small margin. The SH-S203N also turned in some respectabletimes with DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM media. However, without compatible media, we weren't able to test its full potential when writing to DVD±R DL discs. Nevertheless, the SH-S203N performed very well in our tests, burning 8GB of data in a little more than 13 minutes.

When it came to media compatibility, the SH-S203N gave us some mixed results. While the drive wrote toall of our test media at its rated speed or better, only three types worked at 20x. On the other hand, the SH-S203N's writing quality was fairly good, at least with single layer DVD±R media. With DVD±R DL media though, there were a number of cases where the PI/PIF rates were higher than we'd like to see. Hopefully, Samsung can address this in a future firmware update.

Samsung's new 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-S203N either. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 16x, and DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media at an impressive 12x.

When it came to reading CD's, the SH-S203N's performance was a mixed bag. While the drive read pressed media at speeds near 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x. This was a little disappointing considering most drives can read pressed and CD-R media at the same speed. The SH-S203N also lagged behind some of the other drives when writing CD's. It took longer than expected when writing to CD-R discs and it would not packet write to CD-RW media at anything faster than 16x.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S203N isn't short on 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. The SH-S203N 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. Last but not least, the drive features HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system. An alternative to markers and stick-on labels, LightScribe lets you burn graphics and text onto the tops of specially coated discs.

In the end, it usually comes down to price. For what it offers, Samsung's new "Super WriteMaster" drive is surprisingly affordable. Current prices vary depending on the seller, but the retail version of the SH-S203N can be picked up for less than $30 on Pricegrabber.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 20x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL media at 16x
• Writes to DVD-R DL media at 12x
• Reads and writes DVD-RAM media at 12x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD±R media at 16x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 12x
• 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
• Serial ATA interface
• Supports LightScribe technology
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with Taiyo Yuden CD-R and some DVD±R DL media
• Had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed CD's
• Reads CD-R media at only 40x
• Slower than other drives when writing to CD-R media
• Packet writes to CD-RW media at only 16x