Performance during Reading Damaged CD-ROM Discs

Our checking the error correction mechanism by reading a damaged CD-ROM concludes the CD-related part of this review.

 
LG GSA-4163 (left) and LG GSA-4160B (right) reading a bad CD-ROM disc

The error correction mechanism proved to be almost identical in both devices, save for the new model’s increasing its speed a little earlier and faster after the bad area. That’s why it took less time to read the whole disc: 5 minutes 57 seconds against the GSA-4160’s 6 minutes and 13 seconds. On the other hand, the previous model has two unread blocks, while the new one – four unread blocks. So, the new drive has become faster than its predecessor, but is less accurate at reading bad blocks.

Performance during DVD Discs Reading

 
 
Reading single-layer and dual-leayer molded DVD-ROM discs:
LG GSA-4163 (left) and LG GSA-4160B (right)

The single-layer DVD Video disc provoked no problems – both drives read it carefully and steadily, without any slowdowns. The same is true for the dual-layer medium – no errors, smooth graphs. Note also that there’s no artificial slowing-down of the drives when they’re processing DVD Video discs. More exactly, it occurs with dual-layer DVDs only – the maximum speed is then really limited at 8x, as the specification says. It’s more curious with single-layer ones: the maximum should be either 8x (as this is a Video disc) or 16x (DVD-ROM), but we have 10x, which is the maximum read speed for write-once DVDs.