Reading a Damaged CD-ROM

The last CD-related section of this review is about error correction mechanisms – how well the drive is reading damaged CD media.

The SOHW-1213S reads the test disc through in 3 minutes 44 seconds, which is an excellent performance. Lite-On’s drives have always been most efficient and fast with practically unreadable media – sometimes at a tradeoff of quality. This time the drive committed only three errors (three unread data blocks). Considering the bad quality of the test disc, this is a good result, although there are DVD drives capable of reading it without a single error. So, the SOHW-1213S passes this test, but without honors.

DVD Reading

  
Graphs of reading molded DVD-ROM media
(a single-layer disc is on the left and a dual-layer one is on the right)

The SOHW-1213S has read a single-layer disc without any problems, producing a smooth graph and reaching a maximum speed of 12x. I want to remind you that the Plextor PX-712A has some problems at the end of the test disc – the Lite-On has none. The dual-layer disc provoked no problems, either. There are no speed drops as the drive switches from one layer to another or when it’s reading the second layer. Comparing the Lite-On to the Plextor PX-712A, the Plextor is noticeably faster (by five minutes and something), but this is due to the maximum read speeds of the drives with this type of media (12x for the Plextor and 8x for the Lite-On).

Thus, the Lite-On SOHW-1213S processes molded DVD media – both single- and dual-layer – very successfully, although not at a highest speed. Now let’s try to feed it a dual-layer DVD+R disc.

That’s good. The maximum read speed is 8x, like with molded dual-layer media, and the graphs are smooth enough, save for a slight speed drop on the transition to another layer.