LG GSA-4163B Super Multi DVD Burner

LG ‘“ South Korea was kind enough to send us their latest DVD-writer the LG GSA-4163B Super multi DVD Writer. This drive supports 16x DVD+R/-R writing, 8x DVD+RW, 6 DVD-RW, 5x DVD-RAM and 4x DVD+R9 DL writing technology – allowing dual layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.

Company information:

Let us take a look at some of the company information found at the LG website.

The Foundation of LG

LG was established in 1947 as Korea’s first chemical company, also becoming the nation’s first electronics company with its expansion into home appliances in 1958. The new Corporate Identity was launched including the change of the group name from Lucky-Goldstar to LG in 1995.

Business Fields

The wide array of activities that LG conducts are coordinated within three highly focused business sectors: Chemicals & Energy, Electronics and Telecommunications & Services. Each sector has undergone systematic changes, with improved financial compositions, restructured business portfolios and realigned equity investment structures.

The split of two holding companies LG Corp. and GS Holdings Corp.

On March 2003, LG introduced the holding company structure and recently, the demerger of two holding companies – LG Corp. and GS Holdings Corp. took place on July 1 to separate the manufacturing and technology related businesses from the service and retail operations. The separation is meant to maximize profits of LG shareholders by boosting business specialization of key LG companies.

Increasing R&D investment in 2004

With the anticipations and expectations for the new structure, LG has set an ambitious management goal for this year. In 2003, LG’s ordinary profit stood at KRW 3.1 trillion on sales of KRW 85 trillion. In 2004, LG plans to raise ordinary profit and sales by 42% and 12% year-on-year respectively. This year’s ordinary profit target is KRW 4.4 trillion and the sales target is KRW 95 trillion. LG plans to increase the R&D investments by 31% from last year to KRW 9.4 trillion in 2004.

If you are interested in reading more company information, please visit www.lg.co.kr/english

Drive specifications:

The only official listed specification of this drive (during our review) was found on the German LG site:

Reading Speed

• DVD-R/-RW-/ROM : 10x/8x/16x max. 
• DVD-RAM : 2x, 3x, 5x 
• DVD-Video (CSS) : 8x max. (Single/Dual Layer)
• DVD+R/+RW : 10x/8x max. 
• CD-R/-RW/-ROM : 40x max. 
• CD-DA (DAE) : 40x max. 

Writing Speed

• DVD-R : 2x, 4x CLV, 8x ZCLV, 16x PCAV 
• DVD-RW : 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x CLV 
• DVD-RAM : 2x, 3x ZCLV, 3x ‘“ 5x PCAV (Ver. 2.1) 
• DVD+R : 2.4x, 4x CLV, 8x, 12x, 16x ZCLV 
• DVD+R Double Layer : 2.4x, 4x CLV 
• DVD+RW : 2.4x, 4x CLV, 8x ZCLV 
• CD-R : 4x, 8x CLV, 16x, 24x, 32x, 40x ZCLV 
• CD-RW : 4x, 8x, 10x CLV, 16x CLV, 24x ZCLV 

Supported Writing Modes/Formats 

• DVD-R : Disc at Once and Incremental / Recording 
• DVD-RW : Disc at Once, Incremental Recording and Restricted Overwrite 
• DVD-RAM : Random Write 
• DVD+R : Sequential Recording 
• DVD+R Double Layer : Sequential Recording 
• DVD+RW : Random Write 
• CD-R/-RW : Disc at Once, Session at Once, Track at Once and Packet Write 

Access Time (average) 

• DVD-ROM : 145ms 
• DVD-RAM : 165ms 
• CD-ROM : 125ms 

Max. Transferrate (Writing)

• DVD-R : 9,14 ‘“ 22,16 Mbytes/s 
• DVD-RW : 8,31 Mbytes/s 
• DVD-RAM (Ver.2.1) : 4,155 ‘“ 6,925 Mbytes/s 
• DVD+R : 9,14 ‘“ 22,16 Mbytes/s 
• DVD+R Double Layer : 5,54 Mbytes/s 
• DVD+RW : 8,31 ‘“ 11,08 Mbytes/s 
• CD-R : 2400 ‘“ 6000 KB/s (Mode 1) 
• CD-RW : 2400 ‘“ 3600 KB/s (Mode 1) 

Buffer

• 2 MB, Buffer Under-Run Prevention Function 

Standard Jumper Setting

• Master 

Supported OS

• Windows ME/ Windows 2000 Professional/ Windows XP Home Edition, Professional 

Dimensions (W x H x D)

• 146mm x 41,3mm x 184,6mm 

Weight

• 870g 

Mounting Orientation

• Horizontal / vertical  

Temperature / Humidity 

• Operating, -humidity : 5°C ‘“ 45°C, 15% ‘“ 85% 
• Non-operating, -humidity : -30°C ‘“ 60°C, 10% ‘“ 90% 

Recommended Media

• CD-R : LG, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, TDK, SKC 
• CD-RW : LG, Ricoh, Mitsubishi Kagaku Medial, Verbatim 
• DVD-R : LG, Maxell, Taiyo Yuden, JVC 
• DVD-RW : LG, JVC, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, TDK 
• DVD+R : LG, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, Verbatim 
• DVD+RW : LG, TDK, FujiFilm, Ricoh 
• DVD-RAM : LG, Maxell, Panasonic 
• DVD+R Double Layer : Mitsubishi Kagaku Media 

What‘s inside the box?

On this page we will take a look at what the drive came shipped with and take a look at the drive and its technology.

Front

Back

Top

Left side

Right Side

Below you will see the contents of the retail box:

• The internal drive itself
• Nero 6 OEM Suite
• LG DVD Writer Solution CD:
  1. PowerDVD
  2. PowerProducer Gold
  3. Nero Express
  4. InCD
  5. Acrobat Reader
• Super Multi DVD Drive CD:
  1. Owner’s Manual
• IDE cable
• Audio cable
• 4 mounting screws   
• Quick Guide
• Guarantee information

Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself:

The LG bezel has not changed much lately ‘“ we find the following logos: Super Multi, DVD+RW, LG, DVD-multi recorder and CD-RW US. Headphone connector and volume knob is missing. The drive uses one coloured led (green) for read and write (we prefer a different led colour though for writing).

On top of the drive we found one stickers and we can read it was made in Korea, dated November 2004.

On the back of the drive from left to right: digital audio connector, analogue audio connector, pins and jumper to set the drive to: cable select, slave or master, IDE interface connector and the power connector.

We installed the drive without any problems and here is a screenshot from Nero info tool:

From the screenshot of Nero Info Tool above, we miss Mt.Rainier support and a larger buffer size. Our drive came shipped with firmware A100 and was later updated to firmware A101 (see below):

And another shot from Nero Burning ROM:

We do not really find anything alarming here, but Mount Rainier and a larger buffer would have been nice.

But let us continue this review and see how it really performs.

On the next page we will take a look at the test machine, the software, the drive features and the included software…………