LG GSA-5163D Triple format DVD Burner

LG ‘“ South Korea was kind enough to send us their latest external DVD-writer; the LG GSA-5163D 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 is 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:

These are the specifications of this drive, found at the LGE webpage:

The specifications are very good, the only drawbacks we could see is that it only supports 40x CD reading and writing. It should also write with P-CAV technology, which is promising for low recording times and high average recording speeds.

What’s inside the box?

Let us start out pretty easy by taking a look at what we got and what the box contained.

The drive we received was a retail drive that came in a nice looking box, but to us the content of the box is more important:

Looks to be a pretty good bundle, but let us take a detailed look at what we got.

This is what the Retail bundle consists of:

• The drive itself
• Program installation CD (Nero 6 Express and Cyberlink Power DVD and Power Producer)
• Manual
• Software quick guide
• Power supply
• Power cable
• USB 2.0 cable
• Firewire cable

A very good bundle, but we would still like to see some empty discs included. At least a 5X DVD-RAM disc, as these are hard to find in many stores.

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

The drive has a very nice look, in this image you can see the rubber stands of the external enclosure.

Our sample was produced in Korea and has a production date of December 2004.

On the back we have the IEE 1394 Firewire connectors as well as an USB 2.0 connector. In addition of course, is a power connector, and finally an on/off switch.

Now, let us connect the drive and check out the features and program bundle of this drive on the next page…