Samsung TS-H552B DVD Burner

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Introduction

Features

Reading performance

CD-R/W Writing performance

DVD+R/RW Writing performance

DVD-R/RW Writing performance

DVD+R9 DL Writing performance

Advanced tests

Conclusion

Author

Jan70
Senior Administrator: Article posted 14 Nov 04 17:20

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Introduction

Review: Samsung TS-H552B
Reviewer: Jan70
Provided by: Samsung Europe (NL) Firmware: TS04
Manufactured: September 2004

Samsung Europe was kind enough to send us the Samsung TS-H552B DVD-writer. This drive supports 16x DVD+R writing, 12x DVD-R and 2.4x DVD+R9 DL writing technology, allowing dual layer discs of 8.5Gb to be written.

Samsung has developed and produced optical drives since 1994. In 2004, they joined up with Toshiba for manufacturing and developing optical drives.

Company information:

We are sure that most of you know Samsung/TSST already, but let us take a look at some of the company information found at: www.samsung.com / www.tsstorage.com

	an international joint venture company of Toshiba Corporation ( Japan) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.( Korea ), was established for Optical Disc Drive (ODD) business. TSST has its headquarters in Kawasaki, Japan and TSST Korea is in Suwon, Korea, and each corporation in Japan and Korea has the individual directorate system. For the Biz issues, we have been discussing it through the common relevant organization for mutual consent. We are currently responsible for the product development, marketing and sales, and have been taking advantage of the existing network of Samsung Electronics and Toshiba for manufacturing, sales, and after-sales service. TSST is the result of the close cooperation between Samsung Electronics and Toshiba with the world best brand power, technical know-how, sales network, and services network.To make it benefit to all, we are making every effort to provide our customers with the World best Top solution on the basis of the best quality and the reasonable price.

If you are interested in reading more company information, please visit: www.samsung.com / www.tsstorage.com

Drive specifications:

These are the specifications of this drive, found on the Samsung site:

Specifications

Data Transfer Rate	Media Type	Write	Read
	DVD+R	16X (21.6MB/sec)	8X (10.8MB/sec)
	DVD+R Double	2.4X (3.24MB/sec)	8X (10.8MB/sec)
	DVD+RW	4X (5.4MB/sec)	8X (10.8MB/sec)
	DVD-R	12X (16.2MB/sec)	8X (10.8MB/sec)
	DVD-RW	4X (5.4MB/sec)	8X (10.8MB/sec)
	DVD-ROM	-	16X (21.6MB/sec)
	CD-ROM	-	48X (7.2MB/sec)
	CD-R	40X (6.0MB/sec)	48X (7.2MB/sec)
	CD-RW	32X (4.8MB/sec)	32X (4.8MB/sec)
Burst Transfer Rate	PIO Mode 4 (16.6MB/sec) Ultra DMA Mode 2 (33.3MB/sec)
Average Seek Time	DVD : 130ms CD : 110ms
Supported Disc	DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-ROM/XA, CD-Audio, Video-CD, Photo CD, CD-I(FMV), CD-Extra, CD-TEXT
Buffer Memory	2MB
Dimensions (WxHxD mm)	148.2x 42x 184
Weight (kg)	0.76

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

Bottom

Left/Right side

Below you will see the contents of the retail box:

The drive itself
Audio cable
Pinnacle installation CD
IDE cable
4 mounting screws
Quick install guide

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

A standard bezel with logos of supported writing formats ‘“ except for the DVD+R9 DL logo – which is missing. Head phone connector and volume knob is missing too. The drive uses one small coloured led (green) for read and write (we prefer a different led colour though for writing). The eject knob is transparent and in ‘the dark” it ‘flashes” together with the read/write led.

On top of the drive we found three stickers and we can read it was manufactured in Korea , dated September 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 connector and the power connector.

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

Our drive shipped with firmware TS04 and it is the latest one available (for the public). From the screenshot of Nero InfoTool above, we miss Mt.Rainier support and a larger buffer size.

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…………

Features

7 Comments

mikedan: Posts: 2; Posted on: 10 Jul 03 04:52

Don't purchase this software. The author seems to change licensing terms whenever he feels like it. You'll get burned.

Kenshin: Posts: 12722; Posted on: 15 Nov 04 10:25

There was nothing surprising on this review. I expected TSST and Samsung to use Toshiba chipset at least, not something from Mediatek which was also used in Lite-On SOHW-1613/1633/1653. I hope the next model will perform more like LG's GSA-416x and Pioneer DVR-A08 than Lite-On.

ernstblaauw: Posts: 218; Posted on: 15 Nov 04 11:43

In this review, we can find a table with the writing times of different drives (at page: 5: DVD+R/RW Writing performance). Why did you not include the BenQ DW1620? You reviewed this drive earlier and it was one of the fastest (both DVD-R and DVD+R). Can you include the BenQ in the table?
[edited by ernstblaauw on 15.11.2004 11:43]

wiboon: Posts: 4; Posted on: 11 Jan 05 05:10

In market, Samsung TS-H552B already replaced by TS-H552U. Can you review TS-H552U ?

digit010: Posts: 35; Posted on: 08 Nov 06 05:11

Why buy this when EAC exists?

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 11 Jul 07 05:35

My Norton 360 can't back up. It starts to and then about a disk or two in, it can't read the discs any more or write to them. I start with brand new discs each time and it failed. Guys at Norton say to get a firmware update and etc. Hard to follow how to do the firmware update but did. Now trying to do any other updates and will try Norton 360 again. The folks at Norton 360 said it would DEFINITELY work after getting the update. Okay, good, because it wasn't a supported driver initially so here is hoping. And no, I haven't the foggiest clue what all this means but I just stick things into my computer as told and mix and shake it ten minutes and let it settle and try to skim productive work off the top like Man vs. Wild sips tepid water: with hope, out of necessity. We'll see what happens.

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 22 Jul 08 03:04

Why do so many of these go bad?

Samsung TS-H552B DVD Burner

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