Samsung SH-S223Q 22x DVD±RW/RAM

Model: Samsung SH-S223Q 22x DVD±RW/RAM
Manufacturer: Samsung Electronics
Provided By: Samsung America

Samsung Electronics has been a leader in the electronics industry for more than 30 years. Since the introduction of their first television in 1970, this Korean company has grown to become one of the world's leading electronics manufacturers, offering everything from tiny semiconductors to large home appliances. Samsung is no stranger to the optical storage industry either. Working closely with companies like Toshiba, they've lead the way in this area, developing and manufacturing a wide range of products for the OEM and retail markets.

One of the latest additions to Samsung's already impressive line of DVD writers is the SH-S223Q. Featuring some of the fastest reading and writing speeds available, this Serial ATA equipped "Super-WriteMaster" drive is capable of 22x DVD±R, 16x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds, and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. The SH-S223Q also offers a number of features including HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system and Samsung's TruDirect recording technology.

With features and specs like this, the SH-S223Q sounds like it has a lot of potential. To give you an idea of what to expect from Samsung's new DVD writer, we'll take a look at some of its features and then see how it compares to some of the 22x and 20x DVD±RW drives from the competition. Does the SH-S223Q have what it takes? Is it the best bang for your buck? Keep reading as we find out.

The SH-S223Q we received from Samsung was the bulk, or OEM, version. The drive came with copy of the software CD as well as a printed quick installation guide.

Physical Features:

The drive Samsung sent us for this review was manufactured in August of 2008 and came preloaded with firmware SB00. For this review we used firmware version SB03.

From the front, the SH-S223Q looks very similar to Samsung's previous DVD writers. It not only shares the same basic bezel design, but has many of the same logos. Along with the large "Super WriteMaster" logo, you can see a few showing support for the DVD Multi specification as well as HP's LightScribe technology.

Below the tray you can see the SH-S223Q's single LED. Off by default, this LED lights up green when the drive is reading or writing.

The rear of the SH-S223Q is fairly straight forward. By looking at the picture below you can see the drive's SATA interface and power connector.

Technical Specs:

The specs below have been taken from Samsung's website and by running a few simple tests.

LightScribe:

The SH-S223Q is one of the latest drives from Samsung to feature LightScribe technology. Developed by HP, LightScribe lets you burn durable, silk screen quality labels directly onto your CD's and DVD's using the same drive that burned the data. According to HP, it's as simple as burning the data, flipping the disc, and then burning the label.

Of course you can't do this with just any drive, media or software. While LightScribe capable drives use the same laser when burning both the data and label, they have to be able to accurately control the laser's focus and position as well as the spindle speed. They also must be able to recognize LightScribe media. These special discs have a thin dye coating on the label side that absorbs laser light. This triggers a chemical reaction that produces a color change, allowing the user to print text, artwork or graphics.

Even if you have a LightScribe capable drive and media, you will need software that supports it. Most major software companies have pledged support for the technology. However, at the time of this review, the list of compatible software is still relatively short. For the SH-S223Q, Samsung turned to Nero. Using the bundled software you can both create and burn LightScribe disc labels.

Once you've created your LightScribe label, you're ready to print it. Before you can do this, though, you will need to choose the contrast. Keep in mind this option not only changes the level of detail, it also affects the amount of time it takes to print the label. The higher the quality, the longer the process will take.

How long does it take to print a label? For testing purposes, we printed a disc using Memorex's LightScribe Cool Colors (v1.2) CD-R media, and the quality was set to "best". The results are shown below.

Memorex LightScribe CD-R (v1.2) - 29 minutes

TruDirect:

The SH-S223Q also supports Samsung's TruDirect technology, which enables fast and easy real-time recording from nearly any digital device directly to DVD. TruDirect dramatically cuts down on the time it takes to create DVDs as no pre-mastering, multiplexing or hard-disk buffering are needed. According to Samsung, creating a DVD of a one-hour video stream only takes one hour and five minutes, and just 30 minutes to create a DVD from a one-hour hard disk drive camcorder file.

To use TruDirect with the SH-S223Q, you will need to download the software from Samsung's website and update the drive's firmware to version SB03 or higher.

More Features:

By looking at the picture below, you can see that Samsung's new DVD writer is identified as a "TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S223Q."

Nero shows that the SH-S223Q has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x and a 2048KB buffer, which is backed up by MediaTek's Super Link technology. According to Nero, Samsung's new DVD writer can also write CD-Text and overburn. When testing the drive's capacity, it had no problems overburning up to 99 minutes with our CompUSA media. 

Using Alex Noe's Weak Sector Utility we were able to determine that the SH-S223Q is a "two sheep" burner and is capable of backing titles protected by SafeDisc 2.90. Like most drives, it did not pass the "three sheep" test.

Here is a screen shot from Nero's InfoTool. This program queries the drive to see what its reading and writing capabilities are. InfoTool had no problems detecting the SH-S223Q's maximum DVD read and writing speeds, recording modes, buffer underrun protection and 2MB buffer.

InfoTool also shows that the SH-S223Q is an RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drive's region is stored in the firmware.  The region can be changed five times and after that it cannot be changed anymore. While there isn't an RPC-1 firmware available for the drive, there is a utility available that can make the drive region free.

While InfoTool gives us a quick glance at the SH-S223Q's features, DVDINFOpro provides a little more information on some of the drive's reading and writing capabilities.  By looking at the screenshot above you can see Samsung's new drive can read and write to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media and is one of the first to support DVD-RW DL discs.

Samsung's new DVD writer also supports a feature called "bitsetting". Using software like Nero, you can set the book type for DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media to "DVD-ROM". This feature comes in handy if you have an older DVD player that has problems playing recordable media.

Samsung has once again turned to Nero for their software bundle. The CD that comes with the SH-S223Q contains the Nero 8 Essentials suite which includes Nero Express, Nero Vision, Nero Recode, Nero BackItUp, Nero ShowTime and InCD.

Nero Express 8 - With Nero Express, Nero has taken the features and performance people have come to expect from Nero Burning Rom and combined them with a user friendly interface. Redesigned to maximize ease-of-use, Nero Express gives users the ability to quickly and easily burn audio, data and video to CD or DVD.

The version of Nero Express that Samsung included with their new DVD±RW drive is 7.11.6.0.  You can download the latest version of the software from Nero's website.

Nero Vision 5 - Nero Vision 5 is the latest version of Nero's video authoring application. Thanks to a user friendly interface, Nero Vision makes it easy for users to capture, edit and then burn their favorite videos to VCD, SVCD or DVD or export it to Nero Digital format.

Nero Vision also lets users add things like transitions, custom backgrounds, animated menus and text effects. You can even use it to turn your photos into custom slide shows. 

Nero Recode 3 - This program from Nero can copy unprotected DVD videos onto recordable DVD media. If the source disc is larger than 4.7GB, Nero Recode has the ability to remove unwanted material and compress the contents so that it will fit onto a single blank DVD disc.

Nero Recode 2 will also let you convert your DVD movies to Nero Digital. Using Nero's own MPEG-4 audio and video encoder, an entire DVD movie can be compressed so that it will fit onto a CD. Better yet, Nero Recode 2 does this with little loss of quality.

Nero BackItUp 3 - If you're looking for a way to quickly and easily backup your data, Nero BackItUp is the answer. This program from Nero lets you backup your data to CD/DVD, hard drive, image recorder or another computer on your LAN.

Nero ShowTime 4 - Nero ShowTime is Nero's software DVD player. Along with support for DVD's, ShowTime can be used to play back VCD's, SVCD's and miniDVD's as well as any MPEG, AVI or Nero Digital files you might have on your hard drive.

InCD 5 - InCD is Nero's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag-to-Disc or Sonic's DLA, it allows a person to use their CD-RW or DVD±RW drive as a big floppy disk. The person can then drag and drop files onto a CD-RW or DVD±RW disc. Many people consider InCD to be one of the best packet writing tools because of its simplicity and performance.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S223Q isn't short on features.  This Serial ATA equipped "Super WriteMaster" drive not only supports all major DVD formats, it sports some of the fastest DVD reading and writing speeds available. The SH-S223Q is capable of 22x DVD±R, 16x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. On top of that, it's one of the first drives to support the DVD-RW DL format. The SH-S223Q also includes features like LightScribe, Samsung's TruDirect technology and support for bitsetting. With all this, it's easy to see why the SH-S223Q gets a 9 out of 10 for its features.

Along with smaller cable size, one of the biggest benefits of Serial ATA is its ease of installation. Because it uses a point to point connection, setting jumpers has become a thing of the past. In most cases, installation is as simple as plugging in the SATA and power cables and turning the computer on. Needless to say, it took only a couple of minutes to install Samsung's new DVD writer in our test computer. After making sure that the SH-S223Q was recognized by Windows, I was ready to start installing the software.

Software Installation:

As I mentioned earlier, the SH-S223Q comes with a CD full of software from Nero. If you have autorun enabled on your computer, the menu shown below will automatically come up when you insert the disc.

As you can see, this menu is pretty straight forward. To install the writing software, you will want to choose the "Install Nero OEM Suite" option. After that, you will be taken to the Nero installation menu. 

By default the setup program for Nero 8 Essentials will install everything but InCD onto your computer. If you don't want to install the entire suite, select the custom installation. From here you can choose the components you want. Once you reboot, you'll be ready to start burning your own discs. 

Documentation:

Most of the SH-S223Q's documentation is located on the software CD in electronic format. While I'm not usually a big fan of this sort of thing, Samsung has gone the extra mile here. Instead of just throwing a few PDF files onto the CD, Samsung has created an easy to navigate, HTML based guide.

The guide starts out with a few pages worth of safety precautions. From there, it goes over the buttons and connectors located on the front and back of the SH-S223Q. Everything is labeled clearly and the functions of each are explained very well. The guide continues on by going over the physical installation of the drive. With no jumpers to configure, this section is relatively brief. Nevertheless, it covers all of the basics including how to install the drive into an empty bay and hook up the cables.

The guide finishes up by going over the basic operation of the SH-S223Q. Along with information on how to use and maintain the drive, there is a short troubleshooting section containing a list of common problems as well as their solutions. Last but not least, Samsung has provided a comprehensive list of specifications for the SH-S223Q. Unfortunately, the guide has very little information on features like LightScribe and TruDirect.

The SH-S223Q also comes with a small "Setup Guide". Like the manual, this fold out guide goes over the drive's buttons and connectors. It also contains a set of instructions that take you step by step through the installation process. While a little short on words, Samsung has included a number of diagrams showing what to do. For most people, the "Setup Guide" will be all they'll need to get the drive up and running.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S223Q was very easy to install.  I had no problems getting the drive or the software installed and working. If you do run into trouble, the documentation Samsung has provided is more than sufficient. However, I would have liked to have seen some information on LightScribe and TruDirect. With this in mind, I give the installation an 8 out of a possible 10.

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 and CD Speed are used to test transfer speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing, CD Speed is used to give an overall speed rating and is used in combination with CD DAE to see how well a drive reads scratched and dirty discs.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks, CD Speed is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Samsung's new DVD writer performed pretty well in our CD Winbench tests. In the transfer rate tests, the SH-S223Q started reading at 20.5x (3040 / 150) on the inside and reached a maximum speed of about 43x (6450 / 150) on the outside. The drive's access time and overall score were also quite good. However, its CPU utilization was a little higher than I would have liked.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

 

	Samsung SH-S223Q	LG GH22LP20	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	35.98x 20.97x 47.60x	35.59x 20.56x 47.15x	35.50x 20.41x 46.96x	35.96x 20.75x 47.55x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	101ms 106ms 176ms	101ms 107ms 171ms	143ms 157ms 236ms	102ms 105ms 177ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 1% 3%	0% 1% 2% 4%	16% 1% 2% 4%	0% 1% 2% 4%

The SH-S223Q didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 48x, Samsung's new drive came up a little short of this number in our tests. On a more positive note, the SH-S223Q's seek times were very good. 

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The SH-S223Q wasn't nearly as fast when reading CD-R media. Like the SH-S203N, it reached a maximum transfer speed of only 41x.

Samsung's new DVD writer had no problems recognizing our 99 minute CompUSA media. The SH-S223Q read our test disc from start to finish, reaching a maximum transfer speed of 44.67x.

CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

Samsung's new drive also reads CD-RW media at 40x. As you can see, the SH-S223Q had no problem reaching this speed in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (DAE) - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Samsung SH-S223Q supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

 

CD Speed	Samsung SH-S223Q	LG GH22LP20	Optiarc AD-7200S	Samsung SH-S203N
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	30.66x 17.73x 40.44x 10 Yes	31.44x 18.21x 41.56x 10 Yes	30.89x 17.71x 40.00x 10 Yes	30.93x 17.76x 40.86x 10 Yes

The SH-S223Q did fairly well in our DAE tests. While not nearly as fast as some of the other DVD writers we've tested, it had no problems ripping pressed audio CD's at 40x.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.7.7.16 (DAE) - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

The SH-S223Q was slightly faster when ripping audio CD-R discs. Unfortunately, even with this increase in speed, it wasn't as fast as the LG GH22LP20. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Samsung's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 29.14x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors.  If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the SH-S223Q was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well the SH-S223Q can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The SH-S223Q handled scratched discs relatively well. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 47.3% of the CD to be "damaged".  More importantly, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. The application extracts the audio tracks twice and then compares them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

Here too, the SH-S223Q did pretty well. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained relatively low.

CD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 and DLA 5.20:

For this test I randomly generated 700MB of files and directories to test the time it takes the drive to write and close a CD. All of the files are between 1MB and 25MB in size and no more than 10 directories deep. All of the times below include not only the actual writing time, but the lead in and out times too. This gives a more realistic idea of how long it takes to write a CD.

The SH-S223Q has a maximum CD writing speed of 48x. To reach this speed, it uses CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. With Verbatim's 52x media, the drive started writing at about 21.35x and reached a maximum speed of 48.19x at the end of the session. This gave Samsung's new DVD±RW an average writing speed of about 35.59x.

To test the drive's writing times, I wrote our test data to some Verbatim media rated at 52x. The results are below.

Samsung's new drive did fairly well in our CD writing tests. While not as fast as the GH22LP20, the SH-S223Q was able to write an entire 701MB CD in 2:50.

To test the drive's writing quality I used Lite-On IT's KProbe2. Written by Karr Wang, this utility can be used to test the number of C1 and C2 errors on a disc. For these tests I used a Lite-On LTR-52327S (firmware QS09) and read the discs at 32x. 

Imation 52x (MBI)

Taiyo Yuden 52x

Verbatim 52x

The SH-S223Q's writing quality was not as good as I would have liked. Looking at the KProbe screenshots, you can see that the C1 errors were not only very high, but there were a number of C2 errors on the discs.

For the rewriting tests I created 400MB of files on the hard drive and wrote them in DAO mode using Nero. To test the packet writing speeds I copied and pasted the same files off the hard drive onto a CD-RW disc using DLA from Sonic. Verbatim's 32x Ultra Speed CD-RW media was used for these tests.

While the SH-S223Q uses CAV when writing to CD-R discs, it uses Z-CLV, or Zone CLV, when rewriting at 32x. By looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it uses a total of three "zones" to reach its maximum speed. The drive starts writing at 16x and jumps to 24x at about the 9 minute mark. The SH-S223Q writes at this speed until about the 29 minute mark. When it reaches this point, its writing speed increases to 32x and stays there until the end of the session.

Samsung's new DVD writer performed relatively well when rewriting with Nero, taking 2:23 to write 400MB of data. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as fast when packet writing with DLA. As with the SH-S203N, the SH-S223Q's packet writing speed seemed to be limited to only 16x, even when 32x Ultra Speed media was used.

The SH-S223Q also erases at 32x. While it didn't have the fastest quick erase time out of the four drives here, it was able to do a full erase in a respectable 3:16.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-ROM:

For this test I used a single layer, single sided data DVD-ROM disc that is 4.37GB in size.

The SH-S223Q performed very well when reading single layer DVD-ROM's. In our tests it started reading at 6.75x and reached a maximum transfer speed of 16.21x. Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times and CPU usage were also quite good.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM:

First, we'll look at the drive's DVD-R and DVD-RW reading performance. For this I made copies of our DVD-ROM test disc using some general use 8x DVD-R and 6x DVD-RW media from Verbatim and then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. For the DVD-RAM tests, media from Maxell was used. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD-R DL

The SH-S223Q had no problems reading DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. In our tests, the drive read DVD-R discs at 16x, and both DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media at a respectable 12x. 

Maxell 12x DVD-RAM

Samsung's new drive has a maximum transfer speed of 12x when reading DVD-RAM discs. By looking at the screenshot you can see that it starts reading at 5.93x and accelerates, reaching 12x at the 2.7GB mark.  

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD+R and DVD+RW:

Next we'll look at the drive's DVD+R and DVD+RW reading performance. For this I made a copy of our DVD-ROM test disc using some 8x DVD+R and 8x DVD+RW media from Verbatim. I then ran our usual DVD read tests with CD Speed. The results are below.

Verbatim DVD+R DL
 

The SH-S223Q's performance was very similar to what we saw with DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-R DL media. The drive read DVD+R discs at 16x and both DVD+RW and DVD+R DL media at 12x.

Nero CD Speed v4.7.7.16 - DVD-Video:

For these tests I am using the US version of Transformers: The Movie on DVD. The disc is over 4GB and single sided.

The SH-S223Q didn't slow down very much when reading single layer DVD videos. It started out at about 6.66x and reached a maximum read speed of 16.05x. Samsung's new drive was also fairly quick when reading dual layer discs. By looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the drive's transfer speeds peaked at about 12x.

To see how well the SH-S223Q worked as a DVD player, I watched a few scenes from Transformers: The Movie and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith using Nero Showtime. The drive had no problems playing back these movies with either program and was fairly quiet.

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0 and DLA 5.20:

To test the DVD writing performance of Samsung's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 22x, the SH-S223Q uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Samsung's new drive starts writing at about 9x and accelerates, reaching its maximum speed at the end of the disc.

The SH-S223Q also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses Z-CLV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

Samsung's new "Super WriteMaster" drive performed fairly well in our DVD writing tests. While its Z-CLV writing method put it at a slight disadvantage when writing to DVD+RW discs, the SH-S223Q turned in some respectable times with DVD+R, DVD-R and DVD-RW media.

To check the media compatibility of the SH-S223Q, I ran a few tests using some of the media available in my area. The media types, along with the average time it took the drive to write our 4.38GB image, are listed below.

So what about writing quality? Thanks to KProbe, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) rates. For these tests I used a Lite-On SHM-165H6S (firmware HS0E) and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively. For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and even jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8.

So what are "good" results supposed to look like? With KProbe, the PI errors should not exceed 280 and the number of PIF errors should stay below 4. When testing with CD Speed, the number of PI errors should stay below 280 as well. However, because it scans with an ECC sum of 8, a higher number of PIF errors is acceptable, as long as they do not exceed 32. Since POF errors are uncorrectable, we really don't want to see any of them at all.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter. 

The SH-S223Q's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. Aside from a few small spikes, the PI/PIF rates stayed well within acceptable limits.

While the writing quality was fairly good with Sony's 16x DVD-R media, the discs from Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim yielded some mixed results. When tested with KProbe, the error rates were a bit high through some sections of the disc. The worst results were with RiDATA's 16x DVD-R media. Looking at the graphs above, you can see that the error rates were very high when scanned with both KProbe and CD Speed.

To test the SH-S223Q's packet writing performance I used DLA 5.20. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW, Verbatim 6x DVD-RW and Maxell 12x DVD-RAM media were used once again.

The SH-S223Q had no problems holding its own when reading and writing to DVD-RW and DVD-RAM media. However, due to its Z-CLV writing method, it wasn't as fast as some of the other drives when writing to DVD+RW discs.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 7.11.10.0:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the SH-S223Q, I used DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media from Verbatim and Memorex. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

While the SH-S223Q is capable of writing to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 16x and 12x, respectively, its speeds were limited to 10x with Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs. The drive still performed very well, taking 13:11 to write 8001MB of data to DVD+R DL media and 13:46 to do the same with DVD-R DL discs.

Performance Revisited:

While Samsung's new "Super-WriteMaster" drive had a few rough spots, it performed fairly well throughout most of our tests. The SH-S223Q flew through our DVD writing tests, turning in some very good times with DVD±R, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media. Writing quality was an issue though, as the PI/PIF rates were a bit high with some media. Nevertheless, the SH-S223Q was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD±R discs at 16x and other types of recordable media at 12x.

Unfortunately, the SH-S223Q's performance wasn't as impressive when reading CD's. While the drive read pressed media at speeds near 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x.  The SH-S223Q also gave us some mixed results when writing CD's. The drive turned in some fairly good times when writing to CD-R discs. However, there were some writing quality issues and it would not packet write to CD-RW media at anything faster than 16x. With all things considered, the SH-S223Q gets a 6 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.

The SH-S223Q is a good example of what we've come to expect from Samsung. Affordably priced, the drive offers a good number of features as well as some of the fastest DVD writing speeds available. While normally a winning combination, there were a number of performance issues that kept the SH-S223Q from getting top marks in our review.

The SH-S223Q performed very well when writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 20x. At this speed, it took the drive about 4 and a half minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The SH-S223Q also turned in some respectable times with DVD-RW and DVD-RAM media. However, without compatible media, we weren't able to test its full potential when writing to DVD±R DL discs. Nevertheless, the SH-S223Q still performed very well in our tests, burning 8GB of data in less than 14 minutes.

When it came to media compatibility, the SH-S223Q gave us some mixed results. While the drive wrote to all of our test media at its rated speed or better, only two types worked at 22x. More concerning was the SH-S223Q's writing quality. As we showed you in our tests, there were a number of cases where the error rates were quite high. Hopefully, Samsung can address this in a future firmware update.

Samsung's new drive performed relatively well in our DVD read tests. The drive was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's and DVD-Videos at 16x and had some very good seek times. Reading recordable media wasn't a problem for the SH-S223Q either. In our tests, it read DVD±R discs at 16x, and DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and DVD-RAM media at an impressive 12x.

When it came to reading and writing CD's, the SH-S223Q's performance was a mixed bag. While the drive read pressed media at speeds near 48x, its CD-R and CD-RW read speeds were limited to only 40x. This was a little disappointing considering most drives can read pressed and CD-R media at the same speed. The SH-S223Q also lagged behind some of the other drives when packet writing to CD-RW media. However, it had no problems holding its own when writing to CD-R discs. The SH-S223Q's writing quality was a bit concerning though, as the error rates were quite high with all of the media I tested.

Like Samsung's previous DVD writers, the SH-S223Q isn't short on features. Along with support for all major CD and DVD formats, it has a 2MB buffer that is backed up by Super Link buffer underrun protection. The SH-S223Q also supports Samsung's TruDirect technology and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media. Last but not least, the drive features HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system. An alternative to markers and stick-on labels, LightScribe lets you burn graphics and text onto the tops of specially coated discs.

In the end, it usually comes down to price. For what it offers, Samsung's new "Super WriteMaster" drive is surprisingly affordable. Current prices vary depending on the seller, but the retail version of the SH-S223Q can be picked up for less than $30 on Pricegrabber.

Highs:

• Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 22x
• Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
• Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
• Writes to DVD+R DL media at 16x
• Writes to DVD-R DL media at 12x
• Writes to DVD-RW DL media at 2x
• Reads and writes DVD-RAM media at 12x
• Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
• Reads DVD±R media at 16x
• Reads DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media at 12x
• Features 48x CD-R and 32x CD-RW writing speeds
• Good selection of writing and rewriting speeds
• Low seek times
• Features Super Link buffer underrun protection 
• Supports bitsetting for DVD+R/RW and DVD+R DL media
• Includes software from Nero
• Supports 99 minute media
• Serial ATA interface
• Supports LightScribe technology
• Supports TruDirect technology
• Affordably priced

Lows:

• Questionable writing quality with some CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R DL media
• Had a hard time reaching its rated speeds when reading pressed CD's
• Reads CD-R media at only 40x
• Packet writes to CD-RW media at only 16x