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Features
Let's start off with the drive's impressive
media support.
 The
LG GSA-4120B is the world's first triple format DVD Writer. It is
capable of writing to all available formats which include: CDR, CDRW, DVD-R,
DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and DVD+R9 DL. The support for DVD-RAM
is definitely one of its unique features and we will be testing its
capabilities later in this review.
This new drive is capable at writing to DVD+R
media at the current fastest write speed available of 12x. I only
mention DVD+R because the specs do state that its maximum write speed on
DVD-R discs is 8x. The fact that it will not support
12x writing on both formats is not really a drawback as it is highly
unlikely you will come across DVD-R discs capable of writing at 12x.
As previously mentioned, the LG GSA-4120B is
the first DVD writer to incorporate both 12x write support and double layer
writing capability. For those new or unfamiliar with the new
dual/double layer technology, we will recap what we went over in our
previous dual/double layer drive review.
The technology was developed by Philips and MKM
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM) with the intension to improve or expand the
optical data storage options available to consumers today.
The DVD+R9 media consists of dual recording
layers separated by a spacer and semi transparent metal reflector. The
second layer will virtually double the storage capacity from 4.7GB to 8.5GB,
giving you the ability to store much more data or backup and burn a DVD9
onto just one disc. These first generation drives will be able to write to
these discs at a speed of 2.4X. One of the major challenges during
development was to maintain compatibility with the DVD-ROM standard to
ensure that the new dual-layer discs would be playable on standalone DVD
players. As we did with our previous double layer review, we will be
testing these discs on various standalone DVD players to ensure there are no
playback related issues.
Additional features included buffer underrun
protection and UDF support for easy writing to CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and
DVD-RAM discs.
Installation
As with all optical storage drives under Windows
XP, installation is a breeze. The drive is identified as a DVDRAM
drive and while not labeled as LG, the correct model number is shown.
The drive does ship with an OEM version of Nero
6, however, I will be testing using the latest version of Nero 6
Ultra Edition 6.3.1.15. Using Nero InfoTool, all supported features
are correctly identified, including DVD-RAM. Mount Rainer is the only
feature not supported.
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