Lite-On SOHW-832S

Nathan Davis can't get to sleep with a Lite-On either.

Finally, dual layer DVD burners are accessible outside the price point of financing your own DVD pressing plant - that would, mind you, rock ridiculously hard. Dual layer DVD burners are about to fire into the market, even though at the time of writing, burnable dual layer media is stupidly scarce. To put it in perspective, one of major media manufacturers had a grand total of 10 burnable discs available in this country.

Currently there's a catch to dual layer DVDs and it screams double standards. For the moment, at least, this standard exists only for +R, known as DVD+R 9, as the DVD Forum hasn't yet got off its arse to standardise DVD 9 compatible DVD-R dual layer media. Chances are high it'll develop one, seeing as it won't want to stand around twiddling its thumbs whilst its nemeses support a meatier media type.

This drive comes kitted with a decapitated version of Nero, aka Nero Express 6.0, but that's a moot point when it's the drive's performance that matters.

Strapping it to our testbench, we fired it up, popped in a 2.4x DVD+R 9 disc and gave it a good once-over with Nero's CD/DVD Speed. As this drive is a first-generation DVD+R 9 burner, it's only capable of burning at 2.4x speed (3240KB/s) on dual layer DVD+Rs. The total test burn ticked away at an average of 2.36x. As close as that is to the written speed, it's insanely slow for burning 8.4GB (ahem, make that a realistic 7.96GB) of data.

So is it worth this high price tag? Well, if you have the money to spare and you already have plans to immediately use the extra storage space, steam ahead and grab one. With a max feed speed 8x for DVD-R/+R - just over a lazy 11MB/s - you won't be left waiting, unlike with its DVD+R 9 45-minute waiting time. We don't think it will take too long for the cost of these drives to fall to a reasonable price point.

Not overly spectacular, but if you feel your life depends on the use of 8GB on a DVD disc right now, you won't be  disappointed with this drive. Otherwise, with only a DVD+R variant of dual layer, and with higher speeds arriving soon, it may be best to wait for it to mature - along with the predictable price dip.