[videonut]

Sean is right on the money; type of burner, recording speed, DVD brand and firmware all play a vital part in creating a DVD. I have been experimenting over the last several months and made some startling discoveries:


I am noticing a steady failure rate with my 2-3 year old Ritek GO5s, but I never really tested the quality of their burns two years ago, so they may have been border line to start with.


My latest Samsung burner (38.00 NewEgg) and Taiyo Yuden WS 16X DVD-R creates better burns than my Plextor 716A (120.00) with the same discs. The Samsung averages a score of 93 with Nero's CD/DVD Speed, while the Plextor averages 70.


My biggest discovery is that I get the best burns using Verbatim (p/n:95052) DVD+R discs with the Samsung. I average a score of 98 with Nero and there are way less PI errors. This has proven consistent for close to 200 burns.


I also should mention that I have many Panasonic RAM discs that are now approaching eight years old, and NONE have gone bad.


I also have many twenty something year old VHS tapes that still play great. This is why I would never toss out any tapes containing important home movies.

 

[Sean Nelson]



Quote:
Originally Posted by videonut /forum/post/0


I also should mention that I have many Panasonic RAM discs that are now approaching eight years old, and NONE have gone bad.

Like DVD-RW and DVD+RW, DVD-RAM uses a phase change metal alloy recording layer instead of organic dyes. This strikes me as being less likely to degrade over time, but most references I've seen claim a longer life for DVD-R than for DVD-RW. I'd really like to understand if this is because DVD-RW life expectancy is based on the assumption that it will be repeatedly re-written. I can certainly appreciate that DVD-RW has a limited number of rewrite cycles, but I wonder if it's written to just once whether it would last longer than DVD-Rs.


Have you been re-writing your DVD-RAM discs over the past 8 years, or just re-reading the same data?

Quote:
I also have many twenty something year old VHS tapes that still play great. This is why I would never toss out any tapes containing important home movies.

I recently converted several dozen CD audio tapes to MP3 and was having to continually clean the heads because of oxide shedding. I'm not sure if VHS tapes are as vulnerable to this, but it's something I'd be concerned about if I still had unconverted VHS tapes.

 

[videonut]

Hello, Sean,


Most of my RAM discs were burned once for archival storage. But I should note that the dozen or so RAM discs that I've used over the years for bringing programs from the Tivo to the PC are all still working properly. I did have a few failures with RW discs that I use for the same purpose.


I did convert my tape library to DVD media, but I still feel a need to hold on to some originals (mostly home movies). I also notice that Video tape does not shed as much as audio tape. The only video tape I'd had problems with (sticking) are some of the older open-reel tapes from the early seventies.

 

[FLSTFI]

Okay, I have been testing my dubs with the scan disc on CD Speed.

Out of 10 this week I think 7 were all green, 2 had 3 yellow dots and 1 had about 5 yellow and 1 RED.

I think they all still said 100%.

At what point do you decide that's too many bad spots and try another disc?


I checked one of the recordings I made on a Maxell MIT a month ago and it had a row of red spots and then got stuck, couldn't go any further.

I don't think I need to ask about that one

 

[Sean Nelson]

I'm not too familiar with the software you're using, so I don't know exactly what criteria it uses to decide between green, yellow and red. I suspect that I'd probably reburn anything that wasn't completely green.


I go on the PI (Parity Inner) error rates. When I'm burning a new disc I throw it out if it averages more than 40 PI errors per megabyte over the whole disc, or if it has any single spikes above 100 PI errors. That's pretty conservative, the DVD standard allows up to 280 errors, and discs can be much worse than that and still play perfectly. But with good media I can go through an entire spindle and not have even a single disk that fails to meet my criteria.

 

[Chuck44]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean Nelson /forum/post/0


I'm not too familiar with the software you're using, so I don't know exactly what criteria it uses to decide between green, yellow and red. I suspect that I'd probably reburn anything that wasn't completely green.


I go on the PI (Parity Inner) error rates. When I'm burning a new disc I throw it out if it averages more than 40 PI errors per megabyte over the whole disc, or if it has any single spikes above 100 PI errors. That's pretty conservative, the DVD standard allows up to 280 errors, and discs can be much worse than that and still play perfectly. But with good media I can go through an entire spindle and not have even a single disk that fails to meet my criteria.

I agree, except PIF's are much more important than PIE's.

 

[FLSTFI]

Quote

Quote:
I'm not too familiar with the software you're using, so I don't know exactly what criteria it uses to decide between green, yellow and red. I suspect that I'd probably reburn anything that wasn't completely green.

I am trying to use the scan disc test on Nero CD/DVD Speed.

I have tried DVDinfopro, DVDidentifier, and a few others, but that seems to be the only test I have found that my crappy drive will "support".


Does anybody know that test? Am I wasting my time?

 

[FullOnShred]

FLSTFI, are you using "ScanDisc", or "Disc Quality Scan" on the Nero CD/DVD Speed Program? I use the "Disc Quality Scan". It even grades the DVD on a "Quality Score" of 100 or less, with 100 being perfect.


Sean, you are one strict grader. Few of the discs burned from my Sylvania would pass your test standards.

 

[FullOnShred]

I use K-Probe (free download) more often as it is less buggy with my Lite-On External DVD Burner. I think K-Probe may only work with Lite-On, and maybe those Sony DVD drives which are made by Lite-On anyway.

 

[Westly-C]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean Nelson /forum/post/0


Some is, some isn't. I have a couple hundred RITEKG05 (8X) DVDs that I burned and have been quality testing using my computer every 3 months. So far after more than 18 months there has been no sign that any of them are degrading.


However all of the 16X RITEKF01 media that I've tried have made poor burns (they play perfectly but have quite high correctable error rates) and have degraded significantly (peak error rates 2-4X what I measured after the initial burn) in as little 3 months.

I'm going to have to be more careful when I see even brand name discs on sale. Turns out the 50 pk TDK discs that were on sale at CC last week aren't all 16x. The spindle is a mix of 4x, 8x, and 16x. It even has 1-16x on each disc, as well as the label.

Only the disc at the top on the stack turned out to be a coaster. And CD Speed tests are coming up all green during Scan Disc.

 

[jmscott42]

It's probably not that it's a mix of speeds, it's that the media (more than likely CMC) is so horribly inconsistent that your burner is having trouble at ANY speed and keeps going all over the place.


Definitely should be returned if possible. And sad, since genuine TDK used to be really really good stuff.

 

[Westly-C]

^^All the discs have the RitekF1 id code, and both DVD Identifier and CD Speed will show a single speed. Since I'm only out 11 bucks, I won't try haggling for a refund, but I wish I'd picked up the dvd+r pack instead.

 

[FullOnShred]

Here is a K-Probe Scan readout of a Sony 8x DVD-R (Sony08D1 ID Code) that is a copy of a DVD made on my Sylvania HDVR200F. This is for FLSTFI to see what he can expect from K-Probe if he can use it. It also gives a nice graph readout of the errors which I have omitted here.


Date : 5/30/2007 11:25:36 PM

Model : 2-0-0-0 H:LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S MS0P

Disc : DVD-R , SONY08D1 [Sony Corporation]

Speed : 4x

ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1

Scanned range : 0 - 1793910

Sampling count : 44178

Errors : 0

PI Max : 117

PI Average : 44.84

PI Total : 512603

PIF Max : 2

PIF Average : 0.04

PIF Total : 446


The Sylvania seems to like Verbatim 16x DVD-R MCC03RG20 media the best. And they are the PAP6 of which some folks get bad batches.

 

[Sean Nelson]



Quote:
Originally Posted by FullOnShred /forum/post/0


Here is a K-Probe Scan readout...

Boy, I sure wouldn't be happy with 446 PI Failures...

 

[sgm26]

Has anyone checked the DVD-RAM with one of the computer programs mentioned? I have two recorders but none in my PC. I seem to have better experience with RAM than -RW. The Maxel -RW I have began to go bad after about a year.

 

[FullOnShred]

This is from SuperMediaStore's Website.


Explanation of PI Errors/PI Failures:


* PI(Parity Inner) Error: No larger areas on the disc should exceed

280 PI Errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that

exceed 280.

* PIF(Parity Inner Failures): No large areas on the disc should

exceed 32 PI Failures, do not worry too much about high single

spikes that exceed 32.

* And as always; lower is better

 

[jmscott42]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sgm26 /forum/post/0


Has anyone checked the DVD-RAM with one of the computer programs mentioned? I have two recorders but none in my PC. I seem to have better experience with RAM than -RW. The Maxel -RW I have began to go bad after about a year.

Unfortunately, DVD-RAM can't be checked the same way, and even if it could, no one knows what 'valid' results would look like.


Kind of a strange situation since DVD-RAM hypes itself on being more reliable (which most anecdotal stories support) but there's no way to verify that with solid numbers.

 

[jmscott42]



Quote:
Originally Posted by FullOnShred /forum/post/0


This is from SuperMediaStore's Website.


Explanation of PI Errors/PI Failures:


* PI(Parity Inner) Error: No larger areas on the disc should exceed

280 PI Errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that

exceed 280.

* PIF(Parity Inner Failures): No large areas on the disc should

exceed 32 PI Failures, do not worry too much about high single

spikes that exceed 32.

* And as always; lower is better

You need to check how your drive is scanning-- PIF can be scanned as 1/ECC or 8/ECC (I might be wrong on the terminology, someone please correct me). Depending on the setting your max PIF may be 4. (I think 1/ECC would be 4, 8/ECC would be 32, since you're talking 1 block vs. 8 blocks being scanned.. so for a 32 max averaged over 8 block, it'd be 4).


I'd be horrified to see a spike of 32 on my PIF scans.

(at 1/ECC)

 

[Chuck44]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jmscott42 /forum/post/0


You need to check how your drive is scanning-- PIF can be scanned as 1/ECC or 8/ECC (I might be wrong on the terminology, someone please correct me). Depending on the setting your max PIF may be 4. (I think 1/ECC would be 4, 8/ECC would be 32, since you're talking 1 block vs. 8 blocks being scanned.. so for a 32 max averaged over 8 block, it'd be 4).


I'd be horrified to see a spike of 32 on my PIF scans.

(at 1/ECC)

Nero DVD/CD Scan usually knows depending on the drive

being used.

LiteOn drives scan at 1 while BenQ's use 8.

Also, LiteOn's should scan at 4x while BenQ's

scan at 8x and NEC's at 5x...

 

[FullOnShred]

The scan I posted had a Max PIF of 2, but a total of 446 for the whole disc. The 446 is what was blowing Sean's mind. Sean how many PIF TOTAL do you have on an average burn?


The default on K-Probe for PI is 8/ECC Block and for PIF it is 1/ECC Block. I scan at 4x read speed most of the time. I use a Lite-On SHM165P6SX (external) DVD Writer because my older NEC won't do quality scans. I get much better scans from TY + and - 8x and Verbatim - 16x than I do from the SONY08D1. I still don't mind using the SONY MIJ if the Price is right.