Best way to test a disc

[Alias75]

What is the best way to check if the DVD you've just burned has been done so properly, is it simply a matter of playing the disc and checking or is there a quicker way of doing it? Is there some software out there that can analyse a disc and see whether or not theres any errors on the disc?

Ive burned discs and done a quick check using fast forward onthe DVD player but then a few days or weeks later when i play the disc at normal spped theres sometimes errors that weren't picked up. Is there a better way of checking?

I sometimes use DVD Decryptor is it as simple as if a disc has read errors on it while using dvd decryptor it wont play properly, or is it more complicated than that?

[ebenton]

Try either Nero CDSpeed or DVDInfoPro. Even playing a movie all the way through on your standalone DVD player does not guarantee that there are no errors. If you don't check with one of the above programs, you will not know about the errors until you try to make a backup of your backup, and are unable to do so because of read errors.

OTOH, if you don't want to really worry about whether your disk has burned without errors, try using good media, instead of crap.

I used to check all of my disks with Nero CDSpeed after I burned them, but then I got sick of doing it every time. Instead of buying crappy, discounted bulk media online, I started buying Maxell disks only. Now I don't even check any more. It's worth the extra money to not have to screw with it.

[Alias75]

Well i do use Ritek G04 discs so i dont think its the media. I think sometimes the problem is i use up too much of the disc. Its only a problem a small percentage of the time, i usually check using DVD decryptor to back up the back up if there are read errors i assume the disc is faulty is this correct?

Anyway thanks for those links.

[ebenton]

If there are read errors, you have a disk that was burned poorly. If you are using DVD Decryptor to check for read errors, that's probably good enough. Nothing is going to check a whole 4+ GB of data on a disk quickly. It takes a while.
However, just because a disk has read errors does not mean it will not play properly on a DVD player. Often they will. DVD players are more tolerant of some types of errors than DVD-ROM or DVD +-RW drives are. They can ignore some errors, while in most cases a DVD-ROM must be able to read every block.

Oh and BTW, Ritek lately has not been as reliable as they used to be. I even take a look at one of my Maxells after I buy them to make sure that DVDInfoPro shows the same Manufacturer Code as always. Companies can change the manufacturer of their disks and still keep the same label.

[Alias75]

Thanks for your help, what does verifying the disc do on DVD decryptor? Is this also a way of checking the disc after its been nurned to see if its the same as the source?

[lechtin]

Use CDCheck (free for personal use) to verify CD/DVD data integrity after a burn. The reason video DVD players may still play a bad burn is that they are meant to handle them. A bad frame in a movie is no big deal, but a program that copies data (as in copying a backup) does not see the difference. It just sees corrupted data.