Does DVD "checking" software really work

[jbartosh]

Okay, so I have DVDinfo Pro and I am examining two discs. One, I know to be bad, it has glitches and freezes and has many digital problems. The other is known to be good. When examined in DVDinfo Pro, both check out with zero errors, zero problems, perfect perfect perfect. Does this software actually do anything or is it a farce??? Has anybody any software that actually checks things and tells you if there will be errors, otherwise I have to go through an hour and a half dvd just to see if there are any problems each time!!

Also, in DVDinfo Pro everytime I try to run a PI test it does not get started, will not go above zero percent, freezes the program, locks the dvd in the drive, and will not even die in task manager by ending the process. I have to manually kill the computer to stop the dang thing. I don't like this software so far, please offer suggestions I have many DVD's to make in one months time and these must be reliable disks.

[jbartosh]

Forgot to mention that the two DVD's in question are burnt from the same exact image. I have editions of this DVD that work perfectly, and editions that have terrible glitches. DVDinfoPro does no good at all.

[Krispy Kritter]

Are they burned onto the same media? Are the playback issues apparent on the pc (most likely not) or on a standalone player (most likely)?

If it is only apparent on the standalone player, then the problem may be that you are using a media that the player doesn't like. Unfortunately, not all media works in all players. Some players are more picky about media than others. If it is for personal use, then it is just a matter or trial and error to find a media that works in your player. If you are trying to hit a large number of users, then stick with a quality media. Verbatim and TY are the most reliable.

[lordsmurf]

Krispy Kritter gave a good answer.

I'd also like to add:

That software is only as reliable as the environment, the computer hardware, the computer OS stability, the DVD burner, and the person at the keyboard. In other words, there are so many variables that 99% of all testing done by individuals is for fun only. It won't give useful results, no.

There are also a number of factors not measured by such software, so it's even more limited, all testing variables aside.

[Nelson37]

You answered your own question when you describe the one disk as "known to be good". You did that by playing it. That is the only test that matters, anything else is a waste of time.

You don't test a pie by weighing it, you don't test a car by feeling it, these things may provide useful info (or not) but they are really irrelevant.

[MrMoody]

Computer drives are usually much better at reading marginal discs than DVD players, so a simple verify or speed test isn't much help. A good error scan is a lot better indication but still doesn't tell the whole story. It will give a good comparison between different discs but won't tell if there's a compatibility issue between burner and player, which happens more than you'd think.

Unfortunately, some burners (like yours apparently) won't run error scans at all, and many others don't give reliable results. You almost need to buy a good scanning drive (like Benq or Lite-On models, check club.cdfreaks.com) if you need to scan media.

In DVDInfoPro the error scan is under the "Pi Po" icon; in Nero it is in the CD-DVD Speed tool on the Disc Quality tab; KProbe is a dedicated scanning program but only works with Lite-On and other drives with the same chipset like the Samsung 202/203.

[stiltman]

Here's what I've always done.
I burn the disc
I run a scan to find bad sectors
I play the disc in my player

If any come up bad, I burn a new disc

[OneSickPup]

I don't know anything about DVDInfo Pro - never used it. Nero CD-DVDSpeed is more widely used and accepted in most forums. Try this

1. Download the software - Link here: http://www.cdspeed2000.com/

2. User guide courtesy geno888 over at CDFreaks.com - link here: http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-speed-user-guide-192563/

3. Check this section to insure settings - http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-speed-user-guide-192563/#post1540628

4. Then follow these directions: http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-speed-user-guide-192563/#post1540640

5. Post graphs from each disc for us to see. Thanks and good luck.

[OleTexCajun]

I have used DVDecryptor (open disk) thousands of times on newly burned DVD's. My experience has been, 95% of the time, that if it can't be "decrypted," it won't play in a computer nor player.

[oldandinthe way]

A key industry group the OSTA questions the applicability of scans one drive to readability on other drives.

http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa12.htm

Media which has been written and verified and can be read by any program available on one drive may be unreadable on other drives or players.

As Krispy Kritter points out using "quality" media can lead to actually having videos which can be watched in players which might stutter, sputter and croak on other media.

Adding a scanning drive sounds to me like acquiring a new hobby. Find media which works in your player and use it consistantly. If you have to burn at a lower speed to make your player accept the disks, do so.

If you hate the whole concept of this, buy another brand of burner, throw your player out the window and buy a commodity DVDplayer. If it doesn't read what you write - return it.

If you are writing DVDs which have to read in a large variety of players, you will have to consider better media, and perhaps a better burner.

[lordsmurf]

"Adding a scanning drive sounds to me like acquiring a new hobby."

You hit the nail on the head. Scanning media is sport, for fun, nothing more. The results are so affected by a long list of variables that the tests are minimally useful taken alone.

[OneSickPup]

You hit the nail on the head. Scanning media is sport, for fun, nothing more. The results are so affected by a long list of variables that the tests are minimally useful taken alone.

I won't argue with that statement if restricted to mean quality scanning only. If that statement is expanded to include TRT's (Transfer Rate Tests) then I don't agree at all.

[oldandinthe way]

As I understand it transfer rate tests principally give you an indication as to whether error-correction is being invoked. As in all media testing I would expect that this would continue to be specific to the burner and reader involved as well as the media.

If that is the case it appears to me to be no more capable of being generalized than other media scanning or write verification.

If some other factor is being shown I welcome enlightenment.

[lordsmurf]

You hit the nail on the head. Scanning media is sport, for fun, nothing more. The results are so affected by a long list of variables that the tests are minimally useful taken alone.

I won't argue with that statement if restricted to mean quality scanning only. If that statement is expanded to include TRT's (Transfer Rate Tests) then I don't agree at all.

Of the tests available at home, TRT is more helpful than PIE/PIF/PO/jitter scanning, but still relatively useless taken alone. You need to mix tests. I've seen discs pass TRT many times, but the actual disc was very crappy in terms of reflectivity and the integrity of the data. Other times, I've seen the a disc that did beautiful on other tests jump around and make a graphic that looks like a stock market chart.

Media quality is a multi-tiered mess. Running one test on a DVD is about on par with only looking one way on a two-way street before crossing.

Of all the tests to perform, TRT is most helpful, especially to those just learning the ropes of media quality testing.

[OneSickPup]

No media testing methodology available to the average consumer is fool-proof. Yes the TRT is influenced by the hardware performing the test which is why I choose the worst reading drive I can find. The rationale being if it succeeds there it should under most conditions else where. Are their exceptions where this method fails to identify a suspect disk - sure. I'll gladly adopt a different methodology if someone suggests a better method or do we throw our hands up in despair and say it's impossible. I'm open-minded - someone lay out a method that is realistic from a time investment standpoint that better identifies suspect disks than a TRT performed on a crappy reading drive.

[oldandinthe way]

The average consumer is principally concerned with one burner and a small number of readers.

TRT testing appears to be adequate once one has experience with the reader population.

It is a measure of burn quality until the population changes and then may or may not be.

I do not have a better solution. Certainly by having disks which do not invoke error correction in the defined population, you are continue to have the margin of safety the ECC provides. But that margin of safety alone might be quite adequate for a prolonged period.

I am not certain that TRT testing provides any greater margin of safety than write verification.

According to the glossary on this site

Errors are inevitable but by means of robust error correction systems, CD and DVD can have uncorrectable error rates as low as that specified for computers, i.e., 10-12 (one uncorrectable error in one trillion).

IMHO write verification will probably catch almost all unsuccessful burns due to significant physical flaws in the disk, and you will do as well in trusting the ECC as any testing regimen.

Note that I am not claiming that this or any other testing method will guartantee compatibility with a large population of readers.

[OneSickPup]

The average consumer is principally concerned with one burner and a small number of readers.

I am guilty on that point - I do have a rather vast array of burners and other equipment available to me.

I am not certain that TRT testing provides any greater margin of safety than write verification.

In my environment it does. Data verification capabilities are no different than any other optical drive function in that they vary from one burner to the next. Data verification takes place on the drive doing the burning. By hand picking the drive I want to perform my transfer rate test I am in control of the situation I want - which is a drive with marginally acceptable ecc capabilities.

Note that I am not claiming that this or any other testing method will guartantee compatibility with a large population of readers.

We both know there are no guarantees but yes - compatibility with a large population of target drive types is the driving force behind my testing methods.

I'm not trying to be argumentative - just explaining my thought processes for people to better understand.

[oldandinthe way]

Your drives do not have marginally acceptable ECC capabilities. By virtue of their adherance to the DVD spec they have identical ECC capabilities.

Where they differ is in the incidence of correctable errors. The technology is devised so that independant of this fact the chances of an uncorrectable error are equal - about 1 in a trillion.

Your testing is measuring the incidence of correctable errors. Eliminating correctable errors is not reducing your chances of a non-correctable error.

The mathematics behind error detection and error correction codes is beyond my abilities. The concepts are reasonably clear. The chances of having a single undetected error are mathematically defined. The chances of having a single uncorrectable error are mathematically defined. Given the larger capacity of Blue-Ray media, the number of ECC bits provided has been increased to offer similar levels of reliability - the size was determined mathematically.

What is not defined mathematically is the chances of major catastrophic failure - the kind of thing that "crap" media, drives with incorrect write strategies, poor implementation of write strategies, physical damage and failing drives can generate.

Your rationale for the testing may be non-cost-effective and not applicable to your goal. But is not harmful.

I have made the repeated posts in regard to your methods, not because I wish to find fault with you but because the confusion about read errors is prevalent on this forum. And it appears that enormous time and money is being expended on a goal of zero correctable errors - a goal which the DVD specifications, media manufacturers and drive manufacturers do not accept.

[Wile_E]

No burned disc will ever get 0 PI/PIF errors. Even pressed DVD's have errors on them, if you scan them. Your DVD Drive has to have the function to read the errors. This works in conjunction with the software(DVDInfoPro/Nero/etc.) Plus you need a drive that is known to give accurate results, like some of the Lite-On drives.

[rkr1958]

I always struggle with this issue. I have an NEC ND-3500a & Plextor 712-a. I use TY02 DVD-R for SL burns on both the NEC and Plextor and Verbatium DVD+R DL (bitset to DVD-ROM) on the NEC for DL burns.

I do scans with Plextools on the Plextor drive. But the conclusion that I'm coming to is best to burn and forget. It's only when you get around to playing the burnt DVD in a player that you find out whether or not the burn was good.

[jbartosh]

Thanks for the replys, I am just going to have to rely on the burns being good. I am using ImgBurn and I don't like it, like I said I have the same images and will end up with different results, and that's because ImgBurn is fluctuatating my speeds so much, and is in some cases, halting and restarting from 0x right in the middle of a burn. I think I'm going to try and get Nero burning ROM, or just use the stupid burning utility in DVDLab. ImgBurn is just to unreliable for some reason - though I do like it's options and interface.

[lordsmurf]

If your buffers are all over the place, you need to put the burner on it's own IDE channel, don't make it share with the source of the data burned (hard drives). The flow of information is one of many variables.

External burners can also be an issue. Or burning too fast.

It sounds like a local system error you need to work out.

[oldandinthe way]

If your buffers are all over the place, you need to put the burner on it's own IDE channel, don't make it share with the source of the data burned (hard drives). The flow of information is one of many variables.

External burners can also be an issue. Or burning too fast.

It sounds like a local system error you need to work out.

You could also get buffer underruns by running higher priority CPU intensive tasks while burning.

There are background tasks which could affect CPU usage you might not be aware of. Like Microsoft Index Service, Windows Defender and various antivirus packages. All of which can cause buffer underruns. Heavy hard disk fragmentation in combination with any of the above could also affect your burns. And a spyware infection could also chew up CPU time.

Peer-to-peer downloads can also eat CPU as well as various program's automatic updates.

Defrag, & virus/spyware scan as well as checking out LordSmurfs suggestions. Check systems services and if necessary turn off MSIndex and other non-essential services. Make sure you do not have a Bit-Torrent peer active while burning.

[lordsmurf]

Do not play video games while burning discs or encoding video or audio. You'll just mess it up. Some things cannot multitask.

[AlanHK]

otherwise I have to go through an hour and a half dvd just to see if there are any problems each time.

Well, I think that fast-forwarding through the disc in the player (not PC drive), at say 48x which would take about 2-3 minutes, is a pretty good test of playability. If it does that with no obvious problems, the disc is "good enough".

[rkr1958]

otherwise I have to go through an hour and a half dvd just to see if there are any problems each time.

Well, I think that fast-forwarding through the disc in the player (not PC drive), at say 48x which would take about 2-3 minutes, is a pretty good test of playability. If it does that with no obvious problems, the disc is "good enough".

Great suggestion. Just curious about the opinions of others on this. Basicly, will playing a disc at 48x uncover the same errors, such as freezes, as playing a disc at 1x on a standalone player? Or, at 48x can you "blow through" errors that would show up at 1x?

[jbartosh]

I always go through in task manager and get rid of any useless processes before burning to free up the maximum cpu usage. Also, I never run any other process besides the burning app. My drive is a SATA not an IDE, and I don't know for sure how to check and see which IDE channel's operate what devices but I would believe, that because this is my only SATA device that it would designate it's own channel.

[lordsmurf]

otherwise I have to go through an hour and a half dvd just to see if there are any problems each time.

Well, I think that fast-forwarding through the disc in the player (not PC drive), at say 48x which would take about 2-3 minutes, is a pretty good test of playability. If it does that with no obvious problems, the disc is "good enough".

Great suggestion. Just curious about the opinions of others on this. Basicly, will playing a disc at 48x uncover the same errors, such as freezes, as playing a disc at 1x on a standalone player? Or, at 48x can you "blow through" errors that would show up at 1x?

No, that does not work at all.
It will skip over areas because the machine is not reading but fractional sections of the disc.

The most this does is find gross errors. Small errors are missed entirely.