Test program for DVD's

[Blacksmit]

I am not sure that this is the right place for this question. But it seems like you guys know a bit about dvd's.

I run a rental store, and i have some advanced equipment to fix scrathes from DVD's/CD's. I also fix my customers discs for them.

My question is: Is there any program that can "test" the discs for problems.
I don't want to have to watch every movie i fix, espassialy my costumers disc, so it would be nice to have a program that scans thru the disc, and report if any sections of the disc is unreadable..

Thanx if someone can help me..

[Baldrick]

You could use Nero CD DVD Speed and use its surface scan test. See http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/burnquality.htm (mainly for burned dvd media though).

[Blacksmit]

You could use Nero CD DVD Speed and use its surface scan test. See http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/burnquality.htm (mainly for burned dvd media though).

Thanx i am trying it out right now

[Krispy Kritter]

DVDinfo Pro also works well

[Cornucopia]

ISOBuster surface scan is good too (and doesn't rely on Windows' own OS methods, so it's probably a lot more thorough).

Scott

[Blacksmit]

I have tried the nero cd dvd speed. The program is so slow when i scan dvd movies.. And it reports errors on totally new movies also.
Scan of playstations games (DVD) goes fast..

Any help??

[Grain]

Only certain DVD drives are able to give you any kind of accurate reading from quality scans. Liteon, BenQ and Plextor are three that can do it well, but even there certain models do it better than others. If you are using a different drive that could be affecting the speed your concerned about. Even "new from the box" pressed/stamped discs will show errors on scans, none are perfect, that's where a drives error correction comes in!
Some very quick & brief tips on what to look for in a quality scan are, ZERO POF's, a single PIE spike no greater than 280(ideally way lower), and with PIF's it depends a little on which program you use, and how it is set to scan, a broad statement would be ideally a single spike no greater than 8, but there are some exceptions to that.

[bendixG15]

I gave up on all the "tests" as being in the same league as Spinrite is to hard drives ...

I just stick my DVD in the player and let it play as fast as it can go. A 1 hour DVD will be played to completion in about 5 minutes.
Playing will stop and freeze at a unreadable part.
Works for me ... not perfection, but this is the real world.

[Nelson37]

Ah, Spinrite, the good old days. Actually there was a time when it could actually improve performance, and it was a good test. But not really useful today.

With any testing program, as with the "cleaning" process, there are and can be no guarantees. Explaining the interpretation of the DVD testing programs will simply not be possible for most customers. This is a truly "What you SEE is What you Get" type of operation.

An "error" reported by software may or may not result in a visible video glitch. A visible video glitch may or may not be caused by a disk error which would be reported by software.

There will be errors which are not repairable. There will be errors which can be eliminated. There will be errors which can be minimized. It's a crapshoot.

I would be interested in a complete description of the advanced equipment used, in particular any solution or substance used in combination with the polishing device.

[InXess]

I just stick my DVD in the player and let it play as fast as it can go. A 1 hour DVD will be played to completion in about 5 minutes.
Playing will stop and freeze at a unreadable part.
Works for me ... not perfection, but this is the real world.

That works for me as well and is actually surprisingly very accurate. I fast forward the DVD either in the standalone or PC usually 4x-16x (I use slower speed for known problem disks) and as indicated above you can quickly find out what area if any is bad (freezing or stutter, blockiness). In my experience all disks that FF smoothly will play without issues. I prefer this then a disk scan software.

[oldandinthe way]

PowerDVD 32x fast forward

[mikel]

I wonder how the "Deep Analysis " part of Shrink might work as a fault finder??
If it gets thru the process without hanging up, it might be a viable solution.
Mikel

[MysticE]

Here ya go.

http://specialitystoreservices.com/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=11765&link=&group=&im...g&category=608

Ah, Spinrite, the good old days. Actually there was a time when it could actually improve performance, and it was a good test. But not really useful today.

It's a great program, can still fix many problem drives and is great at recovering data. As long as it shows in the BIOS there is a good chance Spinrite can accomplish something. I'm also amazed how it can take noisy drives and quiet them.