Quality Checking copies

[OldPhart]

Hi, I've just opened an account here but have looked around the site for years.
I have had concerns about whether the DVD's I have burned recently are of good quality, especially to dual-layer media.
I have been running Nero's Disc Speed to run a Disc Quality test on my burned DVD's, and so far I am getting mostly 0 quality results on dual-layer discs. The most extreme bad results I got was an average of 63 PI failures, and 15 Million failures total for the whole disc!
Single-layer burns have much better quality results.

So, I am wondering if any of you have done similar testing, and opinions on whether this type of test is accurate for testing DVD video on recordable media? It could be that I am working with crappy media, or my burner is not doing a good job, or both. (It's a Lite-On 20x model, SATA interface, in use for only 2 months or so, latest firmware rev.)

If this is already covered in a thread here and I missed it, you can just point me to it, thanks in advance!

[nic2k4]

What tells you this is a 0 quality result? For dual layer discs this is pretty acceptable.

[highvolumeJP]

Please provide more information - what is the exact model number of your LITEON - I use a LITEON 20A1P, have used dual layer media with it and while dual layer media generally has higher error rates, it is well within specs - NEVER have I gotten that many failure rate, that is NOT normal. - What media are you using ? I hope you're not using the cheap crap dual layer media, you get what you paid for. For Dual Layer and peace of mind, stick to verbatim ! I did use some samples of the MBI DVD+DL and they had very decent numbers too - so something is wrong. And yes I use NERO CD Speed - my individual PI rate never exceeds 10, and the general average ranges from 2 to 4 - the total across entire DVD usually 20k-40k, actually anything 100k or less is very good - for PIF, individuals are mostly 1, occasional 2s although rare, and totals <300. Have you tried running a transfer test ? That test is important too - look for any spikes. Try also burning with a non dual layer disc and check your disc, to rule out a bad burner - and stick to quality media - My LITEON loves the Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim discs! even the DL ones (for Verbatim) - Usually the specs for error rates are individual PI <280, PIF <4 - there are many other variables in measuring disc quality like reflectivity, etc. that cannot be measured with consumer software - those require a special drive. A disc burnt with a high error rate might be handled fine on your PC, but have problems on your standalone DVD players - some are very fussy others can handle PI errors in the 400-500 - some DVD players will crap out on less, with playback freezing, skipping, etc.

[guns1inger]

When it comes to DL discs, the only consistent and reliable media across a range of burners and playback devices is Verbatim DL +R discs. While others, including myself, have had limited success with other brands, the consistency of the burns simply does not compare.

When it comes to burning DL discs, Imgburn is the weapon of choice. Nero is a mediocre DVD burning application for single layer discs, and should never be used for dual layer burning.

[highvolumeJP]

What about O.N.E.S. that's a good one too for burning all kinds of CD/DVDs. I use TMPGenc DVD Authoir 3.0 to author my DVDs and its built-in burning engine which is quite good.

[guns1inger]

ONES is great. I use it for audio, although now I use Imgburn for everything else simply because it is easier. I still would not use ONES for DL burning.

[highvolumeJP]

ONES is great. I use it for audio, although now I use Imgburn for everything else simply because it is easier. I still would not use ONES for DL burning.

Well I use NERO for burning CD audio - what I like about NERO is that you can import a WAV file with cue marks and it will split them to tracks and since I do a lot of my own CD audio, I work with a single WAV file that is indexed with cue markers. IMGBURn and other burning tools don't support cuesheets, it's a shame...even O.N.E.S. doesn't.

[guns1inger]

I have never had the need to split a single wav file using cue sheets, so it is not something I need or miss having. And splitting manually would be a small price to pay to avoid having Nero installed on a perfectly good PC.

[highvolumeJP]

I have never had the need to split a single wav file using cue sheets, so it is not something I need or miss having. And splitting manually would be a small price to pay to avoid having Nero installed on a perfectly good PC.

I use a lite version that came with my LITEON recorder, NERO Express 7, I use only the NERO burning component, all the other bloated junk is not installed, unlike the Ultimate version which has tons of crap !

Luckily in Cool Edit Pro there is a feature that auto saves and splits your cue sheet into seperate files, if memory serves, I never used that feature.

[OldPhart]

Well I see we have gotten off topic. (not a problem, the activity gets my post read more!)

I realize now that the media I was using is crap, and I won't touch it any more.
It is Verbatim or nothing from now on. I have some here but had been using
the others first. After burning to a Verbatim, got a quality score of 23, but that
is because I had two brief spikes at the very start of the disc and at layer change.
The rest of the burn was low and consistent error/PIF rates, and I am sure this
disc will play fine for me.

I really don't need any grief or surprises that the discs I burned are junk,
so I feel that the burner and so forth are fine, the blame all goes to crap media.

Thanks to those who posted with helpful responses.

[JohnnyBob]

I don't know!
To hear Lord Smurf tell about it, results with Nero DiscSpeed are meaningless. See my recent post in another thread here.
I've used Nero DiscSpeed regularly to check my burns for over a year, because it's the only way I know. What else is there? But it might be pointless and a waste of time. Even with terrible quality scans, the movies still play OK on my standalone DVD players when using Verbatim DL discs. The only other kind of DL media I've tried is Ritek and those didn't play very well on my standalone DVD players.
That's really the issue (isn't it?) - do they play OK?
And the Nero DiscSpeed quality scans seem not be be an indicator in that regard.
The only other indicator that's readily available is verification after the burn, which I always run, and it almost invariably says the disc is OK (except MII gives me much higher failure rates than MIS). But I've seen some people attack that criterion too. So I really don't know anything about anything!
That leaves us all in the lurch about longevity of the discs, i.e. we just don't know, and can't know in advance.
That is, if you believe Lord Smurf and cohorts here on these forums who claim that they know what's best, but provide no easily verifiable scientific facts or measurements to back it up. Maybe they do know. I don't know.
If you go over to the CD Freaks forums, they have a different take on all of this. They give more credence to the Nero DiscSpeed scans, etc.
So it all boils down to - who do you trust? Who is smartest? Who knows the most? And again, I've been reading about this topic for quite awhile, and bottom line is -- I still don't know! It looks like we're all skating on thin ice in this area, no matter what we say. Nothing is for sure. It's an area without any scientific knowledge whatsoever, at least not that's available to ordinary folks like you and me

[fritzi93]

Yes, it's debatable just how much credence to give to disc scans. And some burners just don't give good scan results, even when the burn is good. Dunno off the top of my head which ones currently, but you could go to CDfreaks and investigate if you're so inclined.

I don't burn the quantities others do, and can do a disc quality scan each time. If I get a suspicious result, I'll do an ISO compare with DVDinfoPro. BTW, my Liteon scans better than my Samsung.

Good luck.

[stiltman]

All I do is a verify after burning. If the verify passes, then all the data is there. If I have problems, I know I can always rerip it and burn it again

[lordsmurf]

, but provide no easily verifiable scientific facts or measurements to back it up.

The science is that there are MANY variables at work when you try to scan. The hardware, the software and the discs all have several factors each, and if just one of these factors is imperfect, the entire test is misleading. And it is pretty much impossible to get that "perfect" scenario.

If you've been following the "scanning scene" for that past 5-7 years, you'll notice that the people who claim it to be the "end all, be all" of quality checking can't make up their mind either. They're always changing their minds on which drives, disc and software is "best" -- not to mention which is the tests is "more reliable".

The scans have limited value, yes. But to trust them 100% is an exercise in stupidity -- it's about on par with trusting a politician 100%. It is a complicated topic, and there are so many exceptions to so many rules, that it's almost impossible to explain.

The only way to test a disc is with a battery of different tests. Scanning is fine. But so is something as simple as checking it's readability in players and DVD-ROMs, making bit-for-bit copies, and ripping an ISO with a zero-retry setting. Even flipping the disc over and looking at it with your own eyes can be telling, as some errors are completely visible.

It's too easy to get a "false positive" on many of the software-based testing methods. So for that reason, they are secondary to the more obvious "does the disc work" type testing.

[jman98]

highvolumeJP - There's nothing at all wrong with using Nero for audio CD burning and even burning of ISOs and data discs. I would not use it for anything else except maybe making a mixed format CD. ImgBurn is a great program but it offers no advantages of any kind when it comes to making audio CDs and everything we criticize Nero for has nothing to do with audio CDs.

I think lordsmurf's post right above mine is excellent he's right that engaging in such scans is a big waste of time. I'd say that if you want to do it as a hobby and you get some kind of enjoyment out of it, that's fine, but it's not really helpful as a measure of true quality. Using high quality media, which in North America these days means Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim and nothing else, is your best bet to have good quality burns.