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Dual-Layer DVDs (DVD9s)
- Thread starter vebk
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QUOTE(nosh @ Apr 8 2007, 10:24 PM) [snapback]86762[/snapback]
Aren't you killing the drive's life?? I'm way too lazy/impatient to run such tests.[/b]
Not really, scanning the drive just reads the DVD. The avg life of a drive (MTBF) is quoted as 3000 writes, in reality its probably lower than that. i;d say closer to 2000.
QUOTE(nosh @ Apr 8 2007, 10:24 PM) [snapback]86762[/snapback]
I never needed a DVD writer coz I don't write too much data and the CD writer sufficed. Am planning to pick one up tomorrow... any recommendations for DVD writer makes? Judging by the CD writers I've bought Sony seems to be pretty reliable but the Samsung I installed on my mom's PC is total crap.
Also reg. DVD-R media - I'm not talking double-layered here - any recommendations?[/b]
The same quality tests i was talking about apply to cd-r's as well. Thing is you need a drive that can actually perform such a test. Liteon & BenQ's are the only ones that i know of that can do this. But BenQ's optical storage division was sold to Liteon last July so you are only left with liteOn now. Which is actually a pretty big name in the OEM space. A lot of branded writers are just re-badged Lite-on's. Sony does not make drives, they are sourced from others and they just stick their label on it. Even Plextor's 740 is actually a BenQ. Most ppl in the are dissapointed by the loss of BenQ, the one drive that wrote very well compared with the competition. That's not to say LG or Pioneers can't do as well, the prob is they don't allow to scan for quality so as long a you have a drive that can scan, you can go buy whatever you want and then verify how well it wrote.
for dvd-r media, there is only moser-baer available here, i've got good results with it in the past, but recently the batch i got has been quite average to say the least. How did i know this ? quality tests. My next batch will still be moser-baer i might have to write them at something ridiculous like 2x 🙁
Sony's here are made in Taiwan, did not see a great scans for them on the cdfreaks site. the made in japan are another story however, but forget ever seeing those in this country. Why would a vendor store something thats nearly twice the price as the average ? Verbatim is also available but i've not got any. The other brands you get here with the funky names are just b-grade moser-baer.
Aren't you killing the drive's life?? I'm way too lazy/impatient to run such tests.[/b]
Not really, scanning the drive just reads the DVD. The avg life of a drive (MTBF) is quoted as 3000 writes, in reality its probably lower than that. i;d say closer to 2000.
QUOTE(nosh @ Apr 8 2007, 10:24 PM) [snapback]86762[/snapback]
I never needed a DVD writer coz I don't write too much data and the CD writer sufficed. Am planning to pick one up tomorrow... any recommendations for DVD writer makes? Judging by the CD writers I've bought Sony seems to be pretty reliable but the Samsung I installed on my mom's PC is total crap.
Also reg. DVD-R media - I'm not talking double-layered here - any recommendations?[/b]
The same quality tests i was talking about apply to cd-r's as well. Thing is you need a drive that can actually perform such a test. Liteon & BenQ's are the only ones that i know of that can do this. But BenQ's optical storage division was sold to Liteon last July so you are only left with liteOn now. Which is actually a pretty big name in the OEM space. A lot of branded writers are just re-badged Lite-on's. Sony does not make drives, they are sourced from others and they just stick their label on it. Even Plextor's 740 is actually a BenQ. Most ppl in the are dissapointed by the loss of BenQ, the one drive that wrote very well compared with the competition. That's not to say LG or Pioneers can't do as well, the prob is they don't allow to scan for quality so as long a you have a drive that can scan, you can go buy whatever you want and then verify how well it wrote.
for dvd-r media, there is only moser-baer available here, i've got good results with it in the past, but recently the batch i got has been quite average to say the least. How did i know this ? quality tests. My next batch will still be moser-baer i might have to write them at something ridiculous like 2x 🙁
Sony's here are made in Taiwan, did not see a great scans for them on the cdfreaks site. the made in japan are another story however, but forget ever seeing those in this country. Why would a vendor store something thats nearly twice the price as the average ? Verbatim is also available but i've not got any. The other brands you get here with the funky names are just b-grade moser-baer.
Thanks guys. I did a little more research online and have decided on Liteon LH-20A1P. May even go for the LH-20A1H (it's the same thing with LightScribe support) if the price difference is nominal. Hope these are available!
Also checked out LG H42N but was really put off by this. I suppose he's just unlucky but it's made my decision easier.
Will also check out prices and mention them here for LightScribe discs if they're available, since some of you have shown an interest.
Also checked out LG H42N but was really put off by this. I suppose he's just unlucky but it's made my decision easier.
Will also check out prices and mention them here for LightScribe discs if they're available, since some of you have shown an interest.
I'd read their review there (just the conclusion) which gave it a thumbs up. The full review is HARDCORE and has like a 100 screenshots :blink:
There are some "scans" posted here - I can't make head or tails of anything - could you please check it out and give me some feedback?
The only thing freaking me out is I've just realised it's a very new model - selling in the US for sure. Some guy on ebay India has a few pieces but I duno if it's available at Lamington Road. Someone said the drives are made in China so geographically speaking we should get them before Uncle Sam - but maybe I'm just being optimistic 😛
PS: Also, there was some talk about 'bitsetting' in the review. Are there some recommended tweaks that need to be made in Nero?
There are some "scans" posted here - I can't make head or tails of anything - could you please check it out and give me some feedback?
The only thing freaking me out is I've just realised it's a very new model - selling in the US for sure. Some guy on ebay India has a few pieces but I duno if it's available at Lamington Road. Someone said the drives are made in China so geographically speaking we should get them before Uncle Sam - but maybe I'm just being optimistic 😛
PS: Also, there was some talk about 'bitsetting' in the review. Are there some recommended tweaks that need to be made in Nero?
Not really, if you understand the tools used for those graphs. Liteon has its own quality program called KProbe. It does not have quality scores, instead you look at the PI Max & PF Max numbers, which must be within a certain range for a good write.
Nero's CD-DVD speed can also be used, look up how to understand CD-DVD Speed. An earlier guide is also here. There's a fair bit of reading to do, but once you get the idea, things get simpler afterwards. The quality scores is what you need to understand, the read transfer tests are for drives that don't support quality scanning, they are a useful addition but i mainly use just the quality test.
The other link you posted shows how well it writes for different media using various firmwares. They are comparing here how good the write quality is compared to earlier firmware builds. Idea being if ppl report they are getting better writes, then you upgrade to the latest & greatest firmware or stick with the same. Bitsetting is done by the drive software itself, with my BenQ there was another program included that makes these settings. I get better burns with MB's +R. About Lightscribe, provided all you want to do is print text, then it will be fine, if you want to include anything more fancy like photos then the quality might not be what you expect.
Given a choice i would say buy, a BenQ 1640/1650, if you are lucky enough to find one, i have not done enough research on this liteon drive to recommend it, it looks ok on first glance, what other Lite-on's are available ? sometimes the latest is not always the best.
i'm used to seeing better quality scores with the Benq, good is >95, ok is 90-95, 90 and below is average to crap. Highest i saw with this liteon on, that too with Taiyo Yuden media was 95, which i expect is pretty good for a liteon but only ok for a BenQ.
Liteons are very forgiving readers, they read anything. My priority when getting a dvd writer was how well it wrote, strictly for backups that too for the odd few that was not saved to HD, i did not care to play games or copy stuff from it at all.
Nero's CD-DVD speed can also be used, look up how to understand CD-DVD Speed. An earlier guide is also here. There's a fair bit of reading to do, but once you get the idea, things get simpler afterwards. The quality scores is what you need to understand, the read transfer tests are for drives that don't support quality scanning, they are a useful addition but i mainly use just the quality test.
The other link you posted shows how well it writes for different media using various firmwares. They are comparing here how good the write quality is compared to earlier firmware builds. Idea being if ppl report they are getting better writes, then you upgrade to the latest & greatest firmware or stick with the same. Bitsetting is done by the drive software itself, with my BenQ there was another program included that makes these settings. I get better burns with MB's +R. About Lightscribe, provided all you want to do is print text, then it will be fine, if you want to include anything more fancy like photos then the quality might not be what you expect.
Given a choice i would say buy, a BenQ 1640/1650, if you are lucky enough to find one, i have not done enough research on this liteon drive to recommend it, it looks ok on first glance, what other Lite-on's are available ? sometimes the latest is not always the best.
i'm used to seeing better quality scores with the Benq, good is >95, ok is 90-95, 90 and below is average to crap. Highest i saw with this liteon on, that too with Taiyo Yuden media was 95, which i expect is pretty good for a liteon but only ok for a BenQ.
Liteons are very forgiving readers, they read anything. My priority when getting a dvd writer was how well it wrote, strictly for backups that too for the odd few that was not saved to HD, i did not care to play games or copy stuff from it at all.
Just got the Liteon LH-20A1P (no Lightscribe support, forgot to even ask if he has the Lightscribe model available - shows how much I care about that)I paid 1875/-, my regular vendor probably gives the best prices on Lamington Road.Bought just 10 Moser Baer Pro DVD R loose @ 16.50 a piece. These don't have a + or - printed, I assume they're -RThanks for all the info. Will go through it quickly to get the gist of things. Haven't even opened the writer yet, will give some feedback on results once I get a hang of running the tests, etc.Now some good news for those who were interested in Lightscribe media. Though they are not readily available at Lamington road, one of the main vendors had Lightscribe CDRs available. No clue about DVDs. The CDs are available for Rs.20 a piece but the stipulation is you've gotta buy a spindle of 100 - so basically 2k, which ain't exactly cheap. The good news is they're MoserBaer! 🙂If anyone is interested in knowing where this guy's located, just ask here.
QUOTE(nosh @ Apr 9 2007, 04:23 PM) [snapback]86831[/snapback]
Bought just 10 Moser Baer Pro DVD R loose @ 16.50 a piece. These don't have a + or - printed, I assume they're -R[/b]
No need to assume, if you check it with this or just look at the Disc Info Tab of Nero CD-DVD speed.
if its +R then the code is MBIPG..
if its -R then the code is MBIRG...
A useful FAQ about optical media is here
Bought just 10 Moser Baer Pro DVD R loose @ 16.50 a piece. These don't have a + or - printed, I assume they're -R[/b]
No need to assume, if you check it with this or just look at the Disc Info Tab of Nero CD-DVD speed.
if its +R then the code is MBIPG..
if its -R then the code is MBIRG...
A useful FAQ about optical media is here
blr_p: Yup - it's a DVD-R, I didn't need to decipher any codes, the identifier probably recognized a n00b and laid it out in plain English 😉
I'll be checking out cdfreaks in depth in a couple of days for FAQs etc.
The first DVD I tried burning at 16x failed, the second attempt at the same speed (with simulation) worked but with data verification the whole thing took around 12 minutes.
This article says that the model currently has issues writing DVD-R at top speed. It's faster than every other writer when it comes to writing DVD+R but Mr.Genius here was smart enough to get only DVD-Rs 🙄 Hopefully this should be resolved in a firmware update. I don't mind the few extra minutes wait for now but is minimizing the write speed the only thing I can do to minimize coasters? There was ample CPU+RAM available and the Ultrabuffer was set to max.
I'll be checking out cdfreaks in depth in a couple of days for FAQs etc.
The first DVD I tried burning at 16x failed, the second attempt at the same speed (with simulation) worked but with data verification the whole thing took around 12 minutes.
This article says that the model currently has issues writing DVD-R at top speed. It's faster than every other writer when it comes to writing DVD+R but Mr.Genius here was smart enough to get only DVD-Rs 🙄 Hopefully this should be resolved in a firmware update. I don't mind the few extra minutes wait for now but is minimizing the write speed the only thing I can do to minimize coasters? There was ample CPU+RAM available and the Ultrabuffer was set to max.
Coasters should not be happening at 16x, the moser-b's you have are specd to do that. However your burner claime it can do 20x, but i'm not sure if i've seen any 20x media around. I think the firmware will sort that out.Quality test at different speeds, and you will find a sweet spot which gives you the best write quality. With my BenQ that happened at 8x, but last batch was average so i slowed it down to 4x.There is a feature in the liteOn that allows it to learn from previous writes of the same media and get better, you might want to switch that on.
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