i'm using an NEC 3550a with the 1.Y6 (from liggy/dee's site). i've been burning on TY DVD+R 8x discs purchased from supermediastore.com (MID: YUDEN000 T02). when i scan DVDs burned with my 3550a, i constantly find a 5-10 high PIF spike at around 690MBs. my quality score is usually between 94-96 so i'm sure it's not something i should really worry about, but i'm just curious what is causing it. i've gotten the same results when burning with 4x or 8x and the same PIF at around 690MBs when doing scans at 1x, 5x, 8x, or higher. i keep my hard drives defragmented, but even then, i can't imagine it causing a problem at the *same exact spot* on every TY disc. is this a "problem" with the TY media i've purchased or my DVD burner? i just bought some verbatim discs so i'll test those out when i get a chance.
Were they all from the same spindle? If they were they may have all had a small defect. If not, It may just be your burner , but 94-96 scores are extremely good and I wouldnt worry about it and dont give up on TYs, because they are great disks you may have just got a bad batch.
yup, they're all from the same spindle, at least package. i've read that the 100 pack TYs that are wrapped in plastic (without a spindle) are value brand TYs. others have mentioned whether they are value (cheaper) or not, they're still better than most (if not all) of the other non-TY media. i still have about 70 of these left, but plan on buying more from the other reputable online stores to see if there's a difference in batches.
those type of scans are taken far too seriously in my opinion. A far better test is to CRC scan discs, other ways are too copy/paste from one or more discs, then yu'll surely know if the data on the discs is actually ok
i've started watching some of the backups i've made and i notice a skip when it's about to change chapters. it'll freeze then go back to a beginning chapter instead of moving forward. i'm noticed this on 4 discs so far. i'm trying to figure out if the skip correlates with that PIF spike or not. would something relatively small like a 12 PIF spike cause my movies to behave that way?
NEC firmware for the ND-3550A is 1.06. Anyone other than the manufacturer who offers firmware for any drive has to have a CATs tester in his basement or bedroom (about $250,000 per format) in order to determine the proper settings. All bets are off if anyone else ("liggy/dee"?) offers his own firmware.
In one case I know about, a drive could be updated to the DL feature if certain firmware were applied. Unfortunately, that did not apply to all the drives because there was a laser diode change in the middle of the manufacturing cycle. The manufacturer knew this and did not offer any firmware update; but some "expert" found out about the possibility and offered his own custom update on his site. Everyone who tried the update on an older drive with the older diode destroyed his drive. NEVER, EVER use firmware other than that offered by the drive manufacturer. There are too many other factors involved than simply changing some ID codes.
that's very sound advice. i reflashed my firmware back to the manufacturer's original version. unfortunately, that PIF spike is still there and at the same place. the reason i use modified firmware is for bitsetting and region free features. the modified firmware comes from very respectable firmware hackers who are regulars at cdfreaks ( http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/ ). many NEC owners from cdfreaks and around the web seem to be quite satisfied by their work.
i've looked at other DVDs i've burned from the modified firmware and they don't have any problems. i'm thinking the other DVDs that have skipping might come from bad rips or bad encoding. the PIF spikes might just be the TY batch i have i suppose. thanks for the advice though.
The modified firmware from the likes of liggy & dee, codeguys et al are indeed used by many many people and are more than fine. Those guys/gals really know there stuff. Let's face it, if the manufacturers knew there stuff as much, there would simply not be a need for 3rd party firmwares. Period.
There are three parts to firmware: 1) interface (the part that receives and interprets ATAPI commands and sends them on); 2) servo control (the hardware controller); and 3) OPC (optimal/optical power control that sets the write strategies). If changes are made to the interface to eliminate regional limitations or bit settings, that can be done with little risk. Any changes to the servo controller or to the OPC sections requires test equipment that would run close to a million U.S. dollars.
Firmware settings are used by manufacturers as both political tools (reducing support for Taiwanese media for example, or fine tuning drives for certain Japanese brands--you don't have to guess which ones if you read this forum) and marketing tools (forcing users to buy new drives instead of upating their older drives--a step that will have to be taken when DL media are all manufactured by the IS (inverse stack) method instead of today's common 2P method.)
If the spikes you see on a scan occur in the same place on all media of a particular brand and type, that is a function of the scanning software misinterpreting a drive command as an error. Try different scanning software, and that "error spike" is not likely to show up at all. If the spikes do not reappear with different software, there are no problems with the discs.
