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Philips DVD+R Media = Good or Bad; Firmware Update?
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slodaddy
Newbie
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25. March 2006 @ 06:20 |
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I have been using DVD Shrink and/or DVD Decryptor with great results up until recently. I am attributing my problem to the brand of DVD media(Philips DVD+R). I'm not sure if this is the whole story, but it seems that since I shifted from generic Office Depot DVD+R's (which seemed to work great, by the way) to the Philips brand, I have had inconsistent results.
I will go through the primary steps of burning and get the obligatory message "DVD Shrink Has Finished Burning Your DVD". I'll pop the disc back in and I don't get any error messages, but my computer wont even read it. If I put it into my home DVD player I get a "Dirty Disk" message.
My question is this: Do people think this might be a media issue? Has anyone else heard of the quality (or lack thereof) of Philips' media?
I've also heard about how there's malware out there that can be secretly installed when certain programs are downloaded. This malware is supposed to curb pirating and will wreck all kinds of havok with your drive. Could this be a possible culprit?
Lastly, this may be totally unrelated, but what does it mean to get a "firmware upgrade" and how do you do so?
Any help/advice appreciated,
Jon
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Senior Member
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25. March 2006 @ 07:24 |
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get to the stores this weekend and pick up some verbatims.. there are a lot of great sales.
i'm not sure if this is the best way to explain it.. but here goes. i'm sure others will chime in.
firmware updates are used to help improve the quality of your burning. meaning that it will help the burner handle the never and faster media. it may be updated to fix known issues with that burner. sometimes they're updated to add extre features or settings to the burner. very popular one here is booktyping.
you need to check what model drive you have.. check out the manafacturer's site to see what the latest one is. upgrade to the latest one..
i tried on that one..
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AfterDawn Addict
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25. March 2006 @ 09:02 |
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First of all slodaddy, those 'generic Office Depot discs that you've been using are made by Ritek and are coded 'RitekR03' for the 8x and 'RicohJpnR03' for the 16x ... both are considered to be quite a bit better than 'generic' ... B+ grade media to be sure ... Now the Philips ... well the +R 8x are probably CMC MagE01 which, in most experienced circles, are grade D media ... very inconsistant quality ...
As thelox714 suggested, either get yourself some Verbatim discs or {better yet} wait until Sunday and get yourself some made in Japan Sony discs, which are Taiyo Yudens ... look in the sales thread for stores having the best prices ...
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 25. March 2006 @ 09:02
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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25. March 2006 @ 09:53 |
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Firmware is the instruction set stored on a flash memory chip in the drive. It is called "firmware" because, unlike hardware that is material that cannot be changed and software that is a program, it is a program that is a "hardware part" that can be changed only by intervention. Firmware instructs the drive on what to do when the drive receives certain commands from the computer and certain information from a disc. For example, firmware identifies rewritable discs and checks to see if their speed rating is compatible with the drive. The firmware also includes a table of MID codes that are read from discs so that the drive knows how much laser power to apply and what pulse rate to use to get the best recording. If the drive does not have a particular MID code in its memory table, it will do one of three things: 1) call the disc "illegal," "dirty," or some other message; 2) refuse to acknowledge that there is a disc in the drive at all; or 3) attempt to write to the disc and hope for the best. The fact that your drive recorded to the disc but made the ADIP (the intial section of DVD+R discs that tells the drive what and how much is on the disc) so illegible that your DVD player called it a "dirty disc" is very strong evidence that the drive is incompatible with the disc and chose alternative #3 with bad results.
That most likely means that the MID code and instructions for how to burn the Philips discs is not in your drive. However, they can be added if the drive support engineers have tested the Philips discs, determined the proper write strategy, and issued a firmware update to include that MID code. A firmware update is a small program that flashes new instructions to the memory chip in the drive to fine tune its instructions and add MID codes to the memory table. If you can let us know the model of your drive and its firmware version by means of a software program, we can check to see if a new update is available for it. A new update is not guaranteed to include additional MID codes, but updates often do. The fact that the drive is not compatible with the Philips discs does not mean anything is wrong either with the drive or with the discs, but the common response is to blame the discs. Taiyo Yuden discs and Verbatim discs are most often recommended simply because they are among the most comaptible discs and their quality is excellent. CMC Magnetics has inconsistent support from drive manufacturers, and that inconsistency has led many to denigrate them despite the fact that they manufacture the same Verbatim discs that have widespread support. Check to see if your firmware is up to date before jumping to conclusions about the Philips discs and throwing them out.
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AfterDawn Addict
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25. March 2006 @ 10:50 |
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Quote:
quality (or lack thereof) of Philips' media?
Definitely lack of with philips media. Usually you'll get cmags or philips for the manufacturer. Both can give stand alone players fits,when trying to play them.
Should have stuck with those OD media.There is nothing generic about them.They use higher quality media than the Office Max/Staples/Compusa/and every other house brand.And cheaper than crappy media,when they go on sale.
I'll also confirm they will ID as Ritek in both formats of the dash format,and Ricohjpn-r03 on the +16x. This is the only house brand media that I recommend.
There's a good sale coming up and spindles of 50 for $15
Office Depot- Sony
Office Max- Verbatim 16x
Best Buy- Sony
Definite media issue,especially when your own DVD-RW drive can't play them.
What is the brand name and model# of that DVD-RW drive?
Can you locate the current firmware version on it?
Malware to prevent piracy?
Sony had a big fiasco about that a while back.I think it was on certain cds and they had to recall them. I haven't heard anything about dvds. I don't do a lot of surfing,so I stick with the sites that I know are safe.
HP a1118x-b/athlon 64-3300+/BenQ 1650 BCDC/LG 8163B/Modded Wii/Epson-R300 and Ty Watershields!!! |
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slodaddy
Newbie
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25. March 2006 @ 14:26 |
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Thanks for the helpful replies, folks. I will venture out to get me some quality media. I KNEW there had to be a catch for the Philips discs being so cheap - I picked up 2 25-pack spindles for like $12 and some change.
A little more info: my pc is a Gateway Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 1.0 GB RAM. My DVD drive is a dual-layer "Lite-On DVDRW SOHW - 1633S".
Thanks again, Jon
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dilligaf9
Member
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25. March 2006 @ 14:41 |
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Joe.. Good post and info on the firmware issue.........
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AfterDawn Addict
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25. March 2006 @ 15:30 |
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Quote:
I picked up 2 25-pack spindles for like $12 and some change.
slowdaddy: That is pretty cheap for philips media. With all of their low quality manufacturers,I never look at their prices. That's about 24 cents each. I've gotten Office Depot riteks for 20 cents each in their buy1/get 2 free.
Your litey burner has the capability to booktype the plus format to dvd-rom. This can be a huge asset for no disc errors on any dvd drive. There's a utility you can download if you are interested. It'll booktype the +r/+rw/and +r DL media to dvd-rom. This helps fool dvd players into recognizing the plus media backups.
Here's the link for the booktyping utility on lite-on drives:
http://www.liteonamericas.com/us/download_utility.htm
HP a1118x-b/athlon 64-3300+/BenQ 1650 BCDC/LG 8163B/Modded Wii/Epson-R300 and Ty Watershields!!!
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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26. March 2006 @ 13:56 |
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The latest firmware for the Lite-On 1633S is BSOS. You can find it on the same site that Saugmon suggested. It's under "firmware" on the upper left corner. Firmware updates are easy. Just don't allow anything to interrupt the update process because that will corrupt the update and disable your drive.
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slodaddy
Newbie
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26. March 2006 @ 15:18 |
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Okay, so I visited the fine folks at Lite-On and clicked on "Firmware" which took me to this page:
http://www.liteonamericas.com/us/download.htm
I went down the list, found the file that matched "SOHW-1633S
(Double Layer)" which happened to be the "DR16BS0S.zip" file. I went ahead and tried to download it and got the following messsage:
No matched drive detected!
This utility is only for LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW ? 1633S Drive
Detected Drives:
0-0-0-0 E: LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW ? 1633S BGS4
0-0-1-0 F: LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN 489S 8GS4
Am I missing something here?
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JoeRyan
Senior Member
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27. March 2006 @ 15:07 |
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Did you get the SOHW-1633S drive already installed in your computer when you bought it or was it installed afterwards? I suspect that it came with the computer and is considered by the firmware to be an OEM version supported only by the OEM computer manufacturer such as Gateway or Dell. If that is the case, then only the OEM manufacturer is allowed to provide firmware updates or support. If you bought the drive and installed it yourself, the update should have worked. The ID strings look the same (the "LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1633S"); but even if just a hyphen is different, the firmware will refuse to recognize the drive as a genuine Lite-On.
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chiefmac
Junior Member
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28. March 2006 @ 05:18 |
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I had some Philips DVD-R. They worked great for movies. Horrible for PS2 games. What made them suck was they didn't really have a speed. The package says 1-8x. WTF? Anyway, for about the same price I bought Taiyo Yuden 4x, and they're a crapload better.
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AfterDawn Addict
6 product reviews
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28. March 2006 @ 06:32 |
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slodaddy,
Your litey is most likely an oem drive with gateway firmware. BGS4 is not official lite-on f/w. One thing you can do is crossflash it with SOHW-1653S f/w which will increase write speeds and improve write strategies. You will need to use this f/w ? CS0T - patched - crossflashing - fast burn (for 1213S, 1613S, 1633S, etc.) from this page http://codeguys.rpc1.org/firmwares.html There is always a risk although slight when crossflashing so do so at your own risk. I crossflashed my retail 1633S with 1653S f/w and have never looked back. Much better burner imo. Also stay away from phillips media.
Rig #1 Asus Rampage Formula Mobo, Intel Core2Quad Q9450 CPU @ 3.55ghz, 2gb Corsair DDR2 1066 Dominator Ram @ 5-5-5-15, TR Ultra 120 Extreme w/ Scythe 9 blade 110 cfm 120mm Fan HSF, HIS Radeon 512mb HD3850 IceQ TurboX GPU, Corsair 620HX P/S, CM Stacker 830 Evo Case, Rig #2 Asus P5W DH Deluxe Mobo, Intel C2D E6600 CPU @ 3.6ghz, 2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 Ram @ 4-4-4-12-2t, Zalman CNPS9500LED HSF, Sapphire Radeon X850XT PE GPU, Corsair 620HX P/S, Cooler Master Mystique Case, Viewsonic 20.1" Widescreen Digital LCD Monitor, Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 THX Desktop Speakers, http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=348351 http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=236435This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 28. March 2006 @ 06:37
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slodaddy
Newbie
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28. March 2006 @ 10:19 |
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Well I picked up 100 Sony DVD+R RW's for $30 at Office Depot and they seemed to have done the trick - my first two burns went off without a hitch!
As for crossflashing, could someone tell me more about that? I don't know if I'm willing to risk that modification since my burn speeds are already pretty decent as is.
Thanks again everyone,
Jon
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AfterDawn Addict
6 product reviews
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28. March 2006 @ 12:04 |
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You would simply be flashing your drive to lite-on SOHW-1653S firmware instead of gateway f/w for your 1633. In the future you would be able to flash it with updated lite-on f/w for 1653's when updated versions become available. Oem f/w usually isn't updated as often as retail f/w is. The choice is ultimately yours.
Rig #1 Asus Rampage Formula Mobo, Intel Core2Quad Q9450 CPU @ 3.55ghz, 2gb Corsair DDR2 1066 Dominator Ram @ 5-5-5-15, TR Ultra 120 Extreme w/ Scythe 9 blade 110 cfm 120mm Fan HSF, HIS Radeon 512mb HD3850 IceQ TurboX GPU, Corsair 620HX P/S, CM Stacker 830 Evo Case, Rig #2 Asus P5W DH Deluxe Mobo, Intel C2D E6600 CPU @ 3.6ghz, 2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 Ram @ 4-4-4-12-2t, Zalman CNPS9500LED HSF, Sapphire Radeon X850XT PE GPU, Corsair 620HX P/S, Cooler Master Mystique Case, Viewsonic 20.1" Widescreen Digital LCD Monitor, Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 THX Desktop Speakers, http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=348351 http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=236435 |
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