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Verifying Media before and after burn
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 04:35 |
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What is the best way to verify media before and after burn.
Lately, I've been getting a higher percentage of crap DVD's. That is they burn without error but upon playback contain gobs of unreadable sectors. I'm assuming this is a media defect.
The disks do not appear to be scratched or damaged in any way to the naked eye. I am using jet hub printable DVD+Rs. I have had the problem with more than one brand of DVD's now.
I burn using CloneDVD and AnyDVD and occasionaly DVD43 and 1Click. Neither of these programs catch the problems on burm or offer a verify function.
Nero sucks. I won't use the memory/processor hog.
I downloaded a program called Emsa DiskChecker, seems to work ok though I'm not that impressed with it.
Is there a better program out there? And what about checking BEFORE I waste the time on a burn? Is there a way to verify media BEFORE burn?
Thanks in advance.
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wild77
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16. February 2005 @ 05:01 |
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 05:14 |
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Neither of these programs check blank media. I also downloaded CDCheck which creates hashes something that might be useful for data DVD backups and compares.
BTW, Nero's verify is total crap.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 05:15 |
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Am I correct in assuming that there is NO way to verify a blank DVD without writing to it?
Verifying after burn may be the only reliable way then. Anyone know different?
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Galbin
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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16. February 2005 @ 05:34 |
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You say Nero is a Processor/Memory hog. This implies you expect to run other applications while burning. This may be your problem...burning programs hum along quite nicely in the company of other applications, but will just skip writing if they not active when needed.
I've found the Nero verification to be quite reliable to weed out RW discs that have become contaminated, and to catch the occasional R disk that was defective.
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wild77
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16. February 2005 @ 05:34 |
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Moderator
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16. February 2005 @ 09:02 |
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yup, as per wild77, buy decent media, no multitaskin while burnin etc. oh and buy decent media !!. burn at 4x regardless of speed rating of burner or media. oh and buy decent media !!. if more peepl followed these simple rules, most of this forum would be empty as there would hardly be anything to post about :)
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:06 |
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Quote:
You say Nero is a Processor/Memory hog. This implies you expect to run other applications while burning. This may be your problem...burning programs hum along quite nicely in the company of other applications, but will just skip writing if they not active when needed.
I've found the Nero verification to be quite reliable to weed out RW discs that have become contaminated, and to catch the occasional R disk that was defective.
Nero is a processor hog. With no other applications processor utilization hovers near 100% on any machine. The burner machine currently has 2g processor in it, way more than enough. No other burning program I use cracks 25% and usually stays around 5%. Same burning speed (8x) on most disks.
Nero is a memory hog. According to task manager uses 2x-5x more memory than either 1 click or Clone. What's worse, it has memory greed. It does not release memory properly and if you leave Nero running (not even necessarily running) and watch Task Manager, you'll see memory useage continue to grow. Disc after disc, the total rises.
With burn underrun protection on I run other programs that are non-disk intensive (like web browser) and never had a problem.
I've burned hundreds of DVD's and over a thousand CD's this way. The only issues I've had were with DVD's lately. I think it is a media issue. To keep costs down I look for good deals and stay away from TY which seems to be about 3x the price on average - even worse in some cases for printables. The price doesn't seem worth it to me given the number of discs I burn and the success I've had with other media.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:10 |
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burn at 4x regardless of speed rating of burner or media. oh and buy decent media !!
Burn speed is important to me... Twice the time is half the money. I agree some of these problems would diminish at slower speeds but not media defects. Correct me if I'm wrong....
I'm still looking for a way to verify blank media before a burn... anyone know?
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:12 |
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BTW, no insult to Nero intended... a quite useful program for many things, just not to my tastes. I still use it for data backup to DVD's.
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Moderator
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16. February 2005 @ 09:32 |
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As a CD burning veteran since CD writing began all that little while ago, DVD burning is not as advanced as it could be, in my humble opinion. We all should be able to burn media at say 82 speed if kit and media comes out that advertise they are 82 speed capable. But that doesn't mean we are able to get such speeds out of our purchases (However i do believe that we SHOULD be able to get what we pay for/not have to fill whole forums up with burning problems; not saying you are but what i mean is, if these things worked as they are supposed to we wouldn't ee so very many posts re media issues). But as i say dvd burning is a new thing and i don't think it's as advanced and stable as it should be. So i stick to a few simple rules and my burns all work 100%. I use dvdinfopro to check older burns that were done on cheapy media, but the fact is (so far) my 100s of burns on verbatim have been 100%. Don't know of anything that checks blank media, but with decent media you shouldn't need to concern yourself with verifying. I think we all expect too much from PC's. ie if you could have say Sun Solaris's stability a Windows PC i'd be soooo happy. But then i woke up as we have MS Windows :)
Put it this way, i administer my company's backup strategy. I don't need to worry about verifying media as there's simply no need. Backup datasets themselves are tested frequently by restoring for hours on end (we refresh databases often), but we don't do this simply to verify the actual integrity of the data.
Hope that (probably poorly explained) analogy helps
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16. February 2005 @ 09:33
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:33 |
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I remembered that Nero CD Speed had some other utilities. Hats off to Nero. The surface scan was the best I've tried so far. No lags identifying bad sectors.
No testing of blank media though. So I'm still guessing this isn't possible? Does a disc have to be written to in order to identify bad sectors?
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:38 |
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All of the burns have been made on tier 1 or tier 2 media. Testing is indicating a smaller percentage of defectives than I was initially afraid of. I think I got a crap batch of DVD's at the bottom of the stack. So far all the defects were grouped together in the burns (consecutive blanks).
I understand what you say about media quality. I agree. However, until there are more choices for decent printable DVD's I'm stuck buying tier 2. Tier 1 printables are just too expensive. AT 3/4 times the price I would rather weed out a few burns, for now.
Yippee! I just figured out how to edit a post on this forum! Useful since there doesn't seem to be a preview feature.
Anyway... since we're talking media apparently (maybe wrong forum for this but..) can you suggest a tier 1 printable that is decently priced?
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16. February 2005 @ 09:40
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Moderator
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16. February 2005 @ 09:43 |
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yeah, i know how you feel , i burnt couple 100 movies onto bulkpaq 8x orange media. the first few (well many really) i watched were fine, but then i had sporadic skipping films. But by that time i don't know how many i've burnt/yet too watch , that are crap. Now it only takes one duff movie and i would change brand in a snap. But hopefully verbatim's will live up to their name for many many more burns to come. Where i'm gonna put them all i don't know (sighs)
Main PC ~ Intel C2Q Q6600 (G0 Stepping)/Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3/2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500/Zalman CNPS9700/Antec 900/Corsair HX 620W
Network ~ DD-WRT ~ 2node WDS-WPA2/AES ~ Buffalo WHR-G54S. 3node WPA2/AES ~ WRT54GS v6 (inc. WEP BSSID), WRT54G v2, WRT54G2 v1. *** Forum Rules ***
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 09:48 |
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I dont think I've run across any Verbatim printables... if I do I might try them, though elsewhere on the net Verbatim has gotten less than great marks.
If I had more time I would burn at 4x. Probably comparable to burning at 8x and then running a scan... but at least with the scan I know the disc/burn is good.
Edit: Actually the Datalife Plus gets good marks... don't seem to have any printables though (sigh)
Then again, at 4x, if all defects were negligible, after a while scans would become less necessary. On the other hand, the idea of skipping verification seems not so good.
So for now I think I'm stuck with 8x and a scan before I go on to the next target.
A fast surface scan of a blank disc sure would be good though....
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16. February 2005 @ 11:06
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wild77
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16. February 2005 @ 11:31 |
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Quote:
I'm still looking for a way to verify blank media before a burn... anyone know?
PlexTools FE/TE test can be used to test the quality of blank CD/DVD media,it will also tell you the maximum burn speed.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 13:31 |
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But their website says it only works with Lite-On drives...?
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bruceb3
Junior Member
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16. February 2005 @ 16:08 |
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PlexTools only works with Plextor drives, not LiteOn.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 11:33 |
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My mistake - there was another one called k- something. Like Plextools it only worked on a specific drive - in that case Lite-On.
I used the Nero surface scan to weed out ehich burns were bad. Out of the last batch of ProDiscs approx 15% failure rate. A lot higher than I expected.
Still looking for something that will identify bad media BEFORE burn. It needs to work on an HP530i burner.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 11:40 |
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Quote:
PlexTools FE/TE test can be used to test the quality of blank CD/DVD media,it will also tell you the maximum burn speed.
Does it burn to the disc to do this? I'm assuming it must. So like DVDinfopro and Nero among others these tools can be used to evaluate a general lot/brand of discs (manufacture) but not to determine whether a specific disc will burn without surface flaws BEFORE hand... Right?
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bruceb3
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 13:12 |
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I had a failure rate of about 15% with the last batch of Prodiscs (F01). But I haven't had a bad burn out of the last 50 Verbatim's (printable). I'm so confident with these Verbatim's, I only verify about every third or forth one. With the Prodiscs, I had to verify every one.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 13:26 |
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Where do you get you're Verbatim printables and are they hub printables?
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bruceb3
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 13:36 |
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The first batch of 50 weren't hub printables and every one burned perfectly. I just received 100 Verbatim hub printables from meritline.com today. They identify as MCC 02RG20 with DVD Identifier. I'm getting ready to burn a disk now. Will let you know how it goes. They were $69.99 + $16.66 2nd day air for 100 dvd-r's though. I'm so sick of finding a bad burn and having to go back and verify the last 10 or 20 I burned, that I'm willing to pay more knowing they're good disks.
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MooreBaby
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 14:24 |
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Let me know how the hub batch goes.... I'll check meritline, the last 2 orders I placed there, they charged my card and then sent me an email saying stuff was on backorder... I hate that! took 30 minutes on the phone to cancel the order.... they also didn't seem to have a tracking feature... can you track your orders once they are shipped?
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bruceb3
Junior Member
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17. February 2005 @ 14:31 |
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I ordered them on Sunday and they sent me a confirmation e-mail on Monday. They shipped on Tuesday and I got them today (Wednesday). It shouldn't take 2 days to ship, but my shipping address and billing address are different. By the way, this first burn went good.
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