Nero CD-DVD Speed, a great tool

[Chewy]

The latest version is worth downloading even if you already have a version with nero.

http://www.cdspeed2000.com/

put a blank in your dvd burner and then click on the Disc Info tab

MID : YUDEN000 T02 (000)
Write speeds: : 4 X - 8 X - 8.0 X - 12 X

you'll see the important stuff, like the MID code and supported write speeds,
in this case my LG 4163B burner's firmware allows burning at 12x on this 8x dvd+r media, notice also the little picture of a floppy on the top right, here's where you save a png picture of the screen. Or there's a copy text option at the bottom right.

Now let's sacrifice a blank in the interest of science, go to the benchmark tab, then run test at top and select create data disk. The top line of the graph shows the actual burn speed, the sharp dips are the drive pausing as speed shifts or increases.

For the next part this time just choose transfer rate under run test. Now we get a graph of how smooth the burn can be read(or transfered), smooth is best, squiggles aren't, sharp drops are bad. You can see the result of a good media and a good burner, the LG reads it's burn almost perfectly, a little slow but that's what make the LG such a good reader.

note for those of you with newer samsung burners and wishing to do quality scans, you will have to enable that in the registry with the attached files, note there are 2 versions, 32 bit and 64 bit, if you have to ask which one to use, you have 32 bit

[Chewy]

part 2

Now I have to move the disk to another drive that supports Disk Quality ,
another tab. In this case an nec 3550, here it starts to get complicated, many drives don't support this kind of scan. Later models Liteon, Benq, and Nec do with varying degrees of success, the important thing here is finding out the right speed for your drive to scan with. When in doubt use 8x until you find out
the best setting.
The top graph is parity inner errors, expect a lot, but unless they get horrible they won't cause any problems, the bottom graph is parity inner failures, they are more significant, when they are large enough they lead to parity outer failures, and that's when you have a bad burn.
I get a bad graph, indicating my sony media is not what it used to be, my LG is showing it's age and my Nec is only a fair scanner(might be time to clean it).
I will now do a transfer test with the NEC. It shows why a quality scan can be too picky, of course the blank was burned at 12x on 8x media.
The transfer test is smooth even up to the 16x speed

[Chewy]

part 3

next I move the disk to my best scanner, my Beng 1650, it supports jitter and PO(parity outer)failure reporting, there's no use doing a transfer test with it, since it's almost as good a reader as the LG drive.
Here I am seeing the LG show it's age, jitter is getting high(10-13%).
This scan also makes me think the nec is also showing it's age.

[sonic_emperor]

i still find some functions confusing...i had a ritekgo5 that wouldnt play at 30% of a disc,so i ran the disc scan - read scan,and got all green,then tryed disc quality test,and at 30% got pink markers instead of yellow LOL - disc quality =0
so i ran scan disc - c1/c2... test and it found a lot of damaged areas...
why wouldnt read test find these,after all,all a dvd player does is reading a disc/dvd
now i know this was ritekgo5 but anyways...
also dont understand why is the quality mark different for different speeds...if a disc is bad,it should be bad at all speeds..
now this is far away from me telling that this is not a good tool as it really is,but it would be better if i understood some of these above...
call me stupid if you wish,but i still didnt get that far to understand these things


EDIT...SORRY didnt think youre going to write more....

[soup]

Came this close

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[Chewy]

part 3 is the last part, that's fine, try a transfer test and limit read speed to
4x

file/options/standard tests

this will show you if the data is intact at 4x

soup,
have you been saving that media?

[soup]

Yes I have just for times like this but it does prove the point about using good media doesn't it?

[geno888]

With latest version of cd-dvd speed is also possible to show buffer and CPU use. If you select the "create disc" tab, it's possible to do a more accurate test like this. I did this burn using an ISO file, not the create data disc option.

It's a Verbatim -R 16x made in India burned @16x with my liteon 1693, firmware KS0A (not latest available: this still give me good results).

The little drop in the TRT is caused by the USB interface. I use a liteon 16P9 to di TRT because is a little picky. In this way if reading curve ig good with a picky reader, I know that the burn is good. This drive is on an external box connected with USB. It's an economical box, and the max speed allowed is 14x. I did the TRT also with the burner (curve perfect), but I forgot to save the pic

[Chewy]

geno I would set the max read speed for 12x in the usb drive, that way I would know what a glitch was caused by

[geno888]

geno I would set the max read speed for 12x in the usb drive, that way I would know what a glitch was caused by

This is a great idea, I didn't think to this. I'll do with my next tests. Right now I don't remember where I put this specific disc, so I can't do the test.

Thanks for the suggestion

[Chewy]

I am using cdspeed to burn an iso now, seems weird tho. I really glad you mentioned that option as I have never used it.

I chose 8x for the burn speed on my nec 3550 and the YudenT02 media, no more 12x.
glad to see this burn as it shows there's still life in the nec 3550

[geno888]

You're welcome

I like this new feature. In this way is also easier to associate some PIF spikes with buffer emptyings or CPU's peak utilization.

In new version is also possible to set priority as High: I suggest you to set in this way, because this reduce influences by other processes running when you do a burn or a scan.

[Gary D]

@ geno888, soup, and Chewy

This was a great start to a FAQ!! I have 100 memorex to waste. I could add what garbage does at different burning/scanning speeds with the NEC 3550. Sorry no BenQ for jitter. An explanation of how different scanners record PIE/PIFs and LGs lack of this scan (for now)

[geno888]

Hi Gary

Take a look at this thread in CDF: it contain a lot of info regarding how to interpret scans

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=80545

[Gary D]

Thank you geno888. I bookmarked that for future reference!