If you had to choose between

[Ian]

What's your point exactly? For the end-user, scans are mainly for comparing how different medias do on their drive. If drive X allows this at a faster speed with reasonably accurate results when drive Y allows this at a lower speed with no more accuracy than drive X, why on earth could'nt one compare these two features?

I see your point. I assumed this was going to turn into yet another drive X is more accurate than drive Y debate.

I'm sure dolph has his reasons for liking the BenQ over the NEC in regard to quality testing. The guy definitely tests enough discs.

I really did not know that BenQ drives couldn't do C2. Then again, I still use a CD-RW to test my CD's.

[dolphinius_rex]

Seems to be that the NEC overspeed more media and is the better one for cheap media.

IIRC, neither the NEC nor the BenQ will officially overspeed media (it's an unfortunate change from BenQ from the 1620, which officially oversped lots of stuff). With patched firmwares, both can overspeed just as well, I think.

The BenQ DW1640 doesn't need a hacked firmware to overspeed media anymore

[Francksoy]

"I see your point. I assumed this was going to turn into yet another drive X is more accurate than drive Y debate."

Not with me, rest assured I know there is no such thing as "accuracy" with PIE/PIF scanning as the error levels are a combination between the disc and the drive... I definitly get your point too.

Yeah, Dolphinus must have his reasons, and I'm very interested in these! I just wanted to point to some comfy aspects of the NEC

[dodecahedron]

i honestly don't remember the details of this discussion i remember it was argued about a while ago.

the drive doesn't "oficially" report C2 errors (according to InfoTool).
but it does have scanning capabilities for CD media.

[RJW]

"Bu the Benq is better for quality scans"

?? Why is that? Sure it reports jitter when the NEC does not, but the NEC reports C2 errors on CDs, when the Benq does not. So they both have good and bad points concerning scanning. Actually the C2 feature of the NEC is what made me choose it against the Benq.

Furthermore the NEC allows 16X DVD scanning with reasonable consistency in results. I doubt the Benq allows this..?

Based on the results with both drives. I can say NEC report not according to the ECMA standards. If you want to test with a NEC drive then first you need to fix your standards !.
Now I haven't seen full info on the Benq's 1640 drive but also here the info so far suggest that the drive is not reporting to the standards.
So both can not be used with ECMA standards it seems.
So to say which drive is better is not as simple as some folks here thinks.

[Gabe]

IIRC, neither the NEC nor the BenQ will officially overspeed media (it's an unfortunate change from BenQ from the 1620, which officially oversped lots of stuff). With patched firmwares, both can overspeed just as well, I think.

My NEC 3500 overspeed with official FW:

Sony 08D1 8x @16x
Sony D11 8x @12x
TY T02 8x @16x
TTG01 4x @8x
RicohjpnR02 8x @12x
TTH01 8x @16x
MCC01Rg20 4x @8x

[Francksoy]

"I can say NEC report not according to the ECMA standards. If you want to test with a NEC drive then first you need to fix your standards !"

Which means? In what aspects do the drives not comply with ECMA standards for scanning? Could you be more precise, or point to some sources?

[RJW]

Befor asking me anything please take a look at the ECMA standards yourself and then look at some scans of bad media.
I will give you a 72 hours if you still don't understand what I said above then let me know and I will put up why. Still I suggest you take a look at the ECMA standards yourself and try to find out why I made the above comments.
I think this way you might learn much more.

Now why did I react this rude ? Let me first say that it's nothing personal.
It's just because I got tired of people abusseing stuff which they hardly understand and just abuse for there 2 seconds of fame.

[Francksoy]

"Now why did I react this rude ? Let me first say that it's nothing personal.
It's just because I got tired of people abusseing stuff which they hardly understand and just abuse for there 2 seconds of fame."

I don't think you're rude, but being arrogant and patronizing, that's for sure.
I know about the ECMA standards, thanks. Do you really think that ANY newcomer is stupid or ignorant? If your reaction had been the the first one I had when arriving on these forums I would have left rightaway.

Example: you assume I don't know anything about ECMA standards and you don't even post a link to these, like any polite forum member would have done . Are you in a particular bad mood or are you just one of these self-proclaimed gurus posting on forums only to make other people feel bad about themselves??

Now concerning the 3540A and ECMA, I still have no idea why you think the NEC doesn't comply. It may report errors @1ECC like LiteOn drives, @8ECC (default) like Benq and Pioneer drives and @32ECC (who uses that anyway).
If this ECC subject has anything to do with your statement I'm sorry to say that YOU are the one abusing for your 2 seconds of fame.

Now if you really have anything interesting to say on the subject, please go on, I like to learn. But if it's only to make vague statements that none can understand, why bother.

[dolphinius_rex]

Francksoy:

Although RJW is not really known for his diplomacy, I can assure you that he really does know his stuff! Mostly he doesn't post links to things or give massive background posts about things because he lacks the time to do a really good job of it. Like myself, RJW has many things that require his attention outside this forum, and he's had to deal with a LOT of people who have zero interest in putting ANY effort into getting information. Now, I don't personally think you fall into this category at all, since your posts are too well formed, and you seem too generally interested in the subject to not be the kind of person to actually put effort into your replies.

Now, I don't actually know for sure what RJW was getting at with his post, but I'm fairly certain he was trying to point out that the way NEC inturprets a disc's error level (not neccissarily the ECC grouping thing) is really far off from the tolerances generally recommended by the ECMA. So whereas the ECMA says 280PIE is the max, according to their reading tolerances, perhaps a disc that reached 280PIE on the NEC 3500 would be completely useless in any player.

[RJW]

@8ECC (default) like Benq and Pioneer drives and @32ECC (who uses that anyway).
If this ECC subject has anything to do with your statement I'm sorry to say that YOU are the one abusing for your 2 seconds of fame.

32 ECC is something which cdspeed came up with.
If you go by the hardware doc's of Pioneer then the correct values of scan
are pie /poe (what that Pioneers poe is still quite unclear) at 8ECC.
That's what Pioneer own information states.
Now I was told that DVDinfopro scanning was based on these documents.

Which suggest the huge difference between scans in DVDinfopro and CDspeed 3 in scans.

However it looks like you partially explained your answer allready.
So I think you should be able to finish it yourself because your allready on the good road.

I think I might have made a screw up in formulation myself.

I should have typed: The drives are not reporting according to ECMA standard with software like cdspeed and dvdinfopro at this moment. (Because maybe someone else has a tool that does report correct with these drives.)

Let me give you a few hints because I didn't gave you links in the first place.
So here's your link that's for the +R Standard because -R doesn't specify PIF

http://www.ecma-international.org/publi ... ma-337.htm

And yes I know that I linked to the page which links to the PDF not the PDF directly.

hints ?
ECMA standards suggest pi 8ECC limit=280 for good media, but what is the theoretical maximum value that it can be ?
What does NEC present in cdspeed ?
Can we compare 32 vs 8 ECC ? ( this one is tricky !)

So why is the benq not recoding according to the ECMA standards why you just suggested that it does have 8ECC ?

Also I gave a rough answer earlier this month. Search arround.

I hope that you can find the answers if not then let me know and I will try to help you. Also this counts for other folks who have the same question or are interested.

Let me say the reason why I first suggest you try it yourself is that I've become tired of spending to much time(and I allready have very little time.) explaining things to people which in the end they just ignore.
I could better use the same ammount of time for pointers (like I did here.) and quick short simple answers something people do accept much more.

[Francksoy]

As my next reply on the issues you raise will probably be quite a long one and I dont have the time by now, I just wanted to thank you, meanwhile, for the change in tone...

Thanks also to Delphinus for the diplomacy

[Francksoy]

Changed my mind, will keep it short as I don't feel like trying to argue with RJW because I feel it's a lost battle.

So I'll just be more precise than my original post about the NEC 3540A and BENQ1640 scanning abilities, as think many users will be more interested in actual facts than in vague theorical babble.

The NEC3540A may be used in conjunction with CD Speed 4.01 (recommended over 3.0) to make quality scans.
Unlike previous NEC models, the scanning interval for PIF (Parity Inner Failures) may be set to 1ECC, 8 ECC or 32ECC. The scanning interval for PI (Parity Inner) errors is still 8ECC (standard) and can't be changed.
IF you want your scans to comply with the ECMA 338/337 standards, you simply have to set the PIF scanning interval to 1ECC.
Then the readings should be: PI<280 and PIF<4.
The NEC3540A doesn't report jitter.
The NEC3540 also reports C1 and C2 errors with CDs.

The BENQ1640 may be used in conjunction with CD Speed 4.01 (recommended over 3.0) to make quality scans.
Just like BEnq previous models, the scanning interval for PIF (Parity Inner Failures) is 8ECC and can't be changed, thus the Benq 1640 scans can't be set to comply to ECMA 338/337 standards.
Then the readings should be: PI<280 and PIF<32 (this is actually a simplified method of reading)
The Benq 1640A reports jitter. According to ECMA 388 this value should not exceed 8%.
The Benq 1640A reports C1 errors but not C2 errors (despite being advertized) on CDs.

Cheers

[RJW]

Okay that's half allready which I think is fair.

Let me give you some more why I say Benq/NEC with the current software is not reporting according to ECMA standards.

However I also see that ECMA 337 doesn't clearly specify it like I thought so in this case I shouldn't have acted like it was that easy. (Which I orriginally thought it was. Because some other sources did explain it very detailed.). So I appologize for being quite a bit hard in my very post.
But still it's there.

Benq/NEC ECC not according to ECMA

13.3 of ECMA 337. A complete ECC block compromises 208 rows.

Now doing some maths and interpretation. (which has been reported by quite some different sources.)

We can have 208 errors as 1 ECC BLOCK . For 8 ECC that is a maximum of 1664.
This is the maximum theoretical PI errors a drive should report at 8 ECC.

Now sometimes we see that NEC's and BENQ's drive with CDSPEED and DVDINFOPRO report over 1664 errors at 8ECC or more as 208 with 1ECC.
See topic http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... highlight=


Which is theoretical impossible if the drive is reporting it's blocks according to the ECMA standards. 2 Explanations can be made.
1 Both software algorythms sucks.
2 Drives do not report as they should.

1ECC vs 8ECC vs 32ECC.
So folks say no problem let us just multiply.
Ehh folks do not forget that the followeing is possible.
My 32 ECC result suggests: 120 which is just okay
My 4 8ECC blocks of the same sample suggest: 32 28 33 27.
However if I take the 8-ECC blocks which gave 28 that one might consist of 1 ECC blocks of 8-6-3-2-3-2-2-2.

As you can see as you move up the scale it isn't as simple anymore as just multiply so you can compare.

[Scour]

We can have 208 errors as 1 ECC BLOCK . For 8 ECC that is a maximum of 1664.
This is the maximum theoretical PI errors a drive should report at 8 ECC.

Now sometimes we see that NEC's and BENQ's drive with CDSPEED and DVDINFOPRO report over 1664 errors at 8ECC or more as 208 with 1ECC.

That´s right, I saw some quality-scans of NEC and Benq and they shows more errors than possible

http://apparat.ap.funpic.de/viewtopic.p ... 1e662#2994

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... ostcount=2

So the Liteon and Plextor the better scanners, in theoretical

[articulate]

OK, guys, a question less technical:
If I'm interested in -R and -RW recording, with good, fast, dependable write quality and good compatibility (=playability) on DVD players, which of these two drives do I buy? Full speed/functionality in an external USB 2.0 box would be nice, but is not that important. Opinions, anyone?

[Scour]

OK, guys, a question less technical:
If I'm interested in -R and -RW recording, with good, fast, dependable write quality and good compatibility (=playability) on DVD players, which of these two drives do I buy? Full speed/functionality in an external USB 2.0 box would be nice, but is not that important. Opinions, anyone?

Pioneer.

I don´t know whether an external enclosure exist with a good USB2IDE-bridge that allows 16x-speed. Maybe the icy-box come near to that speed.

[TCAS]

Look like the questioner drop the ball and left the battle long time ago. There is no use for argument.

[articulate]

...who's arguing?

[TCAS]

Don't You read the thread?.

Changed my mind, will keep it short as I don't feel like trying to argue with RJW because I feel it's a lost battle.

[RJW]

Don't You read the thread?.

Changed my mind, will keep it short as I don't feel like trying to argue with RJW because I feel it's a lost battle.

Yeah and if you read my post you also read the followeing lines.

So I appologize for being quite a bit hard in my very post.

So I don't see it as a real big argument but if I'm wrong drop me a p.m.

About NEC vs Benq tough choice.
Both drives are nice and I probally might vote my wallet between these 2 when it comes to buying a new drive. (THe one which is cheaper will be the choice. )
However if there's no significant difference and shop has them both then I think I would go for Benq. The benq has slightly better official firmware support and has SOLIDBURN so support for new/rare media should be decent. (However with the current firmware I wonder if SOLIDBURN is only there because of fake codes because Benq/Philips support really much small manufacturers 16x media at 16x. However it's allways a question if the quality is also nice at his 16x in the end.)
However for people who burn or want to burn a lot of dual layer media I would recommend the NEC. NEC supports Dual Layer media better at this moment.

[RJW]

Looks like we might blame the software manufacturers and not the drive manufacturers.
The newer versions of CD-speed are supposed to do work right with Benq's drives and a maximum 1664.
Can anyone confirm or deny this.
Just test something from which you have scans with a old version and that go over 1664.
Still not sure if NEC also is completely a software issue which hasn't been fixed.

[TCAS]

RJW; When I said no use for argument, I meant since the main questioner which was looking for the answer to find out between the two drive which one to buy has already gone, there is no use for us in this thread to argue which drive is better than the other. By no means I was referring to any discussion on the thread between the members. The full engagement of argument and exchange of ideas is very healthy thing that we should all encourage otherwise the forum becomes one-man show and opinion.

[articulate]

Well, since TCAS seems to think it's time to *close* this thread, let me quickly take this opportunity to thank the members who have tried to help me with their expertise.

[Bhairav]

Well, since TCAS seems to think it's time to *close* this thread, let me quickly take this opportunity to thank the members who have tried to help me with their expertise.

ALright, I'm locking this..