Picked up a Memorex 525g 18x today UPDATED, Scans added

[Dartman]

Staples has a sale on the Memorex this week and Ian said the one he got was a LG h22n so I went down and picked one up to see. Yup, appears to be a 22n according to the review pictures and what I just picked up. Just put it in my external bay and tried to write a Sony TYG03 disk at 18x but the firewire crapped out at just over 17x. Have to do more testing but so far appears promising.
So if anyone wants to test drive a LG 18x and doesn't mind paying 50 for a Memorex box with software and cables etc included this might be a good deal for some of you. I'll try and post a few results later after I get it dialed in, PC is busy doing some other burns right now that will take a bit.

[Wesociety]

Nice. A new addition to the Dartman burner family.

Let's see a few scans when you have a chance

[Dartman]

Yep, Everybody wants disks from me today so been pretty busy, just the one test burn and a few reads with it so far.
Even with it dropping back at the end it did a 5:15 burn

[Wesociety]

Even with it dropping back at the end it did a 5:15 burn

That's a respectable full DVD burn time.

[Ian]

Memorex or not, $50 is a good price for a retail drive.

On a semi-related note, has anyone been able to turn bitsetting off? It's on by default and CD Speed doesn't have any effect on the drive.

[Dartman]

Got a bunch of scans done, range from really bad at the end to pretty good.
Best time at 18 so far was 5:04, average is about 5:14. Most of those CRC scan fine even with the bad spots at the end.

[Wesociety]

Wow, that first 18x burn quality scan looks pretty good!

The 8x TY looks good, but the other 18x burns look like crap at the end.
But I suppose it is difficult to get good quality at 18x burn judging from most of the 18x burned disc quality scans I've seen, so 16x is probably the max to go with if you really don't want to jack up the disc quality at the end of a burn...

[Dartman]

Yeah, between variably good to bad disk in the same spindle and a few with outer edge minor scratches it's hard to say what it really burns like sometimes.
The shop brand MCC disk are all over the map, most are not quite as bad as the awful one at the end even on my BenQ's, then you get the occasional really good disk outa the pack like the good burn.
IF they start giving out better firmwares the drive could be godlike I think but LG is known to be stingy with updates, and some of my 16x stuff only does 12x with it, though maybe after seeing the scans thats by choice on their part. Also my other drives burn that TY 8x stuff at 12 to 16 with excellent results...

[Ian]

I take it you flashed it with the LG firmware? Do you know if 1.02 supports RITEKF1 at 16x or 18x?

[Dartman]

I did the Dangerous Brothers flash, it ignores the drive type and just flashes it. I think it will now let you set the disk type too.
I'll have to try the Riteks, I think I have some, if the ones I just did where it it was 16x, I'll have to double check and report back.

[ala42]

Do you know if 1.02 supports RITEKF1 at 16x or 18x?

My bet is 4x write speed

[Dartman]

And the winner is....DING..DING..DING...4x, thank you for playing

[Ian]

That's what I thought. It looks like Memorex got them to support RITEKF1 at 16x.. probably because that's what they're selling these days.

[Dartman]

Well I don't have the OEM firmware on it now so who knows. I don't think they even list firmware on the Memorex site, pretty sure I checked in case they had the 1.02 in their version.

[Wesociety]

Yeah, between variably good to bad disk in the same spindle and a few with outer edge minor scratches it's hard to say what it really burns like sometimes.
The shop brand MCC disk are all over the map, most are not quite as bad as the awful one at the end even on my BenQ's, then you get the occasional really good disk outa the pack like the good burn.

Sounds like some B grade MCC004 that was sold off to a shop brand.

4x on RITEKF1 with official LG firmware? Give us a freakin break LG !
I guess the best possible scenario would be if you could import the "special" strats from the Memorex firmware into the official LG firmware. I don't know if there is a tool out there that allows you to do that, just rambling here...

[ala42]

4x on RITEKF1 with official LG firmware? Give us a freakin break LG !
I guess the best possible scenario would be if you could import the "special" strats from the Memorex firmware into the official LG firmware. I don't know if there is a tool out there that allows you to do that, just rambling here...

Who said the Memorex firmware allowed 16x burning on 16x Memorex branded RITEKF1 ?

[Ian]

Who said the Memorex firmware allowed 16x burning on 16x Memorex branded RITEKF1 ?

I don't have any of the Memorex brand, but the Ridata brand RITEKF1 works at 16x.

[ala42]

Who said the Memorex firmware allowed 16x burning on 16x Memorex branded RITEKF1 ?

I don't have any of the Memorex brand, but the Ridata brand RITEKF1 works at 16x.

On a Memorex 525g burner ?

[Ian]

Yup, on the Memorex.

[ala42]

Then get a Memorex firmware and I will copy the strategy to the LG firmware

[Wesociety]

ala42: Memorex often gets customized strats added for their rebadged burners in order for them to be compatible with Memorex brand media.

Sometimes these strats don't show up in the official non-rebadged firmwares, as is the case in this scenario.

[Ian]

I'm surprised they didn't add 18x write support for any of their media.

[Wesociety]

I'm surprised they didn't add 18x write support for any of their media.

Now that would REALLY be pushing it for Ritek 16x stuff.
Some of the better CMC stuff could probably handle 18x burning okay.

[Dartman]

It barely wrote it at 4x OK, was a good burn but a bit spikey in spots. Trying not to buy the crap store brands anymore. The closing CompUSA here has a TON of MIJ Sony 8x media last time I checked but they wanted 30 a spindle, not going to spend that much, I haven't been back since. I don't think they have any firmware posted for the 525g yet, maybe the Dangerous Brothers might have it hidden somewhere, didn't really think about backing up the old one before upgrading.
Maybe Ian can post his if theres a way to save it and we can play

[Wesociety]

It barely wrote it at 4x OK, was a good burn but a bit spikey in spots.

In Riteks' defense, it is not uncommon for high speed media to burn poorly at slow speeds, or in this case, probably without any type of proper calibration/optimization from LG.

I don't think they have any firmware posted for the 525g yet, maybe the Dangerous Brothers might have it hidden somewhere, didn't really think about backing up the old one before upgrading.
Maybe Ian can post his if theres a way to save it and we can play

Doh! I'm sure TheDangerousBros would have liked to have been given this fw.