Writing Strategies

[DeathStalker77]

Greetings All!

I have an Asus 24B3LT drive, which I first flashed to LO iHAS424B, and now to the Plextor PX-L890SA. I am having considerable problems with certain media (Kodak branded, with Mfr ID of MBIPG101-R10-65 8x). I have had considerable discussions with the Director of Kodak media and he feel strongly that it is an issue of the firmwares lacking the specific code (or an accurate code) in the writing strategies for the MBI discs. These are the DL discs, and I have no problem with the MBI SL discs. The firmware for all 3 of these drives makes coasters out of these about 50% of the time (also have the same problem with some MKM-001-00 2.4x discs). The Kodak branded Ricoh discs (RICOHJPN-D01-67) burn at full speed with no problems at all. Primarily I use ImgBurn with Verify, and it is when the verification is done that the failures occur (Reason: L-EC Uncorrectable Error).

Does anyone have any ideas what can be done to remedy this situation?

Thanks much!

[Ian]

Does anyone have any ideas what can be done to remedy this situation?

Unless MBI or one of their OEM customers really puts some pressure on Lite-On, there's no way its going to get any better. For now I would stick to the Ricoh manufactured discs you're using or try Verbatim's 8x DL media.

For the record, I only use Verbatim DL media. Everything else is hit and miss.

[DeathStalker77]

What are the MFR Codes for Verbatim DL? When I spoke with Kodak Media, they were not even aware of any discs being manufactured with the Ricoh ID, they expected them ALL to be MBI codes (they were VERY upset that I got a batch of 2.4x MKM discs that were packaged and printed as 8x!)

Originally, I thought the Orange & Red colored Kodak discs were the Ricoh discs, however, in my latest order, I got the MKM & MBI discs with the same finish - not the satin silver that I had previously gotten the MBIs in. The SL MBI discs I have burn just fine, it's only the DL that are having problems. I would even trade this drive in (after flashing it back to the stock Asus) and make a BIG argument with ASUS over the issue if I know of a drive that worked better with them (as I *expected* the Plextor firmware to do).

I seem to recall some years ago when one could actually manually ADD the codes for the drives (though since at the time I didn't need to, I don't recall all the specifics.

It would seem to me that if MBI is supposed to be the 3rd largest manufacturer, then there would be a LOT more problems reported with their discs - as I said, Kodak was *very* surprised that I was reporting problems with them.

Thanks!

[Ian]

It doesn't surprise me that those 2.4x MKM discs were sold as 8x. Verbatim has done that themselves stating that they're "8x capable" with some drives.

I'm not sure if they still are, but MBI was making DL discs for Verbatim. The quality wasn't as good as the discs made in Singapore. It's possible that some of the disks destined for Verbatim got mixed in with the Kodak ones. This isn't unheard of either. One time I got a spindle of CMC manufactured Memorex discs with a Verbatim MID.

It is possible to edit (and add?) codes on some drives using Media Speed Code Edit (http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/). However, the writing strategy will be missing and the quality could be very poor or the burn process could fail altogether.

[Dartman]

As cheap as DVD burners are now if you want to continues using cheaper DL disks find one that copes well with the sub standard mids and buy it, otherwise like said stick with the Verbatims if possible. My best crappy DL burners were a Pioneer 111 and my LG h22n DVD burners, they seemed to make working disks with about any crappy media I found that was Dual Layer, they worked even if they didn't test great.

[DeathStalker77]

My understanding is that MBI also manufactures Verbatim (as Ian just pointed out above). What are the codes on the Verbatims you are referring to?

The problems are *not* with "cheap" or "substandard" discs - it is with the writing strategies in the firmware.

I don't know if English is your second language (or if you are just maybe 11 or 12), in which case your * extremely* poor grammar can be forgiven, but I don't understand half of what you are trying to say, as it makes NO grammatical sense.

Either way, you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

[Dartman]

OK, I was trying to help as I've been playing with these things since the late 90's when CDR burners first became common. It's just that many of the mids out there now are made by factories that don't really care about quality anymore, and even if they do, like you said, maybe your burner doesn't have a good strategy built in to burn them well.
Like Ian said there used to be quite a community around adding mids to firmwares and doing custom hacked ones to get better burns or more features.
Not many folks do that now with the cheap prices of the burners, plus most actually do great burns now so not much happening.
I really like the NEC based Sony 7240/7260 burners now, and I think they do OK with Dual Layer burns but haven't really done a lot of those lately with mine.
You might want to try posting the question on http://club.myce.com/ in the proper forum as a lot of folks familiar with that burner and others hang out there and might be able to help.

[DeathStalker77]

Ok, Dartman, sorry if I came off a bit harsh - it didn't *sound* like you knew what you were talking about (there *are* trolls out there remember

It was me that recalled the firmware mod community, though, not Ian. I've also been in contact with one of the current "experts" in the field, C0deKing. I've been considering the HP 1270i, which I've had good success with (but I hate the fact it's about twice the price of the Asus/LO unit). Plus I'll probably end up eating the cost of this burner as well, making it about 3x the original cost

I don't suppose anyone knows what the base of the 1270i is, do they? I haven't been able to locate that info yet.

Most of what I burn are DL, so it's a prime concern to me.

Thanks.

[Ian]

I don't suppose anyone knows what the base of the 1270i is, do they? I haven't been able to locate that info yet.

It's a Lite-On. These days all HP optical drives are made by Lite-On. It's probably the same hardware as your ASUS drive.

As Dartman said, the quality of discs can vary a lot. Companies like MBI, CMC and Ritek crank out as many discs as possible and to maximize profit, they do it as cheaply as they can. Sadly, quality control usually goes out the window when this happens. You may have great results with one spindle, but in the next half of the burns fail because the discs don't match the writing strategy in the firmware.

Back in the day Plextor had AUTOSTRATEGY and PoweRec which addressed this sort of thing. Lite-On also does this somewhat with SmartWrite/HyperTuning but you can only do so much if the discs are junk to begin with.

[Dartman]

Well that's OK then, we all have our moments. Codeking is a good guy and he probably knows more about what's current that does well with the media you can get.
I do know my 111 and that LG did very well with anything Dual Layer I fed them, top quality or crap so those were my go to burners for any DL burns I did, mostly the LG lately.
I have 6 burners in here now, I had 7 at one point. A old BenQ 1655, LG H20L, Optiarc 7260, LG H22N, Samsung S203b, and a Optiarc 7263.
I used to buy the latest and greatest burner when the next promising ones came out but don't do that much anymore. Probably had over 50 variuos burners once the prices went down to cheap over the years. First CDRW burner was a Yamaha 4260 SCSI unit, then a lot of LiteOn burners. First DVDRW burner was a Sony 500a then a bunch like LiteOn 811, NEC 2500 etc.
They started out pretty spendy then quickly got pretty cheap.

[DeathStalker77]

If that's the case, then one would *expect* the 1270i to be an iHAS424 (since they're both LightScribe), wouldn't you think? Which would "logically" indicate that the unit I have should be able to be crossflashed to the 1270i and then I would have the HP's writing strategies (which *seem* to be more robust than the Asus/LO/Plextor.

I've been fortunate (so far) in that Kodak has graciously replaced all of the discs that I have had problems with.

Does anyone still maintain a database of manufacturers, brands, and codes? (That would be REALLY helpful, imho).

Thanks!

[Dartman]

I don't think anyone has a direct list of everyone and what they make anymore but I bet if you hit the LiteOn/Asus/Plextor forums on CD Freaks they'll have what all that drive can be as far as rebadges then you can decide which ones has the best strategies but sounds like you already have a good idea which one will probably be the best match for those disks.
Unfortunately it's not like a while back when everyone was keeping track of who made what and what disk makers had the best mids. I think we all used to haunt the office stores hoping for great disks in off brand packages then share what were best when we found good ones.
The last great regular disks I got were Verbatim Azo made by Falcon in UAE, since then they have dumbed them down to the crappy life series mostly made by CMC and not near as good on the quality but exactly the same price
Haven't bought any good quality Dual Layer disks in ages but the Verbatims made in Singapore should still be good and I guess you've mostly had good luck with those kodaks. Lately if I need DL disks I just buy whats on sale cheap then feed them to my LG and cross my fingers.