Which CDR Should I get ?

[goden99]

I am not looking for a CDR for speed.

I am looking for one that can burn at GOOD QUALITY and can read scratched discs (eg has good error correction) even if it has to slow down to 1X as long as it can read em.

And if it can replicate everything like how i see in some reviews some CDRs can replicate old safedisc cds.

Thanks inadvance.


Update:

I looked around and here are the CDRs I can easly get locally.
Price is not an Issue (No, Plextor is still a little overpriced I think)


Aopen 40x/12x/48x IDE

Asus 48x/24x/48x CD-RW
Asus 52x/24x/52x CD-RW

Liteon 52x/24x/52x CD-RW *Retail Box*

LG 52x/24x/52x IDE

Mitsumi 52x/24x/52x IDE

MSI 48x/16x/48x BOX
MSI 52x/24x/52x Int IDE

OPTORITE 48x/16x/48X
OPTORITE 52x/24x/52X

Samsung 48x/16x/48x IDE

Sony 52x/24x/52x
SONY 48x/12x/48x

[TheWizard]

Get either the LG GCE-8160B, GCE-8240B, or GCE-8320B. All produce excellent quality burns, can read scratched CD's well, and can replicate any sort of software protection (i.e. SafeDisc) under the sun.

[BuddhaTB]

Lite-On, Sony, or LG. You can't go wrong with any of those 3.

[goden99]

TheWizard>

You said LG GCE-8160B, GCE-8240B, or GCE-8320B
Those models are
LG GCE-8160B 16/10/40 CD-RW
LG GCE-8240B 24/10/40 CD-RW
LG GCE-8320B 32/10/40 CD-RW

Slowest LG i can find is the 52X model "LG GCE-8520B 52/24/52 CD-RW"
Is still a good model ?

What about Asus ?


LG GCE-8520B (52x/24x/52x)
- Overburns 99minutes
- EFM encoding
- buffer underrun protection
- Mt. Rainier support
- Random Access Time 90ms
- CD Bench "1633 KB/sec"
- not able to read beyond the 92 minute mark.
- maximum DAE speed of only 41x
- not able to read the lead out section of the CD.
- Advanced DAE Quality Test: average score of 29.66x
- Can Read Dirty Disks impressivly Errors:3311205 0.43%. 67.72 Damaged.
- media compatibility was not, many Discs can't write at 52x consistently.
- The number of C1 errors on some of these discs was off the chart.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.ph ... erformance
BAD Quality Writing lots of C1 and C2 errors except if they correct this.

Conclusion: Great reader, a little worried about Quality those errors are somewhat driving me away.



Lite-On
LTR-52246S 52/24/52 CD-RW

- SMART-X
- SMART-BURN
- Random Access Time: 90ms
- Overburns 99minutes
- CD Winbench 99: 1660 KB/sec
- Capable of reading full 99min CD. but dropes speed at 86min.
- "capabile of reading CD-Text, subchannel data and lead in and lead out sections of the CD"
- 69.18% damaged cd. 0.34% can't read. Didn't FINISH read !!!


Conclusion: Fast reader nice features but can't read scratched cds well at all. Bad quality writing.
Big NO NO here.



Sony CRX210A1 48/12/48 CD-RW

- Turbo Boost. "CRAP !!! it should be always enabled"
- Overburns 99min Cds
- 1650 KB/sec CD Winbench 99
- Random Access Time: 92ms
- Can read 99min Easly till end.
- DAE Quality test speed 34.95X.
- Quality of C1 almost as good maybe better as LG.
Doesn't do any C2 tests like others. I sense a little fiddeling to make sony look good.


Arggg why couldn't they do the normal Quality test with the sony like the rest.

[TheWizard]

The LG GCE-8520B is not as good as the 8160B, 8240B, or 8320B, but it's still a decent model. It's a new drive and many people have been waiting for a firmware upgrade, which will come eventually. When it does come, I'm sure it will have improved writing results with various types of blank media.

Reviews for the ASUS drives are right here on CDRLabs. I never used one of these drives, therefore I cannot give my personal opinion, your best bet is to read the reviews.

[goden99]

The asus seems good but can't read scratched CDs that well and Quality is still not amazing.

Should I wait for a little while ?
Maybe anouther company also comes out with a new firmware that would be better LG's firmware advantage.

Moreimportantly.

If I burn at 2X on a 48X CD with the LG burner or any other burner would I have a almost NO ERRORs C1 or C2 ?
I have a tendency to think the Slower i burn the better quality and always burn backups and Music at 2X. Is this true or not ?

[Empty7]

Samsung has a new 52x CD-RW I believe.

[goden99]

The review of the Samsung SW-240B 40/12/40 shows it's very bad with scratched CDs. I don't they they could of improved that much.

[cfitz]

If I burn at 2X on a 48X CD with the LG burner or any other burner would I have a almost NO ERRORs C1 or C2 ?
I have a tendency to think the Slower i burn the better quality and always burn backups and Music at 2X. Is this true or not ?

Not necessarily. It appears that newer, high-speed burners are optimized and tuned for high-speed burning, and low-speed burning can sometimes suffer as a result.

For example, here is a 24x rated disc burned at 24x on a 48x drive:



And here is the same media in the same drive burned at 40x:



As you can see, the quality is actually better at the higher burn speed.

cfitz

[vinnie97]

Well, that just throws a wrench in the misconceptions held by many people, I'm sure (myself included). I guess now one would do best in finding a happy medium burning speed because that seems to be the best safeguard to achieving the least amount of errors.

cfitz, on what cd-rw drive was that test conducted?

[goden99]

Yes but that's a 24X Media burned at max speed. Can you try burning at 2X and doing that test again please ?

Like i thought by writing at 2X I could minimize the Jitter when writing music like
Like if you look at both pictures here the right is pretty bad. I want it to be as close as the one on the left as possible.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/articles/index.php?articleid=16

[cfitz]

Well, that just throws a wrench in the misconceptions held by many people, I'm sure (myself included).

Well, I didn't make a blanket statement against burning at lower speeds. I am just saying that it doesn't necessarily always make for a better quality burn. To know for sure, you need to run your own tests for each combination of drive and media.

cfitz, on what cd-rw drive was that test conducted?

Memorex 48MAXX (LiteOn 48246S), as indicated in the captions.

Yes but that's a 24X Media burned at max speed. Can you try burning at 2X and doing that test again please ?

Sorry, I don't have that data available. But as I noted in my comments to vinnie97, tests results may vary by drive and media. So you need to test your own drive and media to find what works best for you.

cfitz

[vinnie97]

ah yes, pays to be more observant

I have that same drive (in a TDK casing) overclocked to 52X so I suspect I'll have similar results with the said media.

[goden99]

cfitz> I will run those test on my new burner to find best speed

Which program did you use to get that chart ?


I hope those numbers are errors not a percentage
Can you explain the C1 and C2 Errors a little.
What's an acceptable amount of errors where the a CDrom can easly correct it for Audio and Data.

[BuddhaTB]

Which program did you use to get that chart ?

CD Doctor. You can read more about it and get it in this thread.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8095

[cfitz]

I hope those numbers are errors not a percentage
Can you explain the C1 and C2 Errors a little.
What's an acceptable amount of errors where the a CDrom can easly correct it for Audio and Data.

Yes, those are not percentages. C1 and C2 errors measure read errors at two levels of error correction. C1 errors are measured at the first layer of error correction, and are less serious. C2 errors are measured at the second layer of error correction (those errors that get past the C1 level) and are thus more serious. Specifications call for less than 200 errors per second. Personally, I like to see no C2 errors and less than 10 C1 errors per second, so there is margin for deterioration as discs age.

cfitz

[goden99]

How come there are more Errors on the end of the CD burn ?

I would of thought it would be the other way around because on the outside it spins slower than in the inside circle while burning at the same speed.

[HazMat]

Disk unbalance, track wobble and perhaps other factors have greater influence at the outer diameter of the disk. In most cases I've seen, errors increase towards the end of the CD.
Edit: I've noticed that writing high-speed media (40-52X rated) at much lower speed (12-16X) produces some errors on my Asus CRW4816. Is that normal?

[goden99]

All High speed burners start at a lower speed burn then speed up to there max speed. That would probably a biggest contributing factor because it's burned the fastest on the outer most layer. But I think it's also because the outside isn't as perfect as the inside.

Would it be possible to make the burner burn from outside to inside like how X-Box Games are made on DVDs ?

[HazMat]

goden99, in one post you're talking CLV and in the next CAV (or P-CAV). I was only referring to CLV, as it is somewhat normal for disks to show more errors towards the end when burned in (P)-CAV mode because of the increased linear velocity at the outer tracks.
The 24X burn picture ctfiz posted, I guess that was a CLV burn, as most 48-52X burners use CLV for writing at 24X and below.

[goden99]

Sorry I am newbie to CDRW writing technology.

Just to make sure there is no mixup.
CAV meaning Constant angular velocity.
CLV meaning Constant linear velocity.

CLV Meaning it will write the hole Disc at the same speed forcing the motor to slow down on the other rim of the disc.

CAV Meaning the motor stays at constant speed hence it will burn faster is it goes close to the rim of the disc.

Correct ? (Don't want to mix my self up)

At what speed does the burner use CAV instead of CLV ? (24X ? so if I burn at that speed or slower it would be CLV and Quality would be constant ?) or can you select CAV or CLV when burning ?


If the 24X burn by cfitz was burned using CLV how come it produced more errors at the end ? Shouldn't that graph only happen if is CAV because it is writing faster at the outermost rim.

[HazMat]

You're right about CAV and CLV. There is also P-CAV, where the drive maintains a constant angular velocity for the first part of the burn, and at a certain point starts slowing the rotation, in order to keep a constant linear velocity for the remainder of the burn.
For example, on my Asus CRW4816, the 48X write is P-CAV. The drive spins constantly until minute 65 when the 48X speed is reached, and then slows down and remains at 48X till the end. 40X and 32X writes are also P-CAV on my drive (and other 48-52X burners, I think)
When I write at 24X, the drive starts the burn at around 22X and very quickly reaches 24X then decreases rotational speed and keeps 24X for the rest of the CD, so it's practically a CLV except for the first 2-3 minutes of the disk.
All writes below 24X are absolutely CLV on my drive.
You can't select between CAV or CLV directly, but you're always able to choose the burning speed . And I don't think CLV necessarily means "constant quality" as there are other factors that effect burning quality towards the outer tracks (disk unbalance, wobble etc). In fact, it's commonly believed that CAV produces the best burns, but I don't know if that holds true in any situation. I'm a newbie too...

[cfitz]

Sounds like you guys are working things out pretty well without me, but please allow me to fill in a few details. The disc was written using a 24x P-CAV strategy. Most 24x writing strategies are P-CAV or Z-CLV (although LiteOn uses 24x CAV for CD-RW rewriting strategy - boo! ). There is at least one drive that reportedly writes at 24x CLV, but that isn't common because you have to spin upwards of 12,000 RPM to reach 24x on the innermost portion of the disc. More typically 16x and below are the speeds that are strictly CLV.

So, why do the errors only show up at the end of the disc, even though the end of the disc was written at the same data rate and lower RPMs than most of the rest of the disc? You have suggested some good possibilities, but are missing the true culprit. Remember that the error test measures not just the writing performance, but also the media quality and the reading performance. And that is likely the dominant reason that the C2 errors and increased C1 errors show up at the end of the disc. During testing the disc was read at 48x CAV, meaning the pits and lands were flying by the laser pickup at the highest speed at the end of the disc, making that the most difficult area of the disc to read and thus most likely to show errors. When I test the same disc by reading at 8x CLV, the C2 errors go away, and the C1 errors flatten out.

Finally, when done right, CLV is probably the "best" for writing quality, since there is no need to constantly adjust the laser parameters to accommodate the changing recording rate. CAV's big advantage is that it allows the maximum writing speeds possible without exceeding RPM limits.

However, don't get too worked up about the differences between the different writing modes. You can get good quality burns on modern drives using any of the strategies.

cfitz

[cfitz]

Would it be possible to make the burner burn from outside to inside like how X-Box Games are made on DVDs ?

That isn't possible, as far as I know, but some burning software allows you to select the "priority" of files in a compilation. This allows you to, in a coarse manner, control the placement of files on the physical burn, moving them closer to the center of the disc or further towards the edge. Of course, the burn itself still occurs from the center of the disc out, so you can't force the burn to start at the outside and work in.

cfitz

[goden99]

If I were to burn a music cd at 2X would the C1 and C2 errors be almost Zero ? or because the Burner is made to burn at high speeds it would Dig to deep on the CD ?

(I have tried it out and noticed, Burn at different speeds on the same cd using multisession and you notice the Slower you burn the DARKER the back of the CD is.)

Why is it that you can't select 1X on burners anymore ? Even if you do Select 1X it would bump the speedup to 2X when writing ?