CD Burning

[Carl G.]

Steve B. (or anyone else in the know)
My Plextor 716A bit the dust.
I replaced with (on hand) TS-H652L (ToshibaSamsung-Lightscribe).
I used the recently recommended CDburnerXP with the TS-H652L Lightscribe DVD Burner to burn a CD of mp3 songs to CD Redbook standard (CDburnerXP automatically converts them during the burn) using a (ouch... I know) "Memorex" CD-R.

Result of burned CD:
1. TS-H652L = plays back perfect
2. Plextor Premium CD player = Won't recognize disc as Audio (but does see data with data sheet exporting fine)
3. External Yamaha CD Player (CDC 697) = plays with tons of digital errors
4. Car Stereo CD Player = Plays perfect

Why such erratic results? (various error correction abilities of playback machines?)
Mostly, how do I check CDs so I can avoid such erratic playback results?????
Other ideas (yes... I'll be back to Taiyo Yudens soon))

[Dave Labrecque]

Hey, Carl -- have you considered trying Taiyo Yudens instead of Memorex blanks?

[TotalSonic]

Regarding getting a good burn with lower quality media - sometimes you need to test out what speed works with the media. Be aware that many current burners and media are optimized for their middle speeds - so that if you burn at the lowest speed (which "back in the day" used to be recommended) you could in fact end up with relatively more errors (from what I believe would be due to over-exposure of the dye - but I need to confirm this is in fact is what happens). Then again burn too fast - especially if there are a lot of background services active during the burn - and you could end up with buffer underruns and a bad disc as well. fwiw - I've generally gotten very good results at 16x using current burners.

For CD error testing there's a few solutions. The most accurate and precise is what replication plants use - which is the Eclipse suite - http://www.eclipsedata.com - but this is serious money and likely out of the budget of any of us. There's also standalone testers by Clover - http://www.cloversystems.com & Stagetech - http://www.stagetech.se - but these are also expensive (although definitely more affordable than Eclipse).

For the budget minded that leaves us with software solutions such as:

Plextools - which only works with the older Plextor "Premium" drives (specifically the Premium, Premium 2, 712, 716, 755, 760) - http://www.plextor-digital.com/index.php/component/option,com_jdownloads/Itemid,55/catid,86/cid,470/task,view.download/

Plexutilities - which works with some of the current line of rebranded LiteOn drives marketed by Plextor (specifically the PX-850A, PX-850SA, PX-806SA, PX840U, PX-B310SA, PX-B310U, PX-610U) - http://www.plextoramericas.com/index.php/plexutilities

K-Probe - which works with many of the LiteOn drives - http://www.k-probe.com

Opti Drive Control (formerly known as Nero CD Speed) - http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ - which works with a wide variety of drives and is most likely the one you'll want to download (it's free as well).

Besides working in a plant where I was able to have Eclipse reports run the only testing software I've used myself is Plextools. I've heard mixed reports regarding the accuracy of these other softwares - but I definitely think having something that gives you at least a very good ball park figure is way better than nothing - and considering this was hearsay I'd say it's well worth checking out Opti Drive Control or Plexutilities if you don't have access to a Plextor "Premium line" drive.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[TotalSonic]

Hey, Carl -- have you considered trying Taiyo Yudens instead of Memorex blanks?

+1!! :D

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Carl G.]

Thanks Steve! (and Dave).
Yes... I will be replacing the Memorex batch.

Steve, how did you guess I'd prefer the OptiDrive? :)
Thanks for the link!
And the great description.

I will do some testing Monday.

[Gary Ray]

Opti Drive Control (formerly known as Nero CD Speed) - http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ - which works with a wide variety of drives and is most likely the one you'll want to download (it's free as well).


Steve Berson

Opti Drive Control seems to be $25 now....not free? Anyone found a free source for this program? I guess its almost free compared to some of the other programs.

[TotalSonic]

Opti Drive Control seems to be $25 now....not free? Anyone found a free source for this program? I guess its almost free compared to some of the other programs.

oops - sorry for missing that - seems they started charging. $25 is definitely a reasonable price for useful software though!
K-probe, Plextools and Plexutilities are free themselves - but you need the appropriate LiteOn or Plextor drive to use them.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Mark Stebbeds]

Another vote for TY.

I've burned CDs on cheaper media that worked fine on CD players at home, but would not play on others ...or played back very distorted.

mark

[Rabbit]

Interesting re: distortion. I don't think I've ever come across that and I use cheaper CDs for mix test burns all the time. Maybe I'm not buying the right brand of cheap. :D Even using cheapos if I burn using the Vari Rec option on my Plextor Premium drive they seem to play on most anything.

TY is definitely the way to go for the final product burn.

[Dave Labrecque]

(and Dave)

Sorry... I was messin' with ya.

[Mark Stebbeds]

Interesting re: distortion. I don't think I've ever come across that and I use cheaper CDs for mix test burns all the time.

Yeah, who would have thunk it.

But last year I made some CDs of cover songs for our band to rehearse to, and used el cheapo media from Office Depot because I ran out of the good stuff.

Two of the four identical burns played just fine on commercial CD players for two of the band members ...me being one of them. In one band member's older model commercial CD player it played as solid distortion ...you could barely make out the song. On a ghetto blaster at another rehearsal location ...it would skip all over the place. When I inquired on a "mastering" forum, it was a unanimous opinion that it was cheap media, not anything I did during "mastering" with CD Archtect.

I never bothered to check for errors, etc. But now I even use the TY for cheap data CDs so I'm not tempted to have cheap media in the studio at all.

Mark

[Scott P]

Plextools - which only works with the older Plextor "Premium" drives (specifically the Premium, Premium 2, 712, 716, 755, 760) - http://www.plextor-digital.com/index.php/component/option,com_jdownloads/Itemid,55/catid,86/cid,470/task,view.download/

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I have an older Premium drive and can do bler counts and such. What kinds of numbers are reasonable and maximum? What can I be looking for?

Also, I've looked around and found some of these drives "new" on e-bay for as little as $60 us. Why do I feel like there's something wrong with that?

Thanks! :D:D
Scott

[TotalSonic]

I have an older Premium drive and can do bler counts and such. What kinds of numbers are reasonable and maximum? What can I be looking for?

There are 3 measures:
"C1's" - which are the count of E11's and E21's - completely correctable errors (which if the CD player is functioning properly means on playback the output is the exact same as if the errors never happened in the first place). Red Book specs allow for peaks up to 220 C1's a second (averaged over 10 seconds) for these - but you should in nearly every case be able to get way better than this. With Taiyo Yuden / JVC media burned 16x in my Plextor Premiums I can nearly always get averages below 1/sec for these, and with around 30 as maximum peaks.

"C2's" are the count of E21's and E22's - the second level of error correction. These are understood as correctable errors - but replication plants tend to err on the side of caution and if your master disc contains over a specific threshold of these they will fail the disc in their own Eclipse tests. For this reason I toss the disc if any C2's are detected (even though it is technically within specs).

"CU's" - these are the counts of E32's - which are in fact uncorrectable - and the presence of a single one of these means your disc will fail any Eclipse testing. On playback uncorrectable errors can potentially lead to clicks, ticks, pops, drop outs or graininess in the audio - so again - the presence of a single one of these should indicate that you toss the disc.



Also, I've looked around and found some of these drives "new" on e-bay for as little as $60 us. Why do I feel like there's something wrong with that?

I can't really say. I've bought NOS Plextor 760A drives from Esaitech and have been very happy with the drives they've sent me. But I do know there was a pallette of NOS Plextor Premiums that had sat in a warehouse and got dusty that were sold as a whole sale batch "as is" on ebay a few years ago - so I'm wondering where these went and if they were ever put back on the market. So - I'd probably be cautious towards these deals unless you trusted the seller based on prior transactions.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Scott P]

Steve,

Thanks for the concise information on the codes. The plextools help didn't quite clarify.

I only ran one quick test on one CDR. These were the results:
C1 avg/sec = .6
C1 max/sec = 21

C2 avg/sec = 0
C2 max/sec = 8
C2 total = 13

This was a 49 min. disc on TY media.

I do my own duplication, so having it get bounced by a replicator. What do you think?

Thanks! :D
s

[TotalSonic]

Steve,

Thanks for the concise information on the codes. The plextools help didn't quite clarify.

I only ran one quick test on one CDR. These were the results:
C1 avg/sec = .6
C1 max/sec = 21

C2 avg/sec = 0
C2 max/sec = 8
C2 total = 13

This was a 49 min. disc on TY media.

I do my own duplication, so having it get bounced by a replicator. What do you think?

Thanks! :D
s

The C1 levels are excellent and are typical of what I get with TY media.
The 2 small bursts of C2's would make me burn again before sending this to a replicator as a production master as I like to deliver better than required for this - but otherwise the disc tested out fine, and in terms of duplicated product (rather than as a production master) it should be excellent.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Scott P]

Thanks Steve. I'll keep checking and experimenting to see if I can get the C2 count down. Maybe it was just a flaw in the disc.

Scott