I was having some problems with a DVD burned in my Sony DRU-710A so I decided to burn exactly the same image in my new Plextor PX-716A. I have not tested how it plays yet but I was a little surprised at the scan results. This is when I decided an I needed some experts to comment on what I am seeing.
I used the same media and burned the disc at 4x and scanned at 4x from exactly the same files using Nero.
Here is the DRU-710A firmware BY02
Date : 2/20/2005 9:54:57 PM
Model : 1-0-0-0 D:SONY DVD RW DRU-710A BY02
Disc : DVD-R , MCC 02RG20 [Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation]
Speed : 4x
ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1
Scanned range : 0 - 1838637
Sampling count : 98120
Errors : 0
PI Max : 10
PI Average : 0.95
PI Total : 13594
PIF Max : 3
PIF Average : 0.01
PIF Total : 123
Here is PX-716A firmware 1.04
Date : 2/20/2005 10:14:27 PM
Model : 1-0-0-0 D:SONY DVD RW DRU-710A BY02
Disc : DVD-R , MCC 02RG20 [Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation]
Speed : 4x
ECC blocks sum (PI/PIF) : 8/1
Scanned range : 0 - 1838623
Sampling count : 101168
Errors : 0
PI Max : 14
PI Average : 1.63
PI Total : 23607
PIF Max : 3
PIF Average : 0.12
PIF Total : 1789
To me this indicates that at least on this Verbatim media at this speed that the Sony is a little better strictly on the numbers. I need to test how it plays to know for sure.
Question #1 - Is this a valid test? Basically I can I read the disc burned in the Plextor with in the Sony with Kprobe and compare the results? I would assume it is valid since I believe the drive is reading the error rate.
Question #2 - Since I am not an expert on the numbers and their scale, is this all in the "noise" range and I am just looking too hard?
Thanks in advance for your comments.