c't test results, BluRay / HD-DVD burners and media

[RJW]

We missed quite some data. But I hope to put up the test results of C't 26 of 2008 befor the end of this week.
Also additionally I will compare C't results with some Lite On results found on the NET to give us a better hinsight in the measurements of the Lite On as a blu ray tester, because at this time little is known.

[RJW]

Here are the test results of C't 26-2008.

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                       BD-R25        4x             BD-R50 4x
Drive                   VERBATIMc    TDKBLDRRB      TDKBLDRFB
      
LiteOn DH-4B1s         71/ +            48/ O         -93/--
LG GGW-H20L         -1167/--            -9/ O        -978/-- 
Buffalo BR-816FBS      54/ +            69/ +         -47/--    
SONY BWU-300S          62/ +            77/++         -27/--

(*) Are both based on the Panasonic SW-5584

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                    Speed/Strategy/Time   Speed/Strategy/Time    Speed/Strategy/Time
                     VERBATIMc             TDKBLDRRB              TDKBLDRFB
LiteOn    7P5A         4x/   CLV  /24:02     4x/  CLV   /24:18      2x/   CLV  /93:19
DH-4B1S
LG      YL04         2.3x/   CAV  /53:18   2.3x/  CAV   /53:14    1.4x/   CAV  /121:19
GGW-H20L 
Buffalo   1.00         2x/   CLV  /53:01     2x/  CLV   /53:01      2x/   CLV  /106:16
BR-816FBS(*)
Sony      1.0A       1.7x/   CLV  /53:06   1.7x/  CLV   /53:03    1.7x/   CLV  /106:24
BWU-300S(*)                 

(*) Are both based on the Panasonic SW-5584

All drive except LITE ON are using the Blu Ray defect management system normally when used With CD/DVD SPEED which decreases the speed. C't tried to switch the option on without succes for the Lite On drive.

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                       Burn Quality           Reading           Noise
                      BD/BD DL / DVD / CD     BD / DVD / CD     BD / DVD / CD
Model +  Firmware

LiteOn    7P5A        + /  --  / - / --        - /  -  / -      + / ++  / O   
DH-4B1S
LG      YL04          --/  -- /  + / O         + /  +  / +      + / ++  / +       
GGW-H20L 
Buffalo   1.00        + /  -- /  + / --        ++/  +  /  -     +/  ++  / O
BR-816FBS(*)
Sony      1.0A        + /  -- /  - / --        ++/  -  /  -     +/  ++  / O
BWU-300S(*)           

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Drive               Controler Chip

LiteOn DH-4B1s       SUNEXT PNX7866EL   (X)        
LG GGW-H20L          Renesas R8J32702SFPV
Buffalo BR-816FBS    Pansonic MN103SG9KBA    
SONY BWU-300S        Pansonic MN103SG9KBA

(X)The sunext PNX 7866EL has the same design as the Philips (Nexperia) PNX 7866EL chip. (Which can be found in the first Philips/Lite On blu ray writer)
Philips and sunext have an agreement relating to the transfer of Philips Optical Disc Drive (ODD) semiconductor technology and licensing of related patents. Agreements were also made providing for related design and manufacturing services. ( http://www.nxp.com/news/content/file_1226.html)




Used media
BD-R's as specified above.

DVD
16x Taiyo Yuden(TYG03) DVD-R
8x Verbatim(MKM003) DVD+R-DL

CD-R
Taiyo Yuden CD-r

C't only used for the double layer quality only TDK. According to some sources the pioneer 4x dual layer media should be optimised better on most drives.
No 6x media was used for testing, because C't could not get there hands on them.

*C't concludesthat most drives that the quality for CD-R's or DVD-R's which burn poor at the maximum speed does improve at lower speeds to acceptable rates.
For DL blu ray's this does not seem to work. Which means at low speeds the TDK BD-R-DL's still perform bad with the drives and the current firmwares.


EXTRA C't results compared to Lite On DH401 results found on the net.

How do those above results compare with what we as users can find.
IS the LG GGW-H20N really not that great with media with verbatimC manufacturing code ?

Well comparing the results as can be found. On http://dvd-r.jpn.org
http://dvd-r.jpn.org/test2/qcheckformbd ... xell_BDR4x
Shows that the LG GGW-H20N perfomances according to a DH401S also ain't that great.

Results for the LG GGW-H20N look a bit better on YSS site. http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/dh4o1s/bd_ggwh20n.htm

For the SW5584 Matshita Panasonic drive YSS put up results.Found under.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/sw5584/sw5584_bdr.htm
TDK looks ok. For the disc's with the VERBATIMc code there seems to be a fluctuation in quality

From the results the Lite On score in cdspeed looks a bit harsh.
Lite on Does seem reliable for quick home testing as C't also suggested.
Earlier results of C't + the NET show that blu ray media it selfs seems to fluctuate as well in quality still.

Next weekend the part for the combo drives might be up. As might be additional text for these results if required/requested.

[Ian]

I'm not convinced that Lite-On's BD-ROM drives are a good indicator of quality yet. From my talks with Karr, the folks at Lite-On don't seem to know what LDC and BIS rates are considered to be "good".

It will be interesting to see how the results are with Lite-On's BD Combo drives. I'd also like to compare the results from CD Speed with those from PlexUtilities.

[RJW]

Problem might still be related to variations in drives and media which seem to be much more serious as with the earlier formats.

[Halc]

Thank you very much for posting these, RJW.

Looks like my guess that it'll be 2010 before the quality of Blu-Ray DL burning starts to stabilize wasn't way too off. Let's hope it wasn't too optimistic

I've bee postponing my BD-purchases (burner/discs) each 6 months, due to lack of quality. To me these would not be toys, but storage tools, so they must perform.

I wonder who uses Blu-Ray writables these days? Burning is very slow, discs are horrendously expensive and quality is seriously lacking - esp. for DL discs.

Ah well, maybe next year

[frank1]

In the recent c’t magazine Nr 6/2009 there is an article by Nico Jurran:
« High Noon in Blau - Acht Blu-ray-Player bis 400 Euro gegen die PS3 »

You can read an introduction to the article here:
http://www.heise.de/ct/Blu-ray-Player-k ... kel/133455

« Doch mittlerweile sind Standalone-Player auf dem deutschen Markt, die nicht nur wesentlich billiger sind als die Konsole, sondern nach Angaben ihrer Hersteller beim Thema Blu-ray endlich auch mehr zu bieten haben »

So this article insists on the fact that now some Blu-Ray players are less expensive than the PS3 but also have more to offer (« endlich auch mehr zu bieten haben »)

[frank1]

Here in France I am unable to get the complete article and it would be difficult for me to fully undersand the content.

Because playing burned BD discs in a standalone blu-ray player and PS3 is a main discussion theme,
may I ask if there is anything really new in this article about compatibility of the 8 tested standalone players with vidéos burned on:
BD-R
BD-R DL
BD-RE
BD-RE DL
of different brands and MID codes.

I followed many discussions (here and over at cdfreaks) saying that
even if the movie is correctly authored and burned with the file format UDF 2.50/2.60
it’s playability may depend:
- on the type and/or brand of BD-R used
- and also mainly on the firmware capabilities of and the standalone player

[frank1]

There is new article about testing Blu-Ray Writing Quality
here: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews ... 2&PageId=0

They tested some BD-R SL and DL media after being recorded with the Pioneer BD-R 203BK and Sony BWU-300S 8x BD burners.
For testing the burning quality they used the Opti Drive Control software by Erik Deppe together with a LiteOn DH-4O1S BD-ROM drive as a reader.



Among the « Final thoughts »
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews ... &PageId=25
I noticed following things:

The results were disappointing for almost all the discs.

As you can see in the table below, both the LDC and BIS signals were well above the acceptable limits. Only the Verbatim BD-R 2x 7.5GB disc reported good results with the Pioneer BD burner, followed by the TDK BD-R 4X 25GB burned at 8x with the same drive and the Moser Baer India BD-R 6X 25GB burned at 6x with the Sony burner

. . . .
So what could have caused these 'bad' results?
 Not reliable software/reader
 Insufficiently cleaned discs
 Poor writing strategy of the BD burners for each speed, especially for the 6x and 8x
 Low media quality
It 's really hard to come up with any conclusions just from a single test.

. . . .
Despite the many errors reported for each disc, none of them caused any problems to our BD readers and they were fully readable, which is quite encouraging.

. . . .
Soon we will be able to test the same discs using more reliable equipment.

[Ian]

I can't put too much stock in cdrinfo's results. As we've seen time and again, the DH-4O1S they used for testing returns high error rates with pretty much all BD media. It would have been better if they used a Datarius like they're first round of testing, or at least set a baseline by comparing the DH-4O1S's results and that of a calibrated testing machine.

[frank1]

I agree with you.
I think that using this Lite-on BD-ROM drive is not a reliable testing method.



That is why I am waiting for the other test they are announcing

Soon we will be able to test the same discs using more reliable equipment

[Ian]

If they know the results are unreliable, why do it in the first place?

[Ian]

I've been playing around with the Lite-On iHES208 and it doesn't seem to be any better than the DH-4O1S for write quality testing.

[lordsmurf]

Looks like my guess that it'll be 2010 before the quality of Blu-Ray DL burning starts to stabilize wasn't way too off. Let's hope it wasn't too optimistic

Well ... it's 2010. Any thoughts?

I've still not up my mind, but a lot of things have ... well... not "changed" exactly ..... but there are more consistencies now. Blu-ray and DVD both. It really reminds me of CD-R.

I'd still consider Blu-ray somewhat volatile compared to the other two optical techs.

[frank1]

Hello !
I am a bit disappointed to see that there is no activity in this topic since nearly 2 years ...

- So here is the link to an article already published in c’t magazine n°14 of the year 2010 :
" Schnelle und günstige Blu-ray-Rohlinge "
https://www.heise.de/artikel-archiv/ct/ ... ge-im-Test

- And here memory posted some of the content :
" are blu-ray blank media right for longevity ? "
http://club.myce.com/f142/blu-ray-blank ... ty-325780/


So do you experts have any thoughts about the future of BD burning ?

[Ian]

So do you experts have any thoughts about the future of BD burning ?

I don't think its very bright. Despite the drop in price, consumers really don't seem to be interested in burning discs anymore. I think publications like c’t magazine have realized this and moved on to technologies like SSDs. Even if there was interest, there isn't a lot of money to be made in selling discs so the selection is VERY limited outside of Japan. Even companies like Verbatim seem to be more interested in selling mice and keyboards than their BD-R media.

LTH media had a very bright future. The discs were cheaper to manufacture and 6x rated discs can be picked up today for about $1 a disc. Most consumers don't even know they exist and as a result retailers like Newegg don't even carry the newer discs, rated at 6x... which reminds me, I need to buy some from Amazon before they're gone.

If the Blu-ray folks aren't careful, the BDXL format is going to be a failure right from the start. Once again, we have drives that are capable of reading/writing to them, but outside of a few select markets like Japan, the discs are non-existent.

[SithTracy]

All I do is rip occasionally. I still buy CD's. Old habits die hard, I guess. Just rip them for iPod playback and store them. We occasionally buy a movie on BD and/or DVD, but not much anymore. 5+ years ago, things were different. Now I just buy more hard disk for storage. They were cheap enough for a while and though the floods drove prices up, I was fine and the prices will dip on HDD again before I need more. SSD is not where anywhere near the price point or long term storage device I would like. But I am more interested in that tech (and a better file system) than I am in investing in a BD writer and media that I don't think will have a shelf life.

[frank1]

My question was mainly about the article published in the german c’t magazine and what it the meaning of their tests regarding the quality of BD-R burning. Unfortunaly I got only 'general answers' about the last little thing I wrote …

Thanks anyway !

- So here is the link to an article already published in c’t magazine n°14 of the year 2010 :
" Schnelle und günstige Blu-ray-Rohlinge "
https://www.heise.de/artikel-archiv/ct/ ... ge-im-Test

- And here memory posted some of the content :
" are blu-ray blank media right for longevity ? "
http://club.myce.com/f142/blu-ray-blank ... ty-325780/

[Ian]

There still isn't a lot of knowledge regarding the writing quality and the longevity of Blu-ray media. Most people seem to be using Lite-On drives for testing without knowing if they're even accurate. The better CD and DVD longevity studies I've seen were done by places like the Library of Congress and I have no idea if they're even considering Blu-ray as a valid storage medium.