CDRLabs.com

CD Freaks has done another article on home PI/PIF scanning. Their findings aren't surprising but its still an interesting read.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/290

Comments?

They say they used a Lite-On SHW-16H5S...do they mean the 165H6S?

Sigh...Lite-On's model numbers STILL confuse me.

Interesting article, though.

Nothing truly surprising, however.

I can't comment on the Lite-On drives. But I've noticed a trend; the drives reporting the lowest number of errors to the highest:

1. Plextor;
2. BenQ;
3. Nec.

I've also noticed that when it comes to reading damaged/dirty media, the order is the same: The Plex is the best, the NEC the worst.

Which leads me to an interesting conculsion: The Lite-On reports the lowest overall PIE/PIF levels. Thus, it should be the best at reading dirty/damaged discs.

Again, I can't comment on the Lite-On drive YET; but my past experince with Lite-On's has told me they suck at reading dirty/damaged discs (talking DVD-ROM/Combo drives, not burners).

So: They good at it or not?

Either way, I do perfer the BenQ for scanning...seems a nice middle ground, even if it does show some bias vs. media burned in certain drives (ie, mine always shows a BIG error spike on discs burned by my NEC drive)...

Their page on consistency was interesting - On the BenQ, the 4 pass showed much higher error levels. Hmm...hot drive, anyone?

I always give the drive a good 5 minutes to cool between scans. When burning, I limit myself to 3 discs back-to-back before giving the drive a break.

The SHW-16H5S is essentially the SHW-1635S with LightScribe.

I'm not sure what was up with that 4th BenQ scan. That's quite a variance. I'd have to agree that the drive was either hot or the disc was removed and reinserted. You will quite often see a sizable variance when a disc is reinserted.. this goes for all drives, not just BenQ's.

Something that's interesting about some BenQ drives... If you do a transfer rate test and then do a quality tests, the results will often be totally different than if you just did a quality test. I have not been able to figure out why this is either.

There's also a discussion thread for the article over at CD Freaks:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=193873

MonsterMan wrote:Again, I can't comment on the Lite-On drive YET; but my past experince with Lite-On's has told me they suck at reading dirty/damaged discs (talking DVD-ROM/Combo drives, not burners).

So: They good at it or not?

In my experience the LiteOn 5S and 6S series DVD burners are better than my other drives (see signature) at reading difficult discs. There can always be exceptions however, where a disc is easier to read in some other drive.

Ian wrote:Something that's interesting about some BenQ drives... If you do a transfer rate test and then do a quality tests, the results will often be totally different than if you just did a quality test. I have not been able to figure out why this is either.

You wouldn't by any chance have some scans posted somewhere showing this phenomenon?