Quality/Longevity of TDK RITEK-S04-66?

[darthpotato94]

So, like an idiot, I bought 50 of them and 25% cannot be verified by imgburn. My question is: are the ones that were 100% verified as good as the Verbatim MKM 003 in terms of quality and longevity? Do you recommend I reburn my data on Verbatim?

This is another stupid question but is the data burned on 2nd class dvd affected in any way compared to a 1st class dvd, even if the burn is successful?

[lordsmurf]

Test the disc. Read the posts in this thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/medi...r-burning.html
Do that, and see what the results are.

Feel free to screencap the results, if you'd like follow-up advice to interpret the graphs.
If you need help taking screencaps, read this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/comp...t-picture.html

If a disc tests fine, it's going to be fine long-term. Discs don't just die or have data disappear. That's a myth.
Disc myths have been discussed in our myths forum several times. Browser those topics here: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/myths

If the data is important to you, I'd make a second copy on Verbatim media -- YES! (In fact, keep both discs, for extra security.)

Ritek media is historically not as reflective as Verbatim/Mitsubishi AZO dye media. What happens is that the disc is harder to read. As the disc ages, and as players age, the difficulty in reading the disc may result in poor playback or data read errors. The disc may be "fine" but only in a clean/new player or ROM reader. So that's one of the downsides of inferior grade discs. It's not always about bad burns.

[darthpotato94]

I appreciate the response! I read in the first link that verifying is not always reliable. I also read here that since the computer driver reads a disc byte by byte, there shouldn't be any problems if it plays and verifies fine. I've done an Opti Drive Control scan of a disc but I don't understand the results.

[lordsmurf]

Verification by burning software (Nero, ImgBurn, etc) is not all that reliable, no.

But the tools made specifically for testing can give some insight on the quality of the disc. (Though not an ultimate determination.)
It's worth running.

If you don't understand the results, post a screen cap here, and we'll help.

[darthpotato94]

I don't burn anything but full movies, with menus and extras. I use DVD decrypter to create an iso and then use imgburn. What's the point of scanning a dvd with Nero DiscSpeed if the burned dvd passes the verification test? I assume by successfully verifying the dvd, I can make an exact copy of the burned dvd. Will there be any data loss?

[lordsmurf]

The issue with verification is that it has a lot of false results (disc reports as bad or good, and it's not), and there's no way to repeat the test to confirm or deny the initial findings. With a TRT or surface scan, you can re-run results as often as needed.

I saved aside results from a bad scan this past weekend, for this very reason, as illustrations for a future guide on this very topic. Sometimes a good disc will scan badly ones. On subsequent re-scans, it'll be fine. The issue is because a computer can be "noisy" (TSR processes, swap/temp files, etc), and accidentally interfere with the testing.

The ability to recopy a disc is not proof of burn integrity.

There's not really a such thing as "data loss" on a disc. The data is either always there, or always bad/missing. It's not like a magnetic hard drive, which does experience data loss.

[darthpotato94]

I understand what you are saying now. However, I still have a few questions. Does it really matter if a disc scans good or bad as long as it plays fine? If there is no such thing as data loss on a disc, why should I worry about the burn integrity of a disc if I can just recopy it on my computer and burn it on a Verbatim disc? Naturally, discs cannot last forever, so what I'm really worried is if I can salvage the data from the disc, regardless of a good or bad scan.

[lordsmurf]

It's the difference between knowing a disc is good, vs just guessing that it is. A DVD player is NOT a test, because players have built-in error skipping that can gloss over read problems. The issue isn't data "loss" as much as it's an issue of the data having never been there to start with.

In terms of longevity, the lower grade the disc, generally the harder it is to read (which is one of the reasons it's a lower-graded blank). So concerns about future reading viability are something to consider, for the reflectivity reasons previously stated. If it's already harder to read now, it will be harder yet as both the disc and disc-reading hardware age.

And we're talking decades here -- not a few months or even a few years. Decades.

[darthpotato94]

So I used nero disk speed and tested one of my disks. I verified with my old optical drive and it failed; with the new one, it was successful. Here's the screenshot. What's your verdict?

ATAPI_i_HAS424_B_GL1_B_25_February_2012_22_19.png

[kpmedia]

Run the test a second time. Maybe even a third. That dip near the layer break is something to be concerned with.
But let's see if it's just a false reading. False reads -- i.e., scans that makes a disc look worse than it really is -- happen all the time.

[darthpotato94]

the dip is less in the 2nd test.

I tested another disc and an error message popped, saying uncorrectable error. But when I try to copy the disc using dvd decrypterr, it's fine. I, also, successfully verified with imgburn.

[darthpotato94]

Could you look into these Nero DiscSpeed results and tell if they are good burns??

[lordsmurf]

Anything that has dips is something that may indicate errors or problems in the burn.

"Uncorrectable errors" by a burner is also not good. If a disc throws an error during a test, but is "fine" with a tool known for false results (ImgBurn verify), then I'd worry a bit about longevity. The key here is to test the drive against known-good discs (MKM, for example), to see how it reacts. There's always a delicate balance between placing blame on a disc, and placing blame on a drive. Sometimes there's enough blame to be shared, too -- Ritek media on a marginal LG burner, for example.

Also remember to attach images to the forum: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...ly-upload.html
Those "image linking" sites delete images.