dsa_shea

I recently discovered a disc in my CSI Season 1 set, that I have had since it was first released, that has an area that is different than any irregularity I have seen before. I need to know how to find out if this spot affects the dvd's playback. What program do you some of you use, it was mentioned on here awhile back, to check for bad sectors on a dvd? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mike Adams

Umm... play it?

Seriously though, I'd imagine you could use the same kind of utility used to check hard drives for errors (i.e. Scandisk or Disk First Aid, depending on your computer platform) to check out the disc. I'm not an expert on DVD error correction, but it would seem to me that any defect that obstructs the laser enough so that data isn't read properly in a particular spot would definitely be visible during playback, if nothing else than just a momentary freeze or flicker. Granted, there's a lot of data for each frame of video (well, actually the differences from the previous frame, or something like that), but with the pits being so incredibly small, any spot big enough to see clearly is going to blot out a lot of data if it's really blocking the laser.

TomOpus

Some DVD surfaces may look like there's a problem but if it plays fine then no worries. I have a few discs that has some discoloration but plays fine.

dsa_shea

Some members in this forum have mentioned a program they run their discs through to check for problems in reading the data on dvds. I am wanting to find out what this program is so I can use it to check this disc as well as future discs I purchase that are of concern. Sitting down and playing every minute of every dvd we purchase within days of purchasing that disc is probably not going to happen.

Mike Adams

I agree -- I've got ones I've owned for months but have never watched. Still, it's not unreasonable for someone to suggest you actually sit down and watch a DVD you suspect of having playback problems. However, I wasn't aware that you were looking for a specific program that had been mentioned before, so I guess my post didn't help you much. Hope you find what you're looking for.

Rizor

I noticed that DVD drives/DVD reading programs seem to be a lot pickier when it comes to reading DVDs. The moment my PowerDVD encounters a scratch, it either freezes completely or prompts a warning and won't read anymore. If I want to get past that problem part, I need to skip ahead and miss a scene. Meanwhile, a slightly scratched disc might play fine on a DVD player (though maybe with some pixelation).

Recently, my disc 14 of the Superman set was loose and a little scratched. I wanted to see whether it would play alright on my DVD player, but I didn't have the time to watch all of the disc's contents.

[Removed section that would get this thread closed. Please read this thread: http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=401647 -X]

X

You can scan a disc with Nero CD-DVD Speed. I believe it's free from Nero and it comes with Nero's CD/DVD burning software.

It's a bit of a pain to use due to the CSS protection of commercial DVDs. You have to start a software player and play a couple seconds of the DVD before you can do the scanning. The other problem is that most DVD drives are made to read commercial movie DVDs at a slower speed than data DVDs. So instead of 10-15x speed you may only get around 3x. So it takes a while.

Mike Adams

Regarding the "naughty" section, as I mentioned elsewhere, a computer DVD-ROM drive can re-read data that doesn't come through intact the first time, whereas most DVD players have to keep putting something on the screen. They don't get a second chance, so actually playing the disc will probably give you a better idea than whether or not you can extract all the data. Of course checking the disc with an appropriate utility is recommended.

X

That's why you use scanning software that will show you the quality of the disc. The re-reads are taken into account.

dsa_shea

Thanks for all of your help. I wasn't trying to get snippy with anybody when I said that we don't usually sit down and watch every second of every disc. My concern is that if the disc is bad or has a bad spot, I can try and contact Paramount to see if they can give me a replacement disc. The possibly bad disc happens to be disc 3 of C.S.I. Season 1 (full screen of course). If Paramount would go ahead and give us the widescreen version of Season 1 then I could pawn this off or just toss it. Unfortunately, this is all we have for the first season of the show.