MooMooMooMoo

Interesting. Your skill level is way above mine, but I do understand what you wrote. Thanks for the info; I wasn't aware of this.

MooMooMooMoo

Ouch. I agree with you on CMC & Verbatim. I don't remember if I've posted this here, but there was a time when FTI/Falcon were considered near TY quality. Unfortunately I am learning they do not age well.

While I've found the JVC TY's to be a large step down from the original TY's; I still bought what I hope will be a lifetime supply of the dvdr's when I learned of the CMC purchase. Unfortunately I didn't do the same with the cdr's (for several reasons, including my experience that JVC's quality control wasn't real good to put it nicely; & I am more & more going to a flac (both 44/16 & hi-res) file model for music for storage space reasons amongst other things).

One small surprise: Media Supply is using CMC for their entry level house brand oem cdr's. They don't scan well, but I've never burned a coaster. At $15-$20 a hundred, they make fine car cdr's.

morriscroy

If I set the "number of re-reads" parameter to zero in my old 20+ year old cd ripping program, I strongly suspect my program may function similar to the insecure "burst" mode in EAC.

If you play around with burst mode on EAC and calculate md5 (or sha*) hashes on several independent *.wav rips of the same song (with the same gaps and on the same drive), the results may be somewhat discouraging.

I haven't figured out how EAC's "secure modes" function. The consistency seems to be somewhat better than the "insecure modes", though I don't know for sure.

thetao

That's so cool! While it's not exactly on topic, the closest thing I've done is write a really crude program for recovering text files (mostly old emails) from a little-known computer file system that imploded.

I'd love to do that, but doubt many of these titles received more than one enormous pressing. Some of my duplicates were acquired from different sources at very different times and they still scan the same.

From what I've read, it's easier than you think. (Did I just see your ears perk up?) On that note, I don't believe DVDTalk condones hacking discussions, so further discussions should likely go through PM.

Not exactly. I bought my DH12B2SH off EBay, with a manufacture date of February 2015. I'm assuming the seller has a buddy in China:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-LITE-ON-...r/371620162628

All the old tools work, too, for resetting region code changes, downloading and uploading firmware, etc.

If you or Moo or anybody reading this happens to buy one (I'm considering buying a spare), please grab the firmware using the 7.2.0 firmware tool

https://club.myce.com/t/flash-utilit...-v7-2-0/172584

before inserting any disks...for the very reason you cited above. I'd love to compare the before and after images.

MooMooMooMoo

Thanks for the tip!

morriscroy

The only way I've been able to figure out whether EAC's "secure modes" are reliable, is to do rips using several different cd/dvd drives on the same disc.

For audio cd discs which are brand new, usually the md5 (or sha*) hashes on the ripped *.wav files using different cd/dvd drives were consistent. If a disc was slight scratched, dirty, or very low quality manufacturing, then it was somewhat more variable.

Doing the same comparisons for different cd/dvd drives using EAC's insecure modes (such as burst mode), the results were largely abysmal.

morriscroy

flash utility is somewhat variable

It works only for writing firmware on one of my computers. But it can't read the firmware at all. I've had to use other tools to extract a dvd (or bluray) drive's firmware, with varying degrees of success.

I'll have to dig through some older hardware to find a combination which allows firmware to be read easily with flash utility.

morriscroy

Thanks for the pointer.

Interesting. Perhaps LiteOn has only released new internal bluray computer drives in china?


(More generally).

Awhile ago I thought Pioneer largely exited the internal bluray drive market. (ie. They were absent for awhile).

Recently I noticed the local computer stores started to stock a newer Pioneer internal bluray drive model, where I ended up buying one.

morriscroy

Are they any more error prone when it comes to burning cdr data discs (and not audio) ?

morriscroy

Writing a simple audio cd ripper wasn't too difficult in those days.

All I did was take a look at an open source software cd player's code which was originally written to run on Linux. I mainly had to know which particular read commands were relevant for reading data from a cdr drive. Ripping was basically changing the target output from /dev/audio to a binary file.

The extra stuff I added in to do the statistical analysis, was mostly basic C programming. Nothing high brow or sophisticated here.

MooMooMooMoo

Hard to answer at the moment. My only reliable cd scanning drive died (optiarc 7220; I find the same brand's 7200 to be a good dvd scanner, but a very inaccurate cd scanner). I also rarely scan data cdr's; when I had the 7220 I scanned every music cdr I burned.

I learned about scanning early on. Before I knew better I bought 100 Maxell dvdr's (Ricoh Japan as it turned out). On ALL of them the back 1/3 of the dye faded in less then 3 months. Again, before I knew better in the early days I had a lot of OEM (usually CMC) cdr's become totally unreadable (Office Depot, Computer City, etc).

So now I scan every disc I plan to keep.

MY minimum acceptable scores & errors were 100score / 150 C1 errors with the Plextor/Optiarc 7220 combo on cdr's, & 95 score, 450 PI failures on the Optiarc 7200 for dvdr. Until CMC bought TY, the best discs I was getting for years were the unprintable 8x + pros.

morriscroy

As time went on, I got the impression that the more recently manufactured cd/dvd/bluray drives seem to have shorter and shorter lifetimes, especially when it comes to burning a lot of discs. (Heavy reading/ripping doesn't seem to be as big of a problem).

I remember back in the day, the old Plextors (with Sanyo chipsets) could burn over a thousand cdr or dvdr discs before finally dying. One of the ex-wives was heavily into burning cdr/dvdr discs, and went through Plextors back in the day.

Other drive brands were somewhat more variable before they died from too much heavy disc burning. They usually didn't outlive the old Plextors (with Sanyo chipsets).

morriscroy

Back in the day, I use to do scanning too. (Not so much anymore).

At the time, that's when I finally figured out that the only semi-reliable indicator for blank disc quality control, was where it was manufactured.

Anecdotally in those days, made in japan seemed to be the most reliable and consistent. Made in Singapore or Taiwan were somewhat variable. Made in India was garbage. After that, I didn't care anymore and never got around to checking out "made in UAE" or "made in china" blank discs.

morriscroy

To come to think of it, I only came across "made in china" once.

A local friend wanted something and didn't have any flashdrives at the time. So she gave me several "made in china" blank dvdr discs to burn the files onto.

I did a scan on one of these "made in china" discs, and it looked awful. She mentioned the data was readable and copied it over to her computer the next day.

Today, I have no idea if these same burned discs are still readable. (I never asked her about them again).

morriscroy

(More generally).

Back in the day circa mid->late 2000s, one of my then-weekend hobbies was investigating the burning behavior of various different drives and blank cdr/dvdr discs from different manufacturers.

What abruptly curtailed this hobby for me was when I first came across "made in india" blank discs which were significantly worse than the "made in taiwan" and "made in singapore" stuff. By then, there was no more certainty as to whether any newly purchased blank discs were not doa straight out of the box. At least the singapore and taiwan stuff was not usually doa straight out of the box.

Eventually I exited this hobby entirely, when I first heard rumors about TY being sold to CMC. I wasn't going to waste any more time on CMC and Verbatim crap. (Hypothetically if I were to waste more time and effort with CMC crap, the results would most likely be "garbage in garbage out" across the board).

MooMooMooMoo

What actually died on my Optiarc was the drawer mechanism. On a different day I may have been able to fix it (I previously had done so several times), but I was in a foul mood & wasn't gentle enough.......

MooMooMooMoo

Only reason I burn cdr's today at all is my car came with a very proprietary (i.e. EXPENSIVE to replace) 6 disc cd changer, & I'm not putting my factory pressed discs in their just to get them scratched to death.

morriscroy

Similar sentiments here too.

I usually played burned copies of cds in the car, and not the original pressed discs.

In some newer cars, there is no cd disc player at all. In my gf's car (a model from several years ago), the car stereo reads mp3 (or wav) files from a flash drive.


Nowadays I hardly listen to anything anymore when I'm driving. Occasionally I'll tune into a radio station playing music I don't know anything about, such as dance music, rap, country, etc ... (Listening to music I'm very familiar with is sometimes distracting for me).

MooMooMooMoo

If it wasn't for the cost of the kit just to get a regular player to fit in my car ($325 last time I checked, + the cost of the player); I'd really like to get a 192/24 USB flac player in the car; or at least a cd quality flac player.

morriscroy

(On a tangent).

Now that I think about it, over the past two years or so since I first heard rumors about TY being shutdown/sold, I gradually moved on to investigating the reading/ripping behavior of current dvdr drives. It's not as exciting as investigating the writing/burning behavior of different drives + blank cdr/dvdr discs. (It is also not as precise and technical).

This may sound really strange. I sometimes check out nearby computer stores and end up buying one or two current dvd drives for around $20 a pop (or less), for every time I buy a new large dvd set (such as complete tv series sets, or several season sets) or a large number of dump bin $1 dvds (such as a lot of "it's so bad that it's good" type of scifi/fantasy/horror genre type of movies). This is largely to check these new dvd purchases for bad sectors due to manufacturing defects.

My side-hobby is investigating the behavior of newer current dvdr drives with newer firmware updates and/or more recent manufacturing dates. Even within the same product line (and catalog number) and even the same firmware version, a particular dvdr drive model can have very different reading/ripping behavior with different drive manufacturing dates. Especially LiteOn manufactured dvdr drives, and their rebadges (such as Asus and the "new Plextor").


Over the past 2+ years or so, I ended up accumulating more than 50 dvdr drives manufactured within the past two years or so, largely to feed this occasional weekend hobby of investigating the reading/ripping behavior of current dvdr drives. (Ironically, this is a lot less expensive than buying a lot of spindles of blank cdr or dvdr discs for my previous weekend hobby of investigating the writing/burning behavior of many different drives + blank discs combinations).

MooMooMooMoo

If you'd like to sell one or 2 of the better drives cheap, I might be interested!

morriscroy

None of these drives would be considered great. For example they're rather lousy at scanning, where just about every disc looks "bad". (Older drives didn't do this for the same discs).

I mostly just shuffle between them whenever I want to watch through some movie/tv dvds. I won't be parting with any of them, in spite of their mediocre behavior.

morriscroy

If one is going to waste time/money with current drives for reading/ripping purposes, the one non-bluray case one might look into is one of the last remaining Samsung TSST models (such as SH-224GB or FB). It seems to be one of the smarter drives at reading some basketcase dvd discs. (ie. Discs which choke on LiteOn and/or LG dvdr drives).

I have no idea if Samsung TSST dvdr drives are any good at burning nowadays.

Though unfortunately Samsung/TSST filed for bankruptcy awhile ago, and haven't manufactured any new drives since March 2016. So whatever is currently still on the shelves of local computer stores, is probably the last of the remaining March 2016 inventory.


(More generally).

At this point, the market for computer cd/dvd computer drives is largely LiteOn and LG now. Just about everybody else has largely exited the market. (Asus and "new Plextor" have currently been mostly LiteOn rebadges for their cd/dvd drives).

For bluray computer drives, it is largely LG and maybe Pioneer. (Pioneer has a somewhat erratic schedule in releasing/manufacturing new drives).


As far as I can tell, LG drives (both bluray and non-bluray) have a fatal "disease" when it comes to reading audio cds and tv/movie dvd discs. If one is not aware of this "disease" (better known as "jamless play"), it can be very very aggravating to the uninitiated.

LiteOn and Samsung drives don't have this fatal "disease" when it comes to reading audio cds and tv/movie dvd discs.

MooMooMooMoo

Any suggestion for accurate cd scanning drives?

morriscroy

It is somewhat slim pickings nowadays.

Out of the lousy batch of current drives, there is a premium LiteOn model. Apparently this model is not widely available.

https://club.myce.com/t/introducing-...r-drive/313881


Vinpower (aka the "new Plextor") appears to have released a rebadged version of this same premium LiteOn drive, where it appears all they did was just put the "Plextor" name on the front and wrote their own custom firmware version. It is more widely available and they seem to update the firmware more frequently.

https://club.myce.com/t/plextor-px-8...plus/313967/28

(Vinpower are specialists in the cdr/dvdr duplicator machine market. I don't know if their manufacturing quality control is much better than generic LiteOn).


There isn't much information about this premium LiteOn (and "new Plextor") drive, other than enthusiasts investigating the writing/burning behavior of these drives and posting their results on several online forums such as myce and forum.cdrinfo.pl . (Back in the day, this was the sort of thing I was heavily into).