Just for the hell of it, I recently scanned several of my commercial data CDs with Kprobe, such as my Windows XP installation CD. All the discs I scanned were in mint condition.
I was astonished by the results. Near full length discs, with less than *20* reported C1 errors!? One could easily argue that a consumer-level hardware/software combination can't be considered the most reliable means of C1 error detection, which may be true. However, what I am looking at here is the *relative* number of errors reported on pressed CDs compared with CD-Rs I've burned. Maybe the few pressed discs I scanned were just rare exceptions, but the results were still astounding.
Full Version: Pressed CD quality vs CD-R
Perhaps it's the quality or strength of the laser used to write the discs.
I've only seen commercially available discs written on those with a silver colored dye which (knock on wood) hasn't yet given me any problems. Colored dye's such as blue cause me nothing but problems no matter what drive is used to read the disc, hence I don't buy them anymore.
I've only seen commercially available discs written on those with a silver colored dye which (knock on wood) hasn't yet given me any problems. Colored dye's such as blue cause me nothing but problems no matter what drive is used to read the disc, hence I don't buy them anymore.
Commercial releases aren't burned and don't use dye. The silver material is physically pressed with a pattern of pits representing the audio data. That's why a commercial CD should last longer than a CD-R when properly taken care of, no dye to fade.
That's good to know analogy. I had no ideal that's how they were made.
QUOTE(ElementDave @ Nov 24 2004, 10:45 PM)
One could easily argue that a consumer-level hardware/software combination can't be considered the most reliable means of C1 error detection, which may be true. 
It is not reliable at all in order to measure the absolute state of the CD, and make comparisons with other people using other drives. It can even fluctuate if you redo the same test, according to heat or some mechanical differences. But it reports correctly the C1 errors that did occur when you run the test. There really were no more than 20 C1 errors when your drive read your CD !
I, on the other hand, have found that all of the factory-stamped CDROMs and audio CDs I tested (with PlexTools Pro) have considerably higher BLER than, say, Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs.
Btw, ElementDave, what do you scan your media with? If it is a LiteOn reader (as opposed to a writer), the scans can be disregarded.
Btw, ElementDave, what do you scan your media with? If it is a LiteOn reader (as opposed to a writer), the scans can be disregarded.
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