Looking for a utility or a method for confirming CD/DVD drive capabilities
Specifically read & write Lead-in & Lead-out capabilities.

For instance ASUS Techs tell me all their drives are capable of R Lead-in & Lead- out and all the Writing drives are capable of R&W Lead-in & Lead-out.

But EAC, when testing for overreading capability & sample offset suggest that the ASUS drive I am testing has only read-in Capability

So maybe somebody can give me a better understanding of what Lead-in & Lead-out is and how I can best confirm my drives capabilities.

On this site : http://www.daefeatures.co.uk, there are 7 ASUS drives listed, and they can all overead into lead-in only, so the ASUS techs you have been talking to are clearly wrong... According to the EAC test you did, your drive can overread into lead-in only, so if you have a possitive offset correction value, then untick the overreading option in EAC, and make sure the 'Fill up missing offset samples with silence' option is ticked. Also EAC only has overwriting enabled for some Teac drive's... -Martin.

Figures I use to Techs Talking out their A_ _

On the ASUS I have a read offset of +6 & a write offset of -6
So I take it that your advice applies to my drives.
(Still trying to grasp all the stuff I have been reading)

Still would like to know about other utilities that can test these features.
I did some searching and came up with nothing.

I would recommend you to read this post about offset correction by Pio2001 :
http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?threadid=4193

-Martin.

From those values, it looks like you have a Asus-branded Lite-On. I'd try to find out what Lite-On drive it is.

Look rather at this link from the FAQ : http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?threadid=9805

If you don't have CDs with audio data in the lead-in or lead out, you can burn one, but according to your combined offset, the data will only appear to be into the lead-out (positive offset), in the lead-in (negative offset), or none (null offset).

I am working with four different Drives, The Asus is the last in the list.

Brand: JLMS
Model/Type: XJ-HD166S
Firmware: DS1E
Accurate Stream: Yes
Audio Caching: Yes
C2 Error Retrieval: Yes
Read Command: MMC1
Read Offset Correction: +12
Overreading into Lead-In and Lead-Out: I
Read CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Gap/Index Retrieval Method: A
Gap Detection Accuracy: Secure
EAC Write: n/a
Write Offset: n/a
Overwriting into Lead-In and Lead-Out: n/a
Write UPC/ISRC Information: n/a
Write CD-TEXT Information: n/a
Average EAC Reading Speed: 9.7
Comment:

Brand: Lite-On
Model/Type: LTR-52327S
Firmware: QS5A
Accurate Stream: Yes
Audio Caching: Yes
C2 Error Retrieval: Yes
Read Command: MMC1
Read Offset Correction: +6
Overreading into Lead-In and Lead-Out: I
Read CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Gap/Index Retrieval Method: A
Gap Detection Accuracy: Secure
EAC Write: Yes
Write Offset: -6
Overwriting into Lead-In and Lead-Out: ?
Write UPC/ISRC Information: Yes
Write CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Average EAC Reading Speed: 10.7
Comment:

--------------------------Next 2 are on a different computer

Brand: Lite-On
Model/Type: DVDRW LDW-811S
Firmware: HSOR
Accurate Stream: Yes
Audio Caching: Yes
C2 Error Retrieval: Yes
Read Command: MMC1
Read Offset Correction: +12
Overreading into Lead-In and Lead-Out: I
Read CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Gap/Index Retrieval Method: A
Gap Detection Accuracy: Secure
EAC Write: Yes
Write Offset: 6
Overwriting into Lead-In and Lead-Out: ?
Write UPC/ISRC Information: Yes
Write CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Average EAC Reading Speed: 10.6
Comment:

Brand: Asus
Model/Type: CRW-5224A
Firmware: v1.5
Accurate Stream: Yes
Audio Caching: Yes
C2 Error Retrieval: Yes
Read Command: MMC1
Read Offset Correction: +6
Overreading into Lead-In and Lead-Out: I
Read CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Gap/Index Retrieval Method: A
Gap Detection Accuracy: Secure
EAC Write: Yes
Write Offset: -6
Overwriting into Lead-In and Lead-Out: I/O
Write UPC/ISRC Information: Yes
Write CD-TEXT Information: Yes
Average EAC Reading Speed: 3.7 (I dont believe this is an accurate speed because it is on the computer with low memory)
Comment: