Cd/dvd 101

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:18 PM

CD/DVD 101

Revision History
1.00 - April 2005
1.10 - September 2006

Contents

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:19 PM

Section 01 -- All them Funky Terms
CD, DVD, DL, RW, etc

CD is an abbreviation for compact disc which we are all familiar with. Available (common and uncommon) are 184MB, 220MB, 650MB, 700MB, 800MB, 830MB and 900MB with the most widely available size being 700MB. CDs with a capacity less than 650MB are often calledMiniCDs
DVDs are widely recognized but often mis-abbreviated: DVD is an abbreviation fordigital versatile disc andnot digital video disc (because if it was, DVD Video wouldnt quite make sense). DVD capacities are given as a per-layer value as DVD technology allows for multiple layers to be present on a disc. The most common size is 4.36GB although commercial DVD fabs have access to 7.95GB discs
DVD5, DVD9 Since DVDs can vary drastically in size, we use DVD5 to denote discs with a 4.36GB capacity and DVD9 to denote those with a 7.95GB capacity. Why the disparity? Because marketing people insist on messing up Giga- as being 1000MB and as such DVD5s are often marketed (incorrectly) as having 4.7GB capacity and DVD9s having 8.5GB.
DL, an abbreviation fordual-layer. this is in reference to the fact that DVDs allow for multiple layers on a given disc. As the name would suggest, dual-layer discs have two such layers and thus doubling their capacity
RW, an abbreviation forre-writeable and it means just that -- a disc with a RW suffix can be erased and rewritten on again and again. Yes there is a limit to the number of times you can re-use a disc but by the time you get anywhere near that limit odds are you'll have damaged the disc due to accidental scratches or what-not already
R,-R,+R. With CDs, the R suffix was an indication that the discs could be written on (i.e., to discriminate between CD-R and CDROM). When DVDs came along, the industry was fractured into two factions, +R and -R each with their own proponents and their benifits/flaws. Again, both DVD+R and DVD-R discs can be written on (so long as the burner supports that disc type) however it should be noted that for DVDs there is no "plain R" i.e., DVDR.
BL is an abbreviation for BluRay Disc which is a next generation optical disc format with capacities of 25GB per-layer. In comparison to current DVD discs which max out at 7.95GB/layer, all the extra capacity is possible by using a much shorter wavelength laser to read/write which in turn, allows for tighter packing of data and a greater overall capacity. BluRay competes with HDDVD
HD-DVD is an abbrviation for Hi-Density Digital Versitile Disc (not high-definition!!). HDDVD discs can store 15GB per-layer which is less than their competitor, BD but HD-DVD discs are cheaper to produce as they are direct descendents of standard DVDs

MultiSpeed, HighSpeed, UltraSpeed, UltraSpeed+
These terms define speed grades for CD-RW discs and burners,

Multispeed discs are rated 4X to 8X (it is important to note that not all 4X discs are classified as Multispeed however thankfully as we no longer have to deal with these discs, the nuance is no longer an issue)
HighSpeed discs are rated 10X to 12X
UltraSpeed discs are rated at 16X and 24X
UltraSpeed+ discs are rated to 32X

It should be noted that very often, laptop optical drives (and especially true for older laptops) will have issues reading HighSpeed (or better) discs, Most modern drives should be able to handle UltraSpeed and (to a lesser degree), UltraSpeed+ discs.

CLV, CAV, PCAV, ZCLV
These are acronyms for the various different approaches to "burning CDs/DVDs faster". Short of being an optical drive engineer or something, this is not going to affect virtuallly anyone and is included for thoroughness sake

CLV This one is straight forward: constant linear velocity: here there is a constant number of sectors passing under the sensor per second and as such it is really easy to, with good accuracy, determine how long it will take to burn a disc. Due to the physics of rotational motion, the drive is constantly changing its velocity so that the same number of sectors passes under the read/write heads per second. For the most part, pure CLV is limited to about 12X for CD burning
CAV. An alternative to CLV is CAV (constant angular velocity) and this approach is based on the principle of keeping the spindle speed constant. The downsides to this approach are that (a) it's not easy to calculate the time it takes to burn a disc because the burn speeds is not the same for any given moment (i.e., the burn speed accelerates) and (b) in theory, if we burned a disc using 12X CAV and a disc using 12X CLV, the CLV-burnt one would finish sooner -- and while there arent any modern overlapping scenarios like that, back in the day, this was possible. The upside for CAV is that you can have a significantly improved maximum speed. Burning CDs as speeds in excess of 12X or DVD+R media is based on this principle.
Z-CLV. An improvement over the clunkiness of CLV, Z-CLV or Zone-CLV divides a CD/DVD into sets of concentric rings and while the sensor is within each ring, it maintains a given CLV speed (i.e., think of it as the optical drive "gearing up" as it moves from the inside to the outside of the disc). Many modern drives (including those for DVD-R burning) are based on this model
P-CAV, Short for Partial CAV, this model is the marriage of both core models: while the burner is processing the earlier parts of a disc (near the center of the disc), the drives uses a CLV model and after a certain point, the drive switches into CAV mode so that it can accelerate through the rest of the burning process.

ATIP
Absolute time in pre-groove, this is. for all intents and purposes, the signiture or thumbprint of a optical disc. This information tells the burner and/or burning application everything it needs to know about that disc and is absolutely critical when discussing optical media. Here is an example of an ATIP dump (given by Alcohol120):

By using the ATIP information, we can refer to a disc in an extremely exact manner rather than saying "Oh those Maxell/Sony/Verbatim/TDK/etc discs I bought were really good". (it should be noted that neither Maxell, Sony, Verbatim nor TDK make discs at all).

C1/C2, P0/P1 Errors
Burning media is not a perfected process which is immune to error; with CD media, quality of media/burner/process is judged by the number of C1/C2 errors present and with DVD media, P0/P1 errors. C1/P0 errors are generally very basic errors and are automatically corrected on the fly by the drive (and for all intents and purposes, cannot be affected by the end user). C2/P1 errors on the otherhand are directly influenced by factors like burn speed and media quality (needless to say, burning faster generates more C2/P1 errors).

CD/DVD Images?
It is possible to store an exact image of a CD or DVD onto a harddrive for archival purposes, performance purposes or even for distribution. There are numerous formats available to perofmr this function each with their own benifits and drawbacks

ISO As the name suggests, this is the de-facto, cross platform standard format for storing CD/DVD images however at the same time, it's universal compatability and ease of use limits its capabilities (no error correction capacity and no ability to store any subchannel data). An inadvertent benifit this is that, since they cannot store any extra information, they tend to result in the smallest filesizes. The defnining technical characteristic of ISO files is that they are Mode1/2048 essentially meaning they are Mode 1 images (not horribly important) and that they hold 2048 bytes per sector.
BIN/CUE Originally developed on the Mac platform but now fairly common, the image of stored across two files, the BIN (which holds the data, i.e., the important stuff) and the CUE (which holds interpretation information, i.e., not important). The advanatage that BIN/CUE have over ISO is that they can hold error correction information as well as additional information required to make proper images of copy-protected media (albeit very old/weak protection schemes only). BIN/CUE files are split into two categories: Mode1/2352 and Mode2/2352: both store 2352 bytes/sector howevever Mode1 is usually reserved for Data images and Mode2 for media images)
IMG/SUB/CCD, MDF/MDS, BWT/BWA These are image formats designed specifically to be able to store subchannel, data density and other information required to make proper 1:1 copies of protected media. IMG/SUB/CCD is associated with an application called CloneCD, MDF/MDS associated with Alcohol120 and BWT/BWA with BlindWrite.

Copy Protection
It doesnt take a lot to see why software companies would like to implement anti-copying schemes however from the consumer's perspective, it's not hard to see that discs are not indestructable and making a backup copy would be a wise thing. For the most part these protections are applied to games however applications feature them from time to time (although applications tend to focus in a different direction). Some of the more common protection schemes for (for DataCD and DataDVDs) are:

ProtecCD. VOB's ProtectCD is a very cost effective way to provide copy-protection and integrate it with installation scripts: you can detect this scheme by opening the main exe with a hex-editor and searching for "VOB". Some games featuring this are Jet Fighter 4, Motoracer 2, Quake 3 Team Arena
SafeDisc (aka SafeDisc v1, SafeDisc Lite) This is an extremely popular protection scheme because it doesnt require any changes to average computer hardware to function: the protection scheme works by verifying a digital signiture embedded into the disc. The main executeable is split across two files, an EXE and a ICD (the EXE essentially being a loader for the encrypted EXE stored inside the ICD). Due to it's age, this is a very easy protection scheme to bypass. Some games featuring this protection include: Army Men 2, Rainbow Six, Falcon 4 and Tiberian Sun. Ironically Encarta 2000 features this as well.
SafeDisc 2. Although this should really be split into two categories (before- and after-SD2.4), SafeDisc2 extends upon SafeDisc v1 by integrating the EXE and ICD together into the EXE as well as adding an excessive number of read errors in the first 10,000 sectors of the and introducing 'weak sectors' Whereas the read-errors may prove to be a nuisance the weak sectors prove to be a very robust protection mechanism as it requires that the burner trying to perform the backup to have certain characteristics. Some games featuring this are Aquanox, Battlefield 1942, Red Alert 2 and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2
SafeDisc 3. It was with this protection that really separated the exceptional drives from the very-good ones. SafeDisc3 supports some very robust encryption routines and allows for executeables to be encrypted across several CDs as well as introducing anti-virtual drive mechanisms (although in 90% of cases where people complain that they have problems with their virtual drives is because they've not looked deep enough ... SafeDisc3 allows for games to be run off virtual drives -- as long as the game is authenticated with the original copy first. Games like Prince of Persia Sands of Time, MOHPA and Doom3 pack this protection
SafeDisc 4 Yet another incarnation of our favorite protection scheme and adds extensive blacklisting of virtual drives and methods. Some games featuring this protection are Cold Fear, Brother in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Silent Hunter III, Settler's Heritage of Kings and Prince of Persia Warrior Within
SecurROM v1-v3 SecuROM is a popular alternative to SafeDisc and traditionally has been much more difficult to deal with. At the core, an each game is given a specific fingerprint which is verified by the executeable (allowing the executeable to essentially detect whether it is being run off a CDR or a pressed-CD).
SecurROM NEW v4 It was this revision of SecuROM that separated the good drives from the bad ones as well as those in-the-know from those not. SecuROM v4 added a physical signiture property (think of it as a data densitiy measurement) as well as the ability to perform limited on-the-fly cd-checks (i.e., say the beginning of every level or something). Games featuring this include Empire Earth, Unreal 2 and UT2003
SecuROM 5 This 'adds' some blacklisting for virtual drives as well as adding more level-checks and such, difficulty-wise there isnt a world of difference between SecuROM 4.8+ and SecuROM5. Some games featuring this include UT2004, Polar Express, Evil Genius and Full Spectrum Warrior
SecuROM 7[/i]. Not a whole lot is known about this protection scheme but it seemed important enough to skip v6. Installing a SecuROM 7 game does usually entail also installing a system service (hence some/all of them require/'suggest' you restart the system). The name of the service is UAService7.exe (not sure whether or not this interferes with playing the game). Some games featuring this are Project Snoblind, WarChess, Act of War Direct Action and Constantine. It does look however that SecuROM7 is turning out to be the 'new StarForce'
StarForce. Coming in three versions (Professional, CDR, Shareware) the most popular (CDR) is for all intents and purposes the be-all, end-all of protection mechanisms and isnt copyable short of a bit-burner (if you have to ask what those are, you wont be able to afford-one/know-what-to-do-with-it (and even then im not sure if you can). StarForce has also blacklisted damn near every virtual drive available as well. Some games featuring this impressive protection scheme are Silent Hunter III, Blitzkreig Rolling Thunder, Bandits Phoenix Rising, Beyond Divinity, Breed and Pax Romana.

Virtual Drive
Essentially this refers to the mechanism/software that allows you to be able ot use a CD/DVD image like it was a real disc. This offers a few benifits: (a) you dont have to waste a disc to see if something works (b) load times from harddrive are faster than from optical drive and. Most applications designed for backing up protected media come with some form of virtual drive as does Nero (although with very limited functionality).

Overburning
This refers to the process of burning more data (i.e., DataCD or DataDVD) than is originally specified -- some CD/DVDs handle it better than others.

ASPI, Pattin-Couffin
ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programming Interface) is just essentially a 'driver' that lets you interact with your optical drive the way it's supposed to. An improperly installed or configured ASPI layer can result in a whole slew of random problems. A more advanced version of the ASPI layer, called Pattin-Couffin allows better access to optical drive function by supported applications (say DVD43 or BlindWrite). If your application gives you the option of utilizing a Pattin-Couffin driver, take that option.

Buffer Underrun
When burning a disc, for all intents and purposes, "once the laser is on, there's no turning it off (until the disc is burnt)" What this really means to the end user is that "if they dont want their CD/DVD to get ruined, make sure the burner has a constant supply of data". Now this isnt always possible: user's tend to do things while they're burning and as such the steady flow of data is inturrupted. A simple countermeasure to this is to provide a bit of memory so that when the flow is interrupted the burner just uses the data stored in this memory to continue burning (hopefully that memory, or buffer, will be refilled before it runs out). Buffer sizes range from 512K to 8MB and even the 'massive' 8MB buffers only offer a second or two at most of protection. When this buffer runs out, an error known as a buffer underrun is generated and the CD/DVD is toast. That's where an innovative idea came up to "pause burning" as the buffer refills itself and resume once it's full. This idea is known buffer underrun protection (also going by a crapload of different names). Technically speaking, there are two revisions of this technology however all modern drives feature the second of the two (the more advanced) so it's not that important a distinction.

Firmware
The firmware on your optical drive defines that drive's capabilties and with some drives (more common with better drives), you can "upgrade" or flash that firmware to fix known problems, add fuctionality or increase performance. In some cases, a firmware flash is a method to kinda "reset" the drive if you've got some problems with it. Unless you've got a specific reason not to, you should always keep your firmwares up to date

EFM aka Sheep
EFM (eight-fourteen modulation) refers to a drive's ability to properly translate an 8-bit byte to a 14-bit byte. The reason this is done is important is (a) at higher speeds, the laser has less and less time to determine if something represents a pit or a flat (0 or 1) and by making the scanning size bigger (to 14bits) there is less of a chance of error (the rule of EFM is to ensure that there are at least 2 zeros and no more than 10 between any pair of 1's) and (b) when making 1:1 backups of protected media (in particular anything protected with SafeDisc2 or better), hardware support is crucial. Back in the days when CloneCD was popular/useful, the ability of a drive to properly perform EFM was measured as an index of sheep (since the CloneCD mascott was a sheep):
- 0 Sheep = The drive cant do any EFM worth crap even to save it's life
- 1 Sheep = Quite common amoung "average" drives and the drive is able to do EFM most of the time
- 2 Sheep = Common amoung performance drives and indicates drives that can do EFM all the time evertime
- 3 Sheep = very rare!
Here is a little set of tests that allow you to determine the sheepcount of your drive.

Bitsetting and Booktyping
Due to the dual-standards with the DVD industry, there have been techniques established in order to maximize compatability of burnt media with the arbitrary drives. You can read more about thishere

Lightscribe
Lightscribe is a technology that allows you to impress a label or image onto a specialized disc thus creating an elegant label for your media without relying on markers or stickers etc.

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:19 PM

Section 02 - How do I pick a good optical drive?
Brand
Brand matters! Sure its not the be-all-end-all but it certainly helps you narrow down the selection list. If you really do your background research before buying drives you'll often find that drives are rebagged by some manufacturers (i.e., Company A will buy a generic drive from Company B and slap a Company A logo on it). In general however, there are some brands with fairly consistent performance to look out for include:

Plextor
ASUS
BenQ
Lite-On
NEC
Pioneer

Some other brands lack the consistency of the previous list but can be good choices (often because they are rebagged models from the previous list) include:

Sony
Samsung

Check for Performance
Just comparing the marketed numbers can be helpful in narrowing down choices. Granted, burning faster isnt always the best idea however, all things being equal, you'd rather have a drive that can burn faster than one that cant. Some drives trade performance with one type of media for performance in another -- so you may want/need to decide which faction you will follow before making your purchase.

In general, DVD-R will be more widely compatible (an particularly so with home theater drives) however, DVD+R will provide for faster burns (rather, DVD+R media and burning is more forgiving at high-speed than for DVD-R). For the most part however, there isnt much of a difference to the casual end-user.

Manufacturer Support
Some manufacturers are known to suppor their drives with new firmware releases more so than others; these firmware releases add to the functionality of the drive by either allowing the drive to burn faster, burn to a wider variety of media or burn with more confidence (quality of burn, i.e., fewer C1/C2/P0/P1 errors). Some

Features and Extra Features
If you're in the market for a new optical drive, the following should, for all intents and purposes, support DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD±R DL formats. Features like LightScribe should be considered if there isnt a large premium for it (even if you dont forsee yourself using the technology anytime soon). The reasoning is that, in time, LighScribe media will come down in price and then the technology may be more appealing.

If you're looking for a fully featured drive (and are willing to pay the substantial premium), Plextor drives are the cream of the crop. Innovations included with a substantial number of their drives include:

PowerRec This is actually an acronym for Plextor Optimized Writing Error Reduction Control which is a bunch of mumbo jumbo for a fancy bit of circuitry which manages the power output of the burning laser (and also affects the burn speed) and what it does is constantly monitors the burning process and if errors are encountered, it slows the down the burn process to minimize them. This is particularly useful when overspeeding a disc (i.e., burning a 4X rated DVDR at say, 8X)
GigaREC This is a very nifty technology whereby, the drive tosses out the CD-R Orange Book spec in order to crap 900MB or so onto a standard 700MB disc. The only catch is that compatability of that disc is limited to essentially Plextor drives with this technology
SecuRec Which essentially encrypts CDR media ... kinda neat but again, compatability issues.
SilentMode Plextor drives have a hardware capacity to throttle their speed to essentially eliminate any operational noise -- very useful for those wanting to build silent boxes.

Other makes (like LiteOn and IIRC, ASUS) have similar features under different names.

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:20 PM

Section 03 -- I'm Lazy! What Drive do you Reccomend?
For the most part, there isnt really a reason not to get at least a DVD±RW, dual-layer capable drive (unless you explicitly need DVD-RAM support. In the case that you explicitly need a CDROM-only or DVD-ROM only (and there are reasons), you might as well get the cheapest one you can get your hands on.

DVD±RW DL Drives
NEC ND3550A ($29.25)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 140ms/160ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/6X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD-RAM: None
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
It's cheap, it's functional and really, this drive is a baseline for all the other drives.

LiteOn SHM-165H6S ($30.99)*** Praetor's Pick ***
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/6X/4X
DVD-RAM: 5x
Lightscribe: Yes
Info Page
This drive is an excellent all-around drive featuring support for all the different types of media as well as tossing in some fancy LiteOn features and LightScribe. CD performance could be bettwe in addition to the drive's -R media support. Hopefully this is correct with firmware updates however buyers of this drive will probably want to make use of +R media. Lastly, this drive is a two sheep drive and is able to handle SD2.90 which makes it a very strong canadidate for making CD backups. This is my premier pick for overall value however if you dont need the Lightscribe, the NEC 4570A is a much more capable drive.

Pioneer DVR-111D ($31.82)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): Unspecified
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD-RAM: None
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
Pioneer has been around for a very long time with respect to the DVD-RW market and its no surprise that we have the DVR-111 on the list. Burn quality is very good although this drive seems to favor burning +R media overall.

NEC ND-4570A ($33.25) *** Praetor's Pick ***
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 140ms/160ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD-RAM: 5x
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
This drive has a bonus -- it is a SuperMulti drive meaning it supports DVD-RAM media as well; good burn quality all around although it favors -R media slightly (as far as quality goes).

Sony DRU820A ($53.50)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 135ms/130ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/6X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD-RAM: 5x
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
Good drive all around albeit a bit expensive (as typical of Sony Products) however this drive is senstitive to cheap media! Also, it appears that this drive is a rebagged BenQ DW1670

Plextor PX-750A ($72.99)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 130ms/140ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X
DVD-RAM: 5x
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
An all around good drive however this drive slightly favors -R media. It should be noted that although the CD performance is superb, this drive does not feature the extended featureset that other Plextor drives have.

Plextor PX-760A/SW ($99.99)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 18X/8X/10X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 18X/6X/6X
DVD-RAM: No
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
An excellent drive with superb burn quality however it should be noted the PX-760A is a zero sheep burner! (which is shocking), so dont expect to use this drive successfully for CD backups. This drive however does include all the premium features present on the high end Plextor drives

Plextor PX-755SA ($110.99)
Cache: 2MB
Interface: SATA150
Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/10X
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/6X/6X
DVD-RAM: No
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
Like the PX-760A, this drive is also a zero sheep drive (thus making it a poor choice for backups). DVD burn quality is excellent across the board however I'd say this drive favors +R media. This drive is a SATA drive which may be useful for users who may not have available PATA slots.

BluRay Drives
Sony BWU-100A ($699.99)
Cache: 8MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): 160ms/170ms
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 8x/6x/4x
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 8x/6x/4x
DVD-RAM: 5x
BD-R (SL/DL): 2X/2X
BD-RW (SL/DL): 2X/2X
BD-ROM: 2X
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
Well it's not a hard pick... this is the only drive currently available

Plextor PX-B900A
Cache: 8MB
Interface: ATA33
Access Time (CD/DVD): Unspecified
DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 8x/6x/4x
DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 8x/8x/4x
DVD-RAM: No
BD-R (SL/DL): 2X/2X
BD-RW (SL/DL): 2X/2X
BD-ROM: 2X
Lightscribe: No
Info Page
Not currently available but will be interesting to see what added features Plextor manages to cram into the drive.

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:21 PM

Section 04 -- VFAQ
ATIP? What? Why does this matter?
Think of ATIP as a signiture of a disc ... just because it says "Sony" or "Memorex" on a disc does not mean either of those companies made that disc (and in this case, neither Sony nor Memorex actually make their own media).

Example: A generic CD I have hanging around with a "Memorex" label on it. Doing an ATIP dump, I get the following
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics
Recording Layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine)
ATIP: 97m 26s 66f
Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 73f / LBA: 359848)
So, according to the ATIP, it was actually a company named CMC Magnetics that made the disc!

How is this relevant? For people interested in making backups or archives and/or simply interested in data integrity will definitely want to pick media that ismade by a reputable company and will pay little attention to the company that may have stamped their logo on the disc/packaging. Some good manufacturers of CD media include:

Ritek, Taiyo Yuden (TY), Mitsui, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Moser Bayer India

For DVD media, the process is roughly the same ... I've got a disc here labeled with "Precision Digital" and doing a dump, the following information is revealed:

Disc & Book Type: DVD-R, DVD-R
Manufacturer Name: SKC Co. Ltd
Manufacturer ID SKC Co. Ltd
Blank Disc Capacity: 4.38GB

So here, I've got a disc actually made by SKC Co

For DVD media, some reputable brands include

Taiyo Yuden (TY), Mitsui, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Moser Bayer India

How do you do the ATIP Dump thingy???
There are numerous programs that can tell you this information

There are other tools available but those seem to be the more common ones

Ok so how do I make sure I buy only good media?
Do your background research or trial-and-error! There are forums and websites out there that attempt to idenfity the ATIP information on discs in a consumer-friendly manner (i.e., "The <model> discs sold at <store> happen to be <ATIP>") ... if you cant find any ... just buy one, test it and if it's good, then grab a whole bunch!

So what happens if I have "crappy" media? Is there anything I can do?
Burn slower! Regardless of how good quality your discs are, if you insist on burning full-tilt speed every time, you're going to have errors on your burns ... maybe you dont think you have them (i.e., you dont have windows giving you CRC32 errors) ... but you know how with some of your CDs, you can read them faster? Or how that one disc just copies so slow? Thats poor burn quality. In extreme cases, things like videos can become out of sync!

Ok what do I do with this Image I have?

ISO. You can burn this with any burning application simply because it is universally compatible. If your application requires you to specify some additional information. ISO files are "Mode 1" and have a sector size of 2048 bytes
BIN/CUE. Most mainstream applications allow you to "burn the CUE file" (which in effect loads the BIN file so yes you need the BIN file). If you dont have the CUE file you can make one from the BIN file (no you cannot make a BIN file from the CUE file). A quick tool to do so can be found here. If you're too lazy to make a CUE file, for the most part data images are "Mode 1" and media images are "Mode 2"; both modes have a sector size of 2352 bytes.
IMG/SUB/CCD, MDF/MDS, BWT/BWA. This is a format dedicated to storing images of protected discs. Any program designed to handle protected media can handle this format (load the CCD file although realistically it doesnt matter). CloneCD, Alcohol120 and BlindWrite can handle this format. If you're missing one of the files for these specialized formats, for the most part, you are out of luck (unless the CD/DVD itself doesnt have any protection so it does not matter)
Lastly you can get a virtual drive and mount the images as if they were real CDs/DVDs Nero, Alcohol, Blindwrite, CloneCD, CDRWIN5, Padus etc all have virtual drives of varying capabilites although the nest is probablyDaemonTools

I downloaded this image and it's just a bunch of 001,002,003 files! What do I do?
Pay for whatever it was you downloaded. Of course, if it's legit and youdid pay for it ... then there's probably a tech support or a FAQ on the site you got it from.

Should I use DVD+R or DVD-R Media?
For the most part, it doesnt matter. If you're dealing with older hardware like home theater systems you may want the added compatability that DVD-R media provides however if you're interested purely in PC applications (i.e., data archival), the higher speeds provided by DVD+R may be more useful to you.

**Praetor** · 04-12-2005, 11:22 PM

Section 05 -- Official Links
Phillips "Book" Standards
Mount Ranier
DVD Forum
BluRay Forum
HD-DVD Forum

**Praetor** · 09-09-2006, 04:44 AM

Section 06 -- Addendum
How do I burn a CD? A DVD?
Sure you can use windows to directly access the drive (or maybe you cant and that why you're here), but I would highly advise against it (as performance, capability and control will be lacking). I would reccomend considering two programs:

Both are very functional and straight-foward and have built in wizards/tutorials on how to do most if not all the functions available

04-12-2005, 11:18 PM	#1 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Cd/dvd 101 CD/DVD 101 Revision History 1.00 - April 2005 1.10 - September 2006 Contents Section 01 -- All them funky terms Section 02 -- How do I pick a good optical drive? Section 03 -- I'm lazy! Which one do you reccomend? Section 04 -- VFAQ Section 05 -- Official Links Section 06 -- Addendum __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-09-2006 at 04:45 AM.

04-12-2005, 11:19 PM	#2 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Definitions Part 01 Section 01 -- All them Funky Terms *CD, DVD, DL, RW, etc* CD is an abbreviation for compact disc which we are all familiar with. Available (common and uncommon) are 184MB, 220MB, 650MB, 700MB, 800MB, 830MB and 900MB with the most widely available size being 700MB. CDs with a capacity less than 650MB are often calledMiniCDs DVDs are widely recognized but often mis-abbreviated: DVD is an abbreviation fordigital versatile disc andnot digital video disc (because if it was, DVD Video wouldnt quite make sense). DVD capacities are given as a per-layer value as DVD technology allows for multiple layers to be present on a disc. The most common size is 4.36GB although commercial DVD fabs have access to 7.95GB discs DVD5, DVD9 Since DVDs can vary drastically in size, we use DVD5 to denote discs with a 4.36GB capacity and DVD9 to denote those with a 7.95GB capacity. Why the disparity? Because marketing people insist on messing up Giga- as being 1000MB and as such DVD5s are often marketed (incorrectly) as having 4.7GB capacity and DVD9s having 8.5GB. DL, an abbreviation fordual-layer. this is in reference to the fact that DVDs allow for multiple layers on a given disc. As the name would suggest, dual-layer discs have two such layers and thus doubling their capacity RW, an abbreviation forre-writeable and it means just that -- a disc with a RW suffix can be erased and rewritten on again and again. Yes there is a limit to the number of times you can re-use a disc but by the time you get anywhere near that limit odds are you'll have damaged the disc due to accidental scratches or what-not already R,-R,+R. With CDs, the R suffix was an indication that the discs could be written on (i.e., to discriminate between CD-R and CDROM). When DVDs came along, the industry was fractured into two factions, +R and -R each with their own proponents and their benifits/flaws. Again, both DVD+R and DVD-R discs can be written on (so long as the burner supports that disc type) however it should be noted that for DVDs there is no "plain R" i.e., DVDR. BL is an abbreviation for BluRay Disc which is a next generation optical disc format with capacities of 25GB per-layer. In comparison to current DVD discs which max out at 7.95GB/layer, all the extra capacity is possible by using a much shorter wavelength laser to read/write which in turn, allows for tighter packing of data and a greater overall capacity. BluRay competes with HDDVD HD-DVD is an abbrviation for Hi-Density Digital Versitile Disc (not high-definition!!). HDDVD discs can store 15GB per-layer which is less than their competitor, BD but HD-DVD discs are cheaper to produce as they are direct descendents of standard DVDs *MultiSpeed, HighSpeed, UltraSpeed, UltraSpeed+* These terms define speed grades for CD-RW discs and burners, Multispeed discs are rated 4X to 8X (it is important to note that not all 4X discs are classified as Multispeed however thankfully as we no longer have to deal with these discs, the nuance is no longer an issue) HighSpeed discs are rated 10X to 12X UltraSpeed discs are rated at 16X and 24X UltraSpeed+ discs are rated to 32X It should be noted that very often, laptop optical drives (and especially true for older laptops) will have issues reading HighSpeed (or better) discs, Most modern drives should be able to handle UltraSpeed and (to a lesser degree), UltraSpeed+ discs. *CLV, CAV, PCAV, ZCLV* These are acronyms for the various different approaches to "burning CDs/DVDs faster". Short of being an optical drive engineer or something, this is not going to affect virtuallly anyone and is included for thoroughness sake CLV This one is straight forward: constant linear velocity: here there is a constant number of sectors passing under the sensor per second and as such it is really easy to, with good accuracy, determine how long it will take to burn a disc. Due to the physics of rotational motion, the drive is constantly changing its velocity so that the same number of sectors passes under the read/write heads per second. For the most part, pure CLV is limited to about 12X for CD burning CAV. An alternative to CLV is CAV (constant angular velocity) and this approach is based on the principle of keeping the spindle speed constant. The downsides to this approach are that (a) it's not easy to calculate the time it takes to burn a disc because the burn speeds is not the same for any given moment (i.e., the burn speed accelerates) and (b) in theory, if we burned a disc using 12X CAV and a disc using 12X CLV, the CLV-burnt one would finish sooner -- and while there arent any modern overlapping scenarios like that, back in the day, this was possible. The upside for CAV is that you can have a significantly improved maximum speed. Burning CDs as speeds in excess of 12X or DVD+R media is based on this principle. Z-CLV. An improvement over the clunkiness of CLV, Z-CLV or Zone-CLV divides a CD/DVD into sets of concentric rings and while the sensor is within each ring, it maintains a given CLV speed (i.e., think of it as the optical drive "gearing up" as it moves from the inside to the outside of the disc). Many modern drives (including those for DVD-R burning) are based on this model P-CAV, Short for Partial CAV, this model is the marriage of both core models: while the burner is processing the earlier parts of a disc (near the center of the disc), the drives uses a CLV model and after a certain point, the drive switches into CAV mode so that it can accelerate through the rest of the burning process. *ATIP* Absolute time in pre-groove, this is. for all intents and purposes, the signiture or thumbprint of a optical disc. This information tells the burner and/or burning application everything it needs to know about that disc and is absolutely critical when discussing optical media. Here is an example of an ATIP dump (given by Alcohol120): By using the ATIP information, we can refer to a disc in an extremely exact manner rather than saying "Oh those Maxell/Sony/Verbatim/TDK/etc discs I bought were really good". (it should be noted that neither Maxell, Sony, Verbatim nor TDK make discs at all). *C1/C2, P0/P1 Errors* Burning media is not a perfected process which is immune to error; with CD media, quality of media/burner/process is judged by the number of C1/C2 errors present and with DVD media, P0/P1 errors. C1/P0 errors are generally very basic errors and are automatically corrected on the fly by the drive (and for all intents and purposes, cannot be affected by the end user). C2/P1 errors on the otherhand are directly influenced by factors like burn speed and media quality (needless to say, burning faster generates more C2/P1 errors). *CD/DVD Images?* It is possible to store an exact image of a CD or DVD onto a harddrive for archival purposes, performance purposes or even for distribution. There are numerous formats available to perofmr this function each with their own benifits and drawbacks ISO As the name suggests, this is the de-facto, cross platform standard format for storing CD/DVD images however at the same time, it's universal compatability and ease of use limits its capabilities (no error correction capacity and no ability to store any subchannel data). An inadvertent benifit this is that, since they cannot store any extra information, they tend to result in the smallest filesizes. The defnining technical characteristic of ISO files is that they are Mode1/2048 essentially meaning they are Mode 1 images (not horribly important) and that they hold 2048 bytes per sector. BIN/CUE Originally developed on the Mac platform but now fairly common, the image of stored across two files, the BIN (which holds the data, i.e., the important stuff) and the CUE (which holds interpretation information, i.e., not important). The advanatage that BIN/CUE have over ISO is that they can hold error correction information as well as additional information required to make proper images of copy-protected media (albeit very old/weak protection schemes only). BIN/CUE files are split into two categories: Mode1/2352 and Mode2/2352: both store 2352 bytes/sector howevever Mode1 is usually reserved for Data images and Mode2 for media images) IMG/SUB/CCD, MDF/MDS, BWT/BWA These are image formats designed specifically to be able to store subchannel, data density and other information required to make proper 1:1 copies of protected media. IMG/SUB/CCD is associated with an application called CloneCD, MDF/MDS associated with Alcohol120 and BWT/BWA with BlindWrite. *Copy Protection* It doesnt take a lot to see why software companies would like to implement anti-copying schemes however from the consumer's perspective, it's not hard to see that discs are not indestructable and making a backup copy would be a wise thing. For the most part these protections are applied to games however applications feature them from time to time (although applications tend to focus in a different direction). Some of the more common protection schemes for (for DataCD and DataDVDs) are: ProtecCD. VOB's ProtectCD is a very cost effective way to provide copy-protection and integrate it with installation scripts: you can detect this scheme by opening the main exe with a hex-editor and searching for "VOB". Some games featuring this are Jet Fighter 4, Motoracer 2, Quake 3 Team Arena SafeDisc (aka SafeDisc v1, SafeDisc Lite) This is an extremely popular protection scheme because it doesnt require any changes to average computer hardware to function: the protection scheme works by verifying a digital signiture embedded into the disc. The main executeable is split across two files, an EXE and a ICD (the EXE essentially being a loader for the encrypted EXE stored inside the ICD). Due to it's age, this is a very easy protection scheme to bypass. Some games featuring this protection include: Army Men 2, Rainbow Six, Falcon 4 and Tiberian Sun. Ironically Encarta 2000 features this as well. SafeDisc 2. Although this should really be split into two categories (before- and after-SD2.4), SafeDisc2 extends upon SafeDisc v1 by integrating the EXE and ICD together into the EXE as well as adding an excessive number of read errors in the first 10,000 sectors of the and introducing 'weak sectors' Whereas the read-errors may prove to be a nuisance the weak sectors prove to be a very robust protection mechanism as it requires that the burner trying to perform the backup to have certain characteristics. Some games featuring this are Aquanox, Battlefield 1942, Red Alert 2 and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 SafeDisc 3. It was with this protection that really separated the exceptional drives from the very-good ones. SafeDisc3 supports some very robust encryption routines and allows for executeables to be encrypted across several CDs as well as introducing anti-virtual drive mechanisms (although in 90% of cases where people complain that they have problems with their virtual drives is because they've not looked deep enough ... SafeDisc3 allows for games to be run off virtual drives -- as long as the game is authenticated with the original copy first. Games like Prince of Persia Sands of Time, MOHPA and Doom3 pack this protection SafeDisc 4 Yet another incarnation of our favorite protection scheme and adds extensive blacklisting of virtual drives and methods. Some games featuring this protection are Cold Fear, Brother in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Silent Hunter III, Settler's Heritage of Kings and Prince of Persia Warrior Within SecurROM v1-v3 SecuROM is a popular alternative to SafeDisc and traditionally has been much more difficult to deal with. At the core, an each game is given a specific fingerprint which is verified by the executeable (allowing the executeable to essentially detect whether it is being run off a CDR or a pressed-CD). SecurROM NEW v4 It was this revision of SecuROM that separated the good drives from the bad ones as well as those in-the-know from those not. SecuROM v4 added a physical signiture property (think of it as a data densitiy measurement) as well as the ability to perform limited on-the-fly cd-checks (i.e., say the beginning of every level or something). Games featuring this include Empire Earth, Unreal 2 and UT2003 SecuROM 5 This 'adds' some blacklisting for virtual drives as well as adding more level-checks and such, difficulty-wise there isnt a world of difference between SecuROM 4.8+ and SecuROM5. Some games featuring this include UT2004, Polar Express, Evil Genius and Full Spectrum Warrior SecuROM 7[/i]. Not a whole lot is known about this protection scheme but it seemed important enough to skip v6. Installing a SecuROM 7 game does usually entail also installing a system service (hence some/all of them require/'suggest' you restart the system). The name of the service is UAService7.exe (not sure whether or not this interferes with playing the game). Some games featuring this are Project Snoblind, WarChess, Act of War Direct Action and Constantine. It does look however that SecuROM7 is turning out to be the 'new StarForce' StarForce. Coming in three versions (Professional, CDR, Shareware) the most popular (CDR) is for all intents and purposes the be-all, end-all of protection mechanisms and isnt copyable short of a bit-burner (if you have to ask what those are, you wont be able to afford-one/know-what-to-do-with-it (and even then im not sure if you can). StarForce has also blacklisted damn near every virtual drive available as well. Some games featuring this impressive protection scheme are Silent Hunter III, Blitzkreig Rolling Thunder, Bandits Phoenix Rising, Beyond Divinity, Breed and Pax Romana. *Virtual Drive* Essentially this refers to the mechanism/software that allows you to be able ot use a CD/DVD image like it was a real disc. This offers a few benifits: (a) you dont have to waste a disc to see if something works (b) load times from harddrive are faster than from optical drive and. Most applications designed for backing up protected media come with some form of virtual drive as does Nero (although with very limited functionality). *Overburning* This refers to the process of burning more data (i.e., DataCD or DataDVD) than is originally specified -- some CD/DVDs handle it better than others. *ASPI, Pattin-Couffin* ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programming Interface) is just essentially a 'driver' that lets you interact with your optical drive the way it's supposed to. An improperly installed or configured ASPI layer can result in a whole slew of random problems. A more advanced version of the ASPI layer, called Pattin-Couffin allows better access to optical drive function by supported applications (say DVD43 or BlindWrite). If your application gives you the option of utilizing a Pattin-Couffin driver, take that option. *Buffer Underrun* When burning a disc, for all intents and purposes, "once the laser is on, there's no turning it off (until the disc is burnt)" What this really means to the end user is that "if they dont want their CD/DVD to get ruined, make sure the burner has a constant supply of data". Now this isnt always possible: user's tend to do things while they're burning and as such the steady flow of data is inturrupted. A simple countermeasure to this is to provide a bit of memory so that when the flow is interrupted the burner just uses the data stored in this memory to continue burning (hopefully that memory, or buffer, will be refilled before it runs out). Buffer sizes range from 512K to 8MB and even the 'massive' 8MB buffers only offer a second or two at most of protection. When this buffer runs out, an error known as a buffer underrun is generated and the CD/DVD is toast. That's where an innovative idea came up to "pause burning" as the buffer refills itself and resume once it's full. This idea is known buffer underrun protection (also going by a crapload of different names). Technically speaking, there are two revisions of this technology however all modern drives feature the second of the two (the more advanced) so it's not that important a distinction. *Firmware* The firmware on your optical drive defines that drive's capabilties and with some drives (more common with better drives), you can "upgrade" or flash that firmware to fix known problems, add fuctionality or increase performance. In some cases, a firmware flash is a method to kinda "reset" the drive if you've got some problems with it. Unless you've got a specific reason not to, you should always keep your firmwares up to date *EFM aka Sheep* EFM (eight-fourteen modulation) refers to a drive's ability to properly translate an 8-bit byte to a 14-bit byte. The reason this is done is important is (a) at higher speeds, the laser has less and less time to determine if something represents a pit or a flat (0 or 1) and by making the scanning size bigger (to 14bits) there is less of a chance of error (the rule of EFM is to ensure that there are at least 2 zeros and no more than 10 between any pair of 1's) and (b) when making 1:1 backups of protected media (in particular anything protected with SafeDisc2 or better), hardware support is crucial. Back in the days when CloneCD was popular/useful, the ability of a drive to properly perform EFM was measured as an index of sheep (since the CloneCD mascott was a sheep): - 0 Sheep = The drive cant do any EFM worth crap even to save it's life - 1 Sheep = Quite common amoung "average" drives and the drive is able to do EFM most of the time - 2 Sheep = Common amoung performance drives and indicates drives that can do EFM all the time evertime - 3 Sheep = very rare! Here is a little set of tests that allow you to determine the sheepcount of your drive. *Bitsetting and Booktyping* Due to the dual-standards with the DVD industry, there have been techniques established in order to maximize compatability of burnt media with the arbitrary drives. You can read more about thishere *Lightscribe* Lightscribe is a technology that allows you to impress a label or image onto a specialized disc thus creating an elegant label for your media without relying on markers or stickers etc. __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-03-2006 at 12:09 AM.

04-12-2005, 11:19 PM	#3 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Definitions Part 02 Section 02 - How do I pick a good optical drive? *Brand* Brand matters! Sure its not the be-all-end-all but it certainly helps you narrow down the selection list. If you really do your background research before buying drives you'll often find that drives are rebagged by some manufacturers (i.e., Company A will buy a generic drive from Company B and slap a Company A logo on it). In general however, there are some brands with fairly consistent performance to look out for include: Plextor ASUS BenQ Lite-On NEC Pioneer Some other brands lack the consistency of the previous list but can be good choices (often because they are rebagged models from the previous list) include: Sony Samsung *Check for Performance* Just comparing the marketed numbers can be helpful in narrowing down choices. Granted, burning faster isnt always the best idea however, all things being equal, you'd rather have a drive that can burn faster than one that cant. Some drives trade performance with one type of media for performance in another -- so you may want/need to decide which faction you will follow before making your purchase. In general, DVD-R will be more widely compatible (an particularly so with home theater drives) however, DVD+R will provide for faster burns (rather, DVD+R media and burning is more forgiving at high-speed than for DVD-R). For the most part however, there isnt much of a difference to the casual end-user. *Manufacturer Support* Some manufacturers are known to suppor their drives with new firmware releases more so than others; these firmware releases add to the functionality of the drive by either allowing the drive to burn faster, burn to a wider variety of media or burn with more confidence (quality of burn, i.e., fewer C1/C2/P0/P1 errors). Some *Features and Extra Features* If you're in the market for a new optical drive, the following should, for all intents and purposes, support DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD±R DL formats. Features like LightScribe should be considered if there isnt a large premium for it (even if you dont forsee yourself using the technology anytime soon). The reasoning is that, in time, LighScribe media will come down in price and then the technology may be more appealing. If you're looking for a fully featured drive (and are willing to pay the substantial premium), Plextor drives are the cream of the crop. Innovations included with a substantial number of their drives include: PowerRec This is actually an acronym for Plextor Optimized Writing Error Reduction Control which is a bunch of mumbo jumbo for a fancy bit of circuitry which manages the power output of the burning laser (and also affects the burn speed) and what it does is constantly monitors the burning process and if errors are encountered, it slows the down the burn process to minimize them. This is particularly useful when overspeeding a disc (i.e., burning a 4X rated DVDR at say, 8X) GigaREC This is a very nifty technology whereby, the drive tosses out the CD-R Orange Book spec in order to crap 900MB or so onto a standard 700MB disc. The only catch is that compatability of that disc is limited to essentially Plextor drives with this technology SecuRec Which essentially encrypts CDR media ... kinda neat but again, compatability issues. SilentMode Plextor drives have a hardware capacity to throttle their speed to essentially eliminate any operational noise -- very useful for those wanting to build silent boxes. Other makes (like LiteOn and IIRC, ASUS) have similar features under different names. __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-03-2006 at 12:10 AM.

04-12-2005, 11:20 PM	#4 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Section 03 -- I'm Lazy! What Drive do you Reccomend? For the most part, there isnt really a reason not to get at least a DVD±RW, dual-layer capable drive (unless you explicitly need DVD-RAM support. In the case that you explicitly need a CDROM-only or DVD-ROM only (and there are reasons), you might as well get the cheapest one you can get your hands on. DVD±RW DL Drives NEC ND3550A ($29.25) Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 140ms/160ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/6X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD-RAM: None Lightscribe: No Info Page It's cheap, it's functional and really, this drive is a baseline for all the other drives. LiteOn SHM-165H6S ($30.99)* Praetor's Pick * Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/6X/4X DVD-RAM: 5x Lightscribe: Yes Info Page This drive is an excellent all-around drive featuring support for all the different types of media as well as tossing in some fancy LiteOn features and LightScribe. CD performance could be bettwe in addition to the drive's -R media support. Hopefully this is correct with firmware updates however buyers of this drive will probably want to make use of +R media. Lastly, this drive is a two sheep drive and is able to handle SD2.90 which makes it a very strong canadidate for making CD backups. This is my premier pick for overall value however if you dont need the Lightscribe, the NEC 4570A is a much more capable drive. Pioneer DVR-111D ($31.82) Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): Unspecified DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD-RAM: None Lightscribe: No Info Page Pioneer has been around for a very long time with respect to the DVD-RW market and its no surprise that we have the DVR-111 on the list. Burn quality is very good although this drive seems to favor burning +R media overall. NEC ND-4570A ($33.25) * Praetor's Pick * Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 140ms/160ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD-RAM: 5x Lightscribe: No Info Page This drive has a bonus -- it is a SuperMulti drive meaning it supports DVD-RAM media as well; good burn quality all around although it favors -R media slightly (as far as quality goes). Sony DRU820A ($53.50) Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 135ms/130ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/6X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD-RAM: 5x Lightscribe: No Info Page Good drive all around albeit a bit expensive (as typical of Sony Products) however this drive is senstitive to cheap media! Also, it appears that this drive is a rebagged BenQ DW1670 Plextor PX-750A ($72.99) Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 130ms/140ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/6X/8X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/8X/8X DVD-RAM: 5x Lightscribe: No Info Page An all around good drive however this drive slightly favors -R media. It should be noted that although the CD performance is superb, this drive does not feature the extended featureset that other Plextor drives have. Plextor PX-760A/SW ($99.99) Cache: 2MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 18X/8X/10X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 18X/6X/6X DVD-RAM: No Lightscribe: No Info Page An excellent drive with superb burn quality however it should be noted the PX-760A is a zero sheep burner! (which is shocking), so dont expect to use this drive successfully for CD backups. This drive however does include all the premium features present on the high end Plextor drives Plextor PX-755SA ($110.99) Cache: 2MB Interface: SATA150 Access Time (CD/DVD): 100ms/150ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 16X/8X/10X DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 16X/6X/6X DVD-RAM: No Lightscribe: No Info Page Like the PX-760A, this drive is also a zero sheep drive (thus making it a poor choice for backups). DVD burn quality is excellent across the board however I'd say this drive favors +R media. This drive is a SATA drive which may be useful for users who may not have available PATA slots. BluRay Drives Sony BWU-100A ($699.99) Cache: 8MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): 160ms/170ms DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 8x/6x/4x DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 8x/6x/4x DVD-RAM: 5x BD-R (SL/DL): 2X/2X BD-RW (SL/DL): 2X/2X BD-ROM: 2X Lightscribe: No Info Page Well it's not a hard pick... this is the only drive currently available Plextor PX-B900A Cache: 8MB Interface: ATA33 Access Time (CD/DVD): Unspecified DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-R DL: 8x/6x/4x DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD+R DL: 8x/8x/4x DVD-RAM: No BD-R (SL/DL): 2X/2X BD-RW (SL/DL): 2X/2X BD-ROM: 2X Lightscribe: No Info Page Not currently available but will be interesting to see what added features Plextor manages to cram into the drive. __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-07-2006 at 10:50 PM.

04-12-2005, 11:21 PM	#5 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Section 04 -- VFAQ *ATIP? What? Why does this matter?* Think of ATIP as a signiture of a disc ... just because it says "Sony" or "Memorex" on a disc does not mean either of those companies made that disc (and in this case, neither Sony nor Memorex actually make their own media). Example: A generic CD I have hanging around with a "Memorex" label on it. Doing an ATIP dump, I get the following Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Recording Layer: Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine) ATIP: 97m 26s 66f Capacity: 702.83MB (79m 59s 73f / LBA: 359848) So, according to the ATIP, it was actually a company named CMC Magnetics that made the disc! How is this relevant? For people interested in making backups or archives and/or simply interested in data integrity will definitely want to pick media that ismade by a reputable company and will pay little attention to the company that may have stamped their logo on the disc/packaging. Some good manufacturers of CD media include: Ritek, Taiyo Yuden (TY), Mitsui, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Moser Bayer India For DVD media, the process is roughly the same ... I've got a disc here labeled with "Precision Digital" and doing a dump, the following information is revealed: Disc & Book Type: DVD-R, DVD-R Manufacturer Name: SKC Co. Ltd Manufacturer ID SKC Co. Ltd Blank Disc Capacity: 4.38GB So here, I've got a disc actually made by SKC Co For DVD media, some reputable brands include Taiyo Yuden (TY), Mitsui, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Moser Bayer India *How do you do the ATIP Dump thingy???* There are numerous programs that can tell you this information Alcohol120% (CDR+DVDR) CD-R Identifier (CDR) DVDInfo [DVDR] DVD Identifier There are other tools available but those seem to be the more common ones *Ok so how do I make sure I buy only good media?* Do your background research or trial-and-error! There are forums and websites out there that attempt to idenfity the ATIP information on discs in a consumer-friendly manner (i.e., "The <model> discs sold at <store> happen to be <ATIP>") ... if you cant find any ... just buy one, test it and if it's good, then grab a whole bunch! *So what happens if I have "crappy" media? Is there anything I can do?* Burn slower! Regardless of how good quality your discs are, if you insist on burning full-tilt speed every time, you're going to have errors on your burns ... maybe you dont think you have them (i.e., you dont have windows giving you CRC32 errors) ... but you know how with some of your CDs, you can read them faster? Or how that one disc just copies so slow? Thats poor burn quality. In extreme cases, things like videos can become out of sync! *Ok what do I do with this Image I have?* ISO. You can burn this with any burning application simply because it is universally compatible. If your application requires you to specify some additional information. ISO files are "Mode 1" and have a sector size of 2048 bytes BIN/CUE. Most mainstream applications allow you to "burn the CUE file" (which in effect loads the BIN file so yes you need the BIN file). If you dont have the CUE file you can make one from the BIN file (no you cannot make a BIN file from the CUE file). A quick tool to do so can be found here. If you're too lazy to make a CUE file, for the most part data images are "Mode 1" and media images are "Mode 2"; both modes have a sector size of 2352 bytes. IMG/SUB/CCD, MDF/MDS, BWT/BWA. This is a format dedicated to storing images of protected discs. Any program designed to handle protected media can handle this format (load the CCD file although realistically it doesnt matter). CloneCD, Alcohol120 and BlindWrite can handle this format. If you're missing one of the files for these specialized formats, for the most part, you are out of luck (unless the CD/DVD itself doesnt have any protection so it does not matter) Lastly you can get a virtual drive and mount the images as if they were real CDs/DVDs Nero, Alcohol, Blindwrite, CloneCD, CDRWIN5, Padus etc all have virtual drives of varying capabilites although the nest is probablyDaemonTools *I downloaded this image and it's just a bunch of 001,002,003 files! What do I do?* Pay for whatever it was you downloaded. Of course, if it's legit and youdid pay for it ... then there's probably a tech support or a FAQ on the site you got it from. *Should I use DVD+R or DVD-R Media?* For the most part, it doesnt matter. If you're dealing with older hardware like home theater systems you may want the added compatability that DVD-R media provides however if you're interested purely in PC applications (i.e., data archival), the higher speeds provided by DVD+R may be more useful to you. __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-03-2006 at 12:11 AM.

04-12-2005, 11:22 PM	#6 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Section 05 -- Official Links Phillips "Book" Standards Mount Ranier DVD Forum BluRay Forum HD-DVD Forum __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI Last edited by Praetor; 09-03-2006 at 12:11 AM.

09-09-2006, 04:44 AM	#7 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	Section 06 -- Addendum *How do I burn a CD? A DVD?* Sure you can use windows to directly access the drive (or maybe you cant and that why you're here), but I would highly advise against it (as performance, capability and control will be lacking). I would reccomend considering two programs: Nero Burning ROM (demo) DeepBurner (free) Both are very functional and straight-foward and have built in wizards/tutorials on how to do most if not all the functions available __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode