First of all, as I delurk, let me say I've already gotten alot of great info here, which I greatly appreciate.

I purchased my first burner recently, and have made a few backups. I've attached one of my first scans to this post, for which I'd appreciate any feedback. I also have several questions, some of which are admittedly better asked in alternate forums, and I apologize in advance for those out of place.

Regarding my scan:
- A total PIE of 38748 seems excessive, even with max of 166?
- The spike on PIE at the end of the burn?
- And maybe I'm just dumb, but what is the green line? Read speed?
- Comments regarding others burning with same media appreciated.

Regarding scans in general:
- If I understand correctly, in a nutshell, PIE are initial, recoverable errors and PIF are subsequent attempts at recovery which unrecoverably fail. Is this correct?
- If so, an arbitrarily large number of PIE is acceptable, but not PIF. Correct?
- The limits I've read for PIE (280) and PIF (16) apply to maximum, not total, which I assume deals with any one particular frame?
- What visual artefact is manifested by PIF? If I remember correctly, MPEG2 is essentially blocks of 8x8 pixels, with changes between iterations of the block recorded, but I may be way off too.

Regarding compression ratios:
I understand the best way to determine acceptable compression ratios is simply to try and judge for myself. I would however be curious what the "gut feeling" is for various people. I have tried 66% and, on admittedly very little inspection, not seen obvious degradation.

I appreciate any and all responses.

cheers,
Karjan

PIFs maximum and totals are more important then PIEs. You can also look at your quality score too. You have a 95 which is a pretty good score. My brother got a 95% with the same brand you got.

For most people how much you compression is very subjective. There's some that claim they can tell a difference from anything more then 95% and for others 65% compression would look identical to the DVD. I have used 65% and I could tell a difference with DVD Shrink, now with an encoder like DVD Rebuilder and Procoder 2.0 it may be darn close to the actual DVD even at 65%.

good scans