Uh? Now THIS is what I call "nonsense".

Take a BenQ - capable of reading at 16X and run a transfer test. lets say at some point the speed drops to 8X. How do we interpret this ? take another drive only capable of 8X and no speed drop occurs.

Given that Movies only need 1X I'm not sure that there is really much practical benefit in conducting TRT at 16X

The direct interpretation is easy: The BenQ cannot read the disc at 16x but will have to slowdown to 8x to read the disc.

Deeper interpretations are not as easy. Maybe the disc has high jitter that forces the BenQ to slow down. High jitter can be a problem in some drives. Maybe the disc has a big shift in beta value at the slowdown point. This could also be a problem in some drives. Maybe there is a problem with reflectivity at the slowdown point, which could also give problems in some drives. Maybe there's something else that the BenQ drive specifically doesn't like, but which isn't going to affect reading in other drives.

Nobody said that interpreting scanning results was necessarily going to be an easy task!

Making DVD Video discs for playback in standalone players is not the only application of DVD burning. Some of us actually burn data onto our DVDs!

If you only create DVD Video discs, then I agree that you don't need smooth Read Transfer graphs at 16x, but you still need discs that are readable, and performing PIE/PIF quality scans doesn't test the actual readability of the disc, unless you have a drive (and application) that reports POF and/or read failures.

Sorry guys I don't have the time to elaborate sensible replies today, just wanted to say that I'm sorry about my yesterday's stupid inputI was kinda drunk (birthday party) and in a "teasing" mood.

I mentioned movies because they are far more problematic than simple data DVDs. A serious speed slow down can make watching a movie impossible.

At a practical level I probably burn at least 5 times as many data DVDs as movies. I have TRT scans for 3 and 4 year old data DVDs that look really horrible but the data can still be read and restored - which is why I made them in the first place.

SO I guess all that I'm saying is that a TRT scan will also not necessarily show you whether or not a DVD is readable.

A Read Transfer test may show you if a DVD is readable in that drive (not in other drives). If the Read Transfer test succeeds, then there's an absolute certainty that the disc is redable in that drive. If the Read Transfer test fails however, the disc may still be readable at a lower speed or by letting the drive re-read problematic sectors.

Like I explained above, you cannot get "false positives" with a Read Transfer test, but you can get false negatives. There's also no guarantee that the result in one drive can predict the behaviour in another drive - even a drive of the exact same make and model.

But a successful Read Transfer test increases the probability that the disc can be read in other drives, and a failed Read Transfer test decreases the probability that the disc can be read in another drive!

I think we better drop this here. I was simply making some observations and did not need anyone to explain any of this to me. I fully understand the views you are expounding - just not sure I agree - that's all. writing words in bold text implies that you feel I have not understood your point.

Certainly it is far too easy to take all of this too seriously.

I think you are completely misunderstanding my intentions!

If you write something that I disagree with, I will respond with my own viewpoints and relevant arguments if the matter is sufficiently interesting to me. I assume that you do the same.

Using bold in a text is not my way of shouting, but rather an editorial trick to make people see the most important part of a long paragraph. Most people skip portions of long paragraphs while reading, and this often causes a point to be lost to the reader. I do this myself, so I know what I'm talking about.

SHOUTING WOULD BE LIKE THIS! OR MAYBE EVEN LIKE THIS!

There's no intention on my part to upset you or suggest you are not smart enough to understand my posts!!!

Maybe you just don't like a discussion that goes back and forth too many times, whereas I have no problem with that as long as the discussion is kept sober and doesn't get personal or just plain repetitive.

So if you don't want to discuss a point with me anymore, then I can certainly respect that.

Please also respect that I might choose to continue the same discussion with other people in this thread, if anyone is still interested.

The quality of the burn or media affect the speed at which it can read. Moderate quality will do well at 12x, Decent or good at 12x or 16x, soso or crap at 8x
Poor quality will do well at 4x or 2x usually coaster on most reader or burner so useless anyway. I have really bad media that coaster on my nec 3540a but read very slow like 1x-.5x on liteon 16p9s reader. so why the heck would i bother to do quality scan cause I aleady know it's going to be very bad. Only high quality media will do 16x flawlessly, no jumping up and down adjusting due to media quality variation within the media sector.
What should we worry most, the quality or readability? Most that have poor quality scan usually have no problems at TRT so that's why it's confusing to assume it's a bad burn when it's not. How well your burner reads the disc affects quality scan as well as TRT. One burner say liteon may give it a good quality test, while another like NEC 3540a says it's poor. So it's not just the quality but the hardware's capability to burn them well and read them well as well. how well they read, affects TRT adversely.

It isn't that easy, but I'm sure you will remain with your arguments whatever is posted here from others...

I have more times then all the people in the world put together and ye say I am still wrong??? You can continue to rant but it's pointless when all your argument is just flame bait. You base your opinions on guess work, mine is on real experience and factual information. I betcha use only 1 dvd burner and clueless about what I am talking about. Ignorance is no excuse for ridiculing others cause you think ya always right. Give it a rest, troll master. You haven't proven me wrong, most of ya post is about your wrong I'm right useless argument. Oh well someone who could careless, yet post just to make post count. Thanks for making me sweat for nothing.

this is his other car



did you say that? my god what balls!!!

those are some HUGE HUGE balls!

And thats why he has about 9 brands of drive in his sig

CORRECT

RIGHT ON THE MONEY

again how right you are

sorry dude will this help?

Mr. Brownstone, do you really think it's necessary to pour additional fuel on that fire.

It seems to me the argument is getting heated enough without any additional "help".

I agree, though I must admit that I had a good laugh... Mainly with the time machine. *LOL*

MMh. I fear a mod's gonna soon be needed here....

Francksoy has nearly convinced me to to TRTs more then QTs... but I'm not about to give up on QTs totaly. I think if your in a hurry, a TRT is a good quick way of finding out if a disk is good (although that assumes rdgrimes is not accurate when he says that this could be a false positive)...

I still like the data I get from a QT... and as of yet, I've never had disk that looked good with a QT that ligitamately failed a TRT.


The way I see it... on a good drive a TRT should not slow down much unless there are some pretty significant PIFs(more then 4 per ECC). If major slowdowns are seen during TRTing, yet you can find no evidence of significant numbers of PIFs, it seems to me, your drive or software is not doing a very good job of reporting PIFs.

I rarely if ever trust anything that I can't prove from at least two differnt methods.

Don't! I never stated that QS is useless (but I guess you are well aware of that )Same here. - if I don't scan everything, it's not because I rely only on TRTs - just that I feel that 1 scan out of 5 burns of the same batch is enough to keep an eye on the media quality, and that if there is really something wrong, it will be caught by the TRT (if the drive used fot the TRT is not too good a reader, of course. I use NEC drives for TRTs - neither to good nor too bad readers).

And I thoroughly test each new MID/batch with QS

Maybe this thread will make you scratch your head.
I'm still scratching mine...

My interpetation would be that yrou LiteOn is TOO picky when doing high speed transfer testing, and therefore not very good for TRT testing. I say this, because based on the other data, it seems these slowdowns in your LiteOn are false negitives. (or at least this seems to be the case for discs burned with your NEC) I mean they other drives don't seem to slow down like that on those discs, and there is no evidence of high PIF or even PIE, so surely the disc must not be that bad.

I tend to agree with your interpretation, but I can't say I like this behaviour one bit!

Oh well, I just argumented against your ignorance in this case but because you didn't get it I just can laugh about your post. Roll on.

Come on friend, you don't have enough drives (including NECs) to happily perform TRTs?

Actually LiteOn drives aren't used much for TRTs in CDFreaks reviews, NEC drives are, I guess there must be a reason...

Just found a review and found where i read it before...

I hadn't given this much thought. My 1693S seems to provide the TRT results that I would expect - disks burned within the last year or two tend to produce smooth curves - old disks are a "little" more eratic. Not sure why it wouldn't be used in reviews ?

I think rdgimes has a point when he wrote "NEC drives have been creating these type of re-link blips for a long time" presumably Liteons just don't like this strategy ?

Also if the disks play ok and data can be transfered what does this say about the value of TRT in isolation ?

It says that you shouldn't put too much trust in a TRT in a single drive, just like you shouldn't put too much trust in a quality scan in a single drive. At least that's how I see it.

Agree completely. I don't put to much trust in anything. DVD burning, scanning, TRTing is more akin to a Black art than to science. Its all very interesting and a great deal of fun but if ever evidence was required to show how myth can be more important than reality a quick read of CD Freaks posts is all that is required.

Buy a good drive, use good media, store properly and that's about it as far as I'm concerned