User:Derf/CD Burning Shenanigans
These are my futile attempts to burn patched/homebrew ISOs to CD-R to play on my recapped and calibrated Turbo Duo. Pressed discs read perfectly fine. I should open an Etsy that sells CD-R coasters.
Media
Info from Nero DiscSpeed (Disc Info tab).
- CMC Pro (Taiyo Yuden):
- Model number: TCDR-ZZ-SB
- Manufacturer: Taiyo Yuden
- Disc ID: 97m24s01f
- Capacity 700MB / 80min
- Supported Write Speeds: 16x, 24x, 32x, 40x, 48x
- Maxell Gold
- Disc ID: 97m31s01f
- Manufacturer: Ritek Co.
- Capacity: 650MB / 74min
- Supported Write Speeds:
- Disc packaging says 1x-8x
- iHAS drive reports only 16x (likely no Write Strategy available)
- BenQ drive reports 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x
- Verbatim (VB)
- Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics
- Disc ID: 97m26s66f
- Supported write speeds: 16x, 24x, 32x, 40x, 48x
- Capacity: 700MB
- Verbatim DataLifePlus 80min (VB-DLP-80min)
- Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Chemical Corp.
- Disc ID: 97m34s21f
- Capacity: 700MB / 80min
- Supported Write Speeds:
- Disc packaging says 1x-16x
- iHas drive reports 8x, 16x, 24x
- BenQ drive reports 4x, 8x, 16x, 24x
Media Reflectivity
Note the strength of contrast between the burnt vs unburn areas on the disc.
_CD-R.jpg)
Below are scans of the same discs. Oddly, the pressed disc shows almost no contrast in a direct scan.
Media Issues
Delamination can occur in the data layer of CDs. This manifested in one of the discs I tried and I noticed it looked almost like there was a second burn line, but it was wavy and misshapen. This resulted in a large amount of C1 errors.
Burn Quality
One way to measure the quality of burns is to use Nero DiscSpeed (Disc Quality tab). This samples the disc and shows the following important data regarding the C1 and C2 decoder:
- C1 errors: These are errors that were able to be corrected by the C1 decoder error checking. These are essentially unavoidable and should not impact gameplay in small amounts, as the errors are corrected on the fly. However, there is a threshold where there are too many errors and it may cause dropouts in music/video or loading. DiscSpeed reports the maximum errors in one sample, the average errors for the whole disc, and the total errors. It considers anything below 20 maximum errors to be good (green).
- C2 errors: These are more severe errors that were not able to be corrected by the C1 decoder and were passed to the C2 decoder and only be may not be able to be corrected. Presence of any C2 errors would be considered a "bad burn" (or the disc is dirty).
Images of my results below are sorted from best to worst burns.
Pressed Disc: Rising Sun
Space Ava 201
Rondo of Blood (English Patch)
Disc Quality Scan using iHAS
Disc Quality Scan using Optiarc
Verdict: This drive resulted in many more errors than the iHAS even when using the same disc, so it likely has a dying laser.
Disc Quality Scan using BENQ
All scans failed with "ILLEGAL MODE FOR THIS TRACK (056400)" error on any discs burned by the BENQ itself, discs burned by other drives, or pressed discs despite burning discs well.
Lessons Learned
- Out of all the discs, only the Maxell Gold burned using the 2002 BenQ drive booted on my specific Duo. I believe this to be a combination of the Duo preferring 650MB media and that media only being burned properly (perhaps with a write strategy) by a contemporary CD burner.
- Check what the minimum and maximum speed that the media (disc) reports, and burn at the minimum the media (NOT DRIVE) supports.
- Cross-check Disc Quality scans with multiple drives to make sure the drive isn't the issue. The OptiArc drive appears to be bad.
- Check every disc for delamination. Discs can have delamination issues that appear as faint wavy lines or bubbles, almost like the burned/unburned line but all over the place.
- CD burners being sold "As Is" are likely broken. The BenQ drive needed a fuse and diode replaced in order to boot up as well as the drive belt boiled as discs were sliding.