52x writing is fast, but how about the quality of such burns? Does the high recording speed decrease write quality? This part of the review is going to determine how well the drive is doing its job for various types of media.
Since Lite-On's WSES program reported weird results when running on LTR-52246S (either it might not be compatible with Mediatek-6-chipset, or it indeed sees much lower C1 error rates), a LTR-48125W, firmware VS08, was used. Scans were done at a speed of 32x CAV.
Introduction
On normal data CDs, there are 3 levels of error correction, intented to ensure that all data can be read, even if the disc is dirty and scratched. The first error correction which is performed is called "C1", the 2nd one is "C2". These two can be used to determine how well a writer does its job:
After reading a sector from CD, at first C1 error correction is performed. If there are too many errors, then they are handed over to C2. If C2 can't correct all errors either, then C3 error correction can be performed (C3 only exists on Data-CDs, but not on Audio-CDs).
There are several tools out there to measure how much work the C2 level does, such as Nero CD Speed (Quality check), Feurio, EAC and cdrtools, and many CD drives support this measurement. However, measuring C2 only is not very precise. To measure write quality, the tool WSES (Write Strategy Evaluation System) is used, which can measure C1 errors. It is only compatible to drives using Mediatek chipsets, and not even all of them work with it.
Important: These errors are (per definition) not on a disc, but they occur during reading. An error cannot only be caused by bad media or scratches, but also by vibrations, dirt, shocks, or other random influences. Furthermore, certain drives cannot burn properly on some media, while other drives (especially old CD-ROMs and some DVD players) can't read certain media very well. So you must clearly sepatate "a bad discs" and "a disc which causes lots of C1/C2 errors in these scans".
Even if a low error rate is reported, it's possible that a disc quickly degrades (and therefore is bad). The other way around, a burner might just dislike some good media (which does not degrade fast), and can give a low quality burn, resulting in a high error rate. This does then mean nothing more than that you should not use these certain discs in this very writer.
Thus, if you want to measure quality of a disc, then you have do much more testing than just burning it in one single writer. We only want to know how well our test drive can handle various types of discs, so doing one or two test per disc suffices.Write Quality Tests
Write quality will be checked for discs containing the following ATIP codes:
- Certified for: 52x (?)
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at: 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
At first, let's see how the bundled CD-R disc (made by CMC) performes (note the scale of 200/50):
Indeed, the drive reduced it speed at the end of the disc! Although the overall graph looks very well, the very outer portion was not written at an acceptable quality (bundled media should be good for the highest speed supported by the drive). The second-last peak in C2 should not be there. So don't overburn these discs!
Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
- Certified for: 24x, 40x (didn't make any difference)
- SmartBurn limit: 40x
- Written at: 40x, 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
At first, a disc was written at 40x:
The error rate increases at about 81:30, which means that you should not overburn more than 715 MB on them. Otherwise it's an absolutely perfect burn. Then, I gave it a try and used 52x:
The disc has an unreadable portion at 79:30 (it's not possible to copy these data). However, since 52x is faster than what SmartBurn suggests and faster than what the disc is certified for, this is not really a negative point.
Now, let's use 48x certified discs:
- Certified for: 48x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at: 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
You should not overburn more than 81 minutes, but otherwise it's a perfect burn.
- Certified for: 32x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
You can see a peak in C2 at the very end (i.e. it's somewhere in the leadout), which seems to occur on many discs. Could be the SAO-issue, which especially occured on Mitsubishi Highspeed CD-RW media. The drive did a slowdown at the very end, but the disc seems OK so far:
- Certified for: 24x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at: 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
The disc is a HiSpace GOLD CD 24 carats. As you can see, the error rate increases at the end, starting at 75 minutes. That means, this media can be recorded at 48x in this drive, but 52x is too fast. Smart-Burn misdetected the highest possible speed.
- Certified for: 52x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at: 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
We have received this media from Ciba Specialty Chemicals Inc. And the discs were manufactured by Plasmon Data Systems with Ciba Irgaphor Ultragreen MX dye. Both the dye and the disc manufacturing process are designed for maximum performance over the widest possible speed range. The Plasmon/Ciba Ultragreen MX media conform to Orange Book specifications between 2x and 48x speeds and have been certified up to 52x writing speed by drive manufacturers. Plasmon has successfully tested the media up to 56x recording speed. The test media is representative of the quality achievable by CDR disc producers who use Ciba's Ultragreen MX phthalocyanine dye with Plasmon high speed stampers and process technology. The discs hold maximum of 80 minutes/700MB of data.
-Disc Manufacturer: Plasmon Data Systems, Ltd.
-Dye (Short strategy; e.g. Phthalocyanine Ciba Irgaphor Ultragreen MX)
-Reflective layer: Silver
-Media type: CD-Recordable
-Recording Speeds: 2x - max. 52x
-Nominal Capacity: 79:59.74
As you can see in the error graph, these discs perform very well at 52x speed:
A perfect burn. But since Plasmon does deliver stampers, it is not possible to determine the true manufacturer only from looking into the ATIP code!
- Certified for: 16x
- SmartBurn limit: 40x
- Written at: 40x
- Complete ATIP: here
This scan looks perfect. However, when reading the disc in a Toshiba SD-M1502 DVD-ROM, it reports a few C2 errors in the very outer portion.
- Certified for: 12x (!)
- SmartBurn limit: 52x (!)
- Written at: 40x (!)
- Complete ATIP: here
You can see a slightly increasing C1 error rate at the end:
However, considering that the disc has been written at more than three times the speed which it is certified for, this is an excellent result! 52x recording led to an unreadable disc. The limit reported by SmartBurn is thus too high.
- Certified for: 24x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at: 40x
- Complete ATIP: here
SmartBurn detected a speed too high. At 52x, the resulting disc was a coaster. At 40x, it's a perfect burn.
- Certified for: 24x
- SmartBurn limit: 40x
- Written at: 32x
- Complete ATIP: here
A perfect burn.
- Certified for: 12x
- SmartBurn limit: 16x
- Written at 16x
- Complete ATIP: here
These are some old discs (about two years old, dark blue dye, similar to Verbatim Metal Azo 16x discs).
The drive doesn't like them at all. It was possible to copy all data on that disc to the hard disc without spindown, but I consider this though a bad burn. Now lets use some more "modern" TDK's:
- Certified for: 32x
- SmartBurn limit: 52x
- Written at 52x
- Complete ATIP: here
Not as good as Taiyo Yuden, but still a very good burn. No serious peaks at all.
This disc is made by an unknown manufacturer:
- Certified for: 16x
- SmartBurn limit: 32x
- Written at 32x
- Complete ATIP: here
Nothing to complain about.
The drive can handle different media very well, only one test disc didn't work. Some media is not good for 48x/52x recording, but though, most media could be written at a speed higher than what it is certified for. Smart-Burn did, unfortunately, not detect the highest possible speed in many cases. This should be improved with firmware upgrades. When writing at a speed higher than what the media is good for, the drive usually slowed down during the recording process. However, this slowdown did not prevent a coaster in many cases.
Next up in our LiteOn LTR-52246S review, the reading of copy-protected data CDs...
Writing Tests
I'm just waiting for my LiteOn LTR-52246S to arrive. :4
In other things . igot the CMC media and no way i can even burn it at 24x .. It gives me coasters. i have to use 16x. For some odd reason. With some 24x media .. im able to go up to 48x.
BTW, i've got s07 firmware.
Regards,
JamworkS
The writing quality with many media is very bad, i never buy a writer like this
quote is from c-d-r-labs
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