ImgBurn BD-R Defect Management

[Simon88]

I have a ASUS BW-12B1ST Burner.

 

I've got two coasters while burning a data disk onto BD-R discs using ImgBurn 2.5.6.0. They are Newegg "low-cost" Optical Quantum discs. While using ASUS's CyberLink Power2Go, I get perfect burns.

 

I like ImgBurn's interface much better. Only thing different is Power2Go has a Defect Management checkbox for BD-R discs. I'm assuming a small portion of disc is reserved on the BD-R to re-locate "bad" sectors during burn process.

 

In the old days, DVD+/-R/RW's did not have this ability, I realize, only DVD-RAM.

 

But BD-R & BD-RE is suppose to have this capability, because of its increase density and likelihood for defects on even new discs. What are the steps to enable Defect Management in ImgBurn so as to put my Burner into "Defect Management" Mode for BD-R discs?

 

Thanks!

Edited March 5, 2012 by Simon88

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Try unchecking the 'BD-R Verify Not Required' box in the settings.

 

Have you tried doing a 'Disc Quality' scan using Opti Drive Control on one of your 'perfect' burns?

[Simon88]

Try unchecking the 'BD-R Verify Not Required' box in the settings.

 

Have you tried doing a 'Disc Quality' scan using Opti Drive Control on one of your 'perfect' burns?

I shouldn't say 'perfect' burns as I use to use Nero DiscSpeed for DVD-R quaility checks... And it it never exceeded 90%.

 

But what I saw using Power2Go.. on 4x BD-R Media was quite impressive in that it finished the burn without giving me a coaster.

 

I didn't realize that Un-checking "BD-R Verify Not Required" is the same as ENABLING BD-R Defect Management...

 

Please consider changing the description of that option to something more clearer or add a comment to it that it is related to Defect Management...

 

Btw, isn't ENABLING "BD-R Verify Not Required" turns ON Defect Management, as verifying is no longer required because during the burn process it has already verified the burn and bad sectors has been re-located, is your description of that option REVERSED?

 

Thanx..

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I name things as they're actually called in the MMC specs.

 

VNR (Verify Not Required) is a flag you can set in one of the commands and it tells the drive NOT to verify as it burns.

 

By unchecking the option, the flag is NOT set and therefore the drive WILL verify as it goes along - *if* the firmware defaults to doing that. If the firmware doesn't default to doing that, I don't suppose the flag does anything at all!

[Simon88]

I name things as they're actually called in the MMC specs.

 

VNR (Verify Not Required) is a flag you can set in one of the commands and it tells the drive NOT to verify as it burns.

 

By unchecking the option, the flag is NOT set and therefore the drive WILL verify as it goes along - *if* the firmware defaults to doing that. If the firmware doesn't default to doing that, I don't suppose the flag does anything at all!

So, just so I am perfectly clear :-):

ENABLING the checkbox that Nero calls "BD defect management (for blank dics only)"

OR

ENABLING the checkbox that ASUS/CyberLink Power2Go calls "Defect Management"

 

are the SAME as DISABLING/UN-CHECKING the "BD-R Verify Not Required (*)" under ImgBurn.

 

Since it doesn't hurt to "uncheck the VNR (Verify Not Required) flag, please consider making it the default in a future version of ImgBurn as it allows more reliable burns on cheap/low cost media.

 

Thanks!

Edited March 7, 2012 by Simon88

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I'm not 100% sure it's exactly the same but it's the first thing to try. I've never had reason to try it myself.

 

If the VNR flag doesn't do anything on that drive then the disc will have to be formatted first (with spare areas enabled). That's just done via the normal 'erase' feature.

 

Doing so reduces the available capacity of the disc and probably halves the write speed (if it's anything like BD-RE) - that's why ImgBurn defaults to turning off the drive's auto verify after write.

 

Personally I wouldn't consider a burn 'reliable' if the drive has had to remap several (or, in fact, any) sectors. Again, this is where the 'Disc Quality' scan would come in handy - and don't go by the % value.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Having performed a few tests today, I can tell you that the VNR option does nothing on my LiteOn iHBS112 (of which I believe your Asus is a 'clone') with a standard blank BD-R in the tray.

 

I burnt 2 'blank' BD-R discs with ImgBurn, 1 with VNR enabled and 1 without. Both discs burnt at the same speed - meaning the drive can't have been verifying as it burnt (no defect management).

 

I burnt a 'blank' BD-R disc with Power2Go 7 (using the Blu-ray data disc option), the 'Defect Management' option was checked but the program didn't actually do anything to enable it. It would have had to format the disc with spare areas enabled and it didn't. Checking the disc info in ImgBurn confirms spare areas haven't been enabled.

 

I burnt a 'blank' BD-R disc with Power2Go 8 (using the Blu-ray data disc option), the 'Defect Management' option was checked but the program didn't actually do anything to enable it. It would have had to format the disc with spare areas enabled and it didn't. Checking the disc info in ImgBurn confirms spare areas haven't been enabled.

 

I burnt 2 'formatted' BD-R discs with ImgBurn, 1 with VNR enabled and 1 without. The one with VNR enabled burnt at the same speed as the previous 3 burns, the one with VNR disabled burnt much slower (starting at ~2.5x and ramping up over time rather than a steady 4x) - which is what I'd expect to happen when the defect management feature is active.

 

With Defect Management active (formatted disc + VNR off), the drive seems to spin much faster than normal - probably in an attempt to reach the target write speed. That's to say, it tries to take into account that writing+verifying is much slower and therefore spins at the 8x speed. I doubt spinning faster really does the burn quality any favours - especially if you've selected 4x because you know the 8x burns (without defect management) are rubbish!

[Simon88]

I never knew you could or needs to 'format" a BD-R disk in order for it to support defect management... Is it formatted in ImgBurn the same way one formats a BD-RE disk using "Full Erase/Quick Erase"? Does it allow us to choose how much of the disc to reserve for defects?

 

Btw, where is the 'format' command located at, so that I can try it?

 

Thanks..

Edited March 11, 2012 by Simon88

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Yes, it's done using the normal quick/full erase method.

 

ImgBurn gives you 3 options for the the amount of space you're left with on the disc after formatting/erasing. It defaults to 'Preferred' which then uses the size in the first 'Format Capacity' descriptor - these are listed in the disc info box on the right of the main window. It's called 'Preferred' because the drive lists them in order of preference (according to the manufacturer / firmware or whatever). You can probably guess what the 'Minimum' and 'Maximum' ones mean

 

Format Capacities:

DT: 0x01 - NB: 12219392 (0x00BA7400) - TDP: 151552

FT: 0x00 - NB: 11826176 (0x00B47400) - TDP: 12288

FT: 0x32 - NB: 11826176 (0x00B47400) - TDP: 12288

FT: 0x32 - NB: 7369728 (0x00707400) - TDP: 151552

FT: 0x32 - NB: 12088320 (0x00B87400) - TDP: 4096

 

The 'FT: 0x32' ones are for formatting with spare areas enabled. So 'Preferred' would leave you with 11826176 usable sectors. 'Minimum' would leave you with 7369728 and 'Maximum' with '12088320'.

 

There's no 'Format' command visible to the end user but it's called when you do a full erase (quick erase doesn't apply to BD-R).

[Fasio]

Hello, I am trying to burn a regular BD-R write once single layer disc (not BD-RE) with Defect Management.  I am aware of the pros and cons of this choice.

 

I have unchecked bd-r verify not required and have unchecked format without spare areas.  All other options are unchanged from the default.  Saving and going back into the settings confirms the changes have been made.

 

The drive's manual (WH16NS60) confirms "Defect Management" halves the speed as stated here, which is the correct behavior, so the drive firmware appears to support this.  I have also updated the firmware and can confirm no behavior change before and after.

 

However, my imgburn log confirms defect management active and bd-r verify not required are both noted as no.

 

Should I be clicking full erase in imgburn before writing a disc, or would that just create an unusable disc since this is a BD-R write once BD25 disc?

 

Is imgburn not properly sending the command to this drive?

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:24 AM by Fasio

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I've only done it a couple of times (many many years ago), but I seem to recall it's actually the formatting process that enables defect management with BD-R.

So you format the disc with spare areas enabled and then burn with 'BD-R Verify Not Required' disabled in order to have the drive use defect management when burning BD-R.

EDIT: Yes, that's basically what I said in my post above from 7th March 2012. So you need to format the disc to enable it.

[dbminter]

What is the time penalty for enabling the verify as you write a BD-R option?  Does it double the burn time?

[Fasio]

I can confirm that clicking drive - erase disc - full before burning my data enables Defect Management per the log!

 

Unfortunately the /ERASE command does not format the disc the same way as above, and it appears that a manual format is required beforehand.  I write many discs with batch command line processes, so that is unfortunate, if I am not missing something.  Will another command line switch perform the above?

 

Time penalty comparison of two discs of the same size, settings, and drive.  It is likely 50%, with variances for individual discs.

 

Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:16:34
Average Write Rate: 35,585 KiB/s (8.1x) - Maximum Write Rate: 44,305 KiB/s (10.1x)

 

Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:29:23
Average Write Rate: 13,598 KiB/s (3.1x) - Maximum Write Rate: 16,306 KiB/s (3.7x)

 

 

[dbminter]

Yeah, looks like over 50%.  But, that's a good baseline.  Thanks for gathering that data for me!

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I will look into why /ERASE isn’t working for BD-R formatting.