BD-RE virgin disc write pre-erasure

[discuser]

I have been using BD-RE-DL media for some time on two Pioneer BD-writers, a 06-series and a newer 09-series writer which supports BD-XL format. Up until recently, I have been using an older version of Nero for BD-RE-DL writing which works perfectly fine up to 50 GB capacity BDs, but as I will soon start to use Sony BD-RE-TL 100 GB media, I decided to use IMGBURN 2.58 for a few trials of Verbatim BD-RE-DL 50 GB media writes.

I noticed that even when a BD-RE-DL disc is virgin, IMGBURN still insists on doing a full erasure pass when starting the write process. As such, this causes an additional 90 minutes of full erasure wait time for a BD-RE-DL disc write in addition to the write and verification process. For a full BD-RE-DL disc, the total wait time would therefore be quite long. I recall that when I used Nero on a virgin BD-RE-DL disc write, it was not necessary for a full disc erasure on the BD-RE medium. Is there anyway for IMGBURN to skip the virgin disc full erasure pass? Why is this full erasure pass necessary even when the disc is virgin or empty? For example, if I use Nero to complete a full erasure on a BD-RE and then use IMGBURN to do a new writing pass, how can I avoid another full erasure pass by IMGBURN?

I also noticed that a BE-RE-DL disc put through a full erasure procedure with IMGBURN, when viewed in Nero's DISC INFO function, shows that the disc has a single session of a size of the full disc space of the BD-RE. Whereas, when I perform a full erasure with Nero on the same BD-RE, the final result using DISC INFO shows that the disc is in empty status. I'm wondering what the difference is in Imgburn's full erasure procedure that doesn't seem to produce a true empty BD-RE disc.

Thanks for any suggestions or help.
 

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[dbminter]

All I know on this subject is Nero does not fully comply with the standards for erasure.  A proper format takes the entire writing time you mention: 90 minutes for BD-RE DL.  ImgBurn performs "proper" formats, writing all available space.  The good news is once ImgBurn does this, it doesn't have to be done again unless you need to do a full erase for a reformat for some reason.  I know DVD+RW I'd used in Nero would then have ImgBurn say they weren't properly formatted and then fully format them before writing to them.

 

 

Now, it may be what ImgBurn does is not "necessary," but does ensure proper formatting.  And I don't think this can be changed in the settings.

 

 

Something you might want to test and see if it's the same is to take an unformatted BD-RE DL and format it in Windows/File Explorer.  See if it takes a full 90 minutes or if a "quick" format is performed.  Of course, before ImgBurn will write to it, it will properly "fully" format a media.
 

[discuser]

If I remember correctly, even when the BD-RE disc I used wasn't virgin and might have already been pre-erased fully once before, I think Imgburn still runs the full erase procedure prior to writing to such a disc. This is what's frustrating about it. So it seems that regardless, the full erasure procedure appears to be unconditional, unless you are sure that in your own personal experience with Imgburn, that it bothers to detect whether a disc is empty or not. I have a BD-RE that was previously fully erased by Imgburn and I fully re-erased it again under Nero, after which DISC INFO in Nero Burning-ROM says that it is empty with no written sessions. I'm going to guess that when I write to this disc with Imgburn, it may re-run the full erasure again. I would imagine that the extra unnecessary erasure passes with Imgburn would also use up available erasure cycles of the disc, thus possibly shortening the available erasure cycles on a RW/RE disc.

 

In the past I have noticed that Nero performs a quick format on the fly on virgin DVD+RW / DVD-RW media. I don't remember if the same is done for BD-RE media. I will have to pay attention to it next time I write BD-REs with Nero. For now I think I will continue to use Nero for writing to BD-RE media that is 50 GB or smaller. However, this is a concern going forward with BD-RE-TL discs because a full erasure cycle will take hours on such discs as I will need to either use Imgburn for BD-RE-TL or upgrade to a new version of Nero that supports BD-XL media.

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[LIGHTNING UK!]

BDRE aren’t supposed to look empty, that’s not how that format/type of disc works. They should have a single session/ track spanning the entire disc.

 

Db was right, ImgBurn does it properly and leaves the disc in the correct ‘formatted’ state. You can turn off the option to have properly formatted discs in the settings on the Write tab, but you’re better off just doing it properly that one time and then not using software that’s going to mess it up.

[discuser]

BDRE aren’t supposed to look empty, that’s not how that format/type of disc works. They should have a single session/ track spanning the entire disc.

 

Db was right, ImgBurn does it properly and leaves the disc in the correct ‘formatted’ state. You can turn off the option to have properly formatted discs in the settings on the Write tab, but you’re better off just doing it properly that one time and then not using software that’s going to mess it up.

 

Thanks for the clarification. This is still a learning process for me to become more confident with using Imgburn's extensive and flexible settings. Ultimately, if possible I would prefer to use Imgburn for BD-RE-TL media writing. Based on what you described, and having further reviewed the Imgburn user guide on the WRITE settings at this URL:

 

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/6232-the-imgburn-settings/&do=findComment&comment=65055

 

I have a few other questions regarding BD-RE-SL/DL/TL media use with Imgburn:

 

1. I would be happy to use the correctly formatted BD-RE media by keeping the box PREFER PROPERLY FORMATTED DISCS ticked, which I assume is the option you described earlier to enforce full formatting of virgin discs. However, according to the user guide explanation on PREFER PROPERLY FORMATTED DISCS option, it says that there is a [FORMATTED: YES/NO] status displayed in right side info panel. But after I inserted a Nero full erased Verbatim BD-RE disc into the BD writer and the ODD became ready, the disc details displayed by Imgburn did not include the parameter FORMATTED: YES/NO. Am I missing something here?

 

2. If a properly formatted virgin BD-RE should be a single session of a size of the full capacity of the entire disc, does that mean that when actual data written to the disc is less than the full capacity of the disc, that the single session size would STILL show as a session size of the full capacity of the disc, i.e. the same single session size after a full erasure?

 

3. Regarding the option PREFER FORMAT WITH FULL CERTIFICATION, I had previously used Imgburn with that option in its default state, which is ENABLED. However, with one new virgin Verbatim BD-RE I wrote to, which Imgburn performed full erasure/formatting prior to writing to it, there was a region on the disc about half way through the full disc capacity where multiple write-verification errors occured. If I understand this option properly, would Imgburn not have already mapped out bad spots during the pre-write formatting procedure and therefore, there should not have been write-verify errors? However, I would mention that I also had PREFER FORMAT WITHOUT SPARE AREAS in its default state ENABLED and therefore, I'm wondering if this option should have been disabled instead when PREFER FORMAT WITH FULL CERTIFICATION is enabled, so that there are spare sectors available for bad sector remapping during formatting and thus there would not have been subsequent write-verify errors arising? The relationship between these two write options settings and its correct use is unclear to me. I would of course place write-verify error free as a higher priority over gaining extra space by using the spare sector area on the disc.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[LIGHTNING UK!]

1. The guide is probably just talking about for DVD media.

 

For BD Media, you'd want to be looking at the bit of info looking like this...

 

Disc Definition Structure:

Certified: Partially (In Progress - Full, LVAP: 1048576)

Scanned: No

This disc hasn't been fully formatted / certified.

 

2. Yes, the disc info always shows 1 session / track taking up the entire disc. There's no way of finding out how much of the disc has been used up by real data, beyond relying on what the file system says.

 

3. As you've said, spare areas are disabled by default. This is so the full size of the disc is available for user data and it burns at the speed it's meant to.

If you've got a disc that's failed to format/zero correctly on its first use, that's not a great sign. You could try it again and see if the drive fixes things.

If you need to work around some problem sectors (and this is all done by the drive itself rather than software), you'll have to format with spare areas enabled and hope there aren't more bad bits than the drive's internal format and certification process can cope with.

 

If you favour defect management capability over usable disc space, make sure you format with spare areas enabled.

[discuser]

Thanks for the additional clarification.

I did re-check the disc details for the Verbatim BD-RE (which was fully erased by Nero Burning-Rom earlier), and the particulars for it are:

Disc Definition Structure:
Certified: No
Scanned: No

I'm assuming CERTIFIED = NO means that the disc wasn't defect mapped during formatting and is thus not formatted with full certification. I'm not sure what SCAN = NO means however, since the Imgburn user guide has no information on it (or I need to look in a different area of the user guide for explanation).

Oddly, I have used well over 50 Verbatim BD-RE discs so far under Nero and I've not yet had an after-write verification errors. So my experience has been very positive so far for this media type (MID is VERBAT-IM1-000). On this particular BD-RE-DL disc I used on Imgburn, I did not have a pre-write formatting / full erasure procedure report any errors but only encountered errors during after-write verification. I'm guessing that Imgburn gave me no warning of formatting errors (if it even does so in the first place during that procedure, perhaps in the log) because although I had enabled PREFER FORMAT WITH FULL CERTIFICATION, I also enabled PREFER FORMAT WITHOUT SPARE AREAS and thus spare sectors were unavailable to map out bad sectors and thus the disc was uncertified - I am surmising.

I will retry the entire disc write with formatting with FULL CERTIFICATION option enabled but FORMAT WITHOUT SPARE AREAS disabled in order to make available spare sectors. This would seem to allow the user data written after formatting and defect mapping to verify without errors. It is better to lose some available disc space and not have to junk an entire 50 GB disc since it is likely that most of the disc capacity will still be useable. If this isn't the right approach, please advise.

* With regards to how Nero Burning-ROM deals with virgin disc formatting, what I have observed with both DVD+RW and BD-RE-DL media I have used under Nero before, is that it does not appear to fully format the whole disc surface from virgin state. Instead, the ODD software only writes up to the end of the user data. This is clearly noticeable because on these types of media, there is a visually noticeable difference in reflectivity on the media surface between truly virgin areas versus written areas, and it is possible to clearly see the end boundary of where the user data writing ends when a disc-at-once session is written to such RW/RE media. The only time I believe Nero writes to all disc sectors is during full erasure, which is what I usually do before rewritting any RW/RE media. After a Nero full erasure pass, the visible data boundary is no longer noticeable since all sectors have been written to. From what I could tell, Nero only quick formats the TOC / directory area of virgin discs and then writes on the fly to the end of user data, producing the visible data-end boundary on disc that's easily discerniable during examination of the recording surface under a bright light. As a result, a Nero disc-at-once session results in a variable session size which is that of the total disc space of the written user data. This is what I observed with Nero written discs (DVD/BD) in the past.

* Regarding a BD-RE that has been formatted in Imgburn with full certification and is defect mapped (with spare areas made available), if such a certified disc has been FULLY RE-ERASED by another ODD writing software such as Nero or even in Imgburn, would that mean that the certified and defect mapped format be completely lost and thus a reformatting under Imgburn with certification mode enabled amd spare areas available for defect re-mapping would be required?

* How can a user force Imgburn to perform a re-certfication format with defect mapping if the software will fully format the disc only if it detects that it has not been previously been so formatted? Is this done through a full erasure procedure which may essentially include formatting?

* I've noticed that even with a virgin BD-RE-DL disc, when the full erasure formatting begins, there are 2 error messages from Imgburn that occurs for both my Pioneer BD writers (06 and 09 series):

FormatDisc(FT: 0x30, FST: 0x02) Not Supported!
FormatDisc(FT: 0x30, FST: 0x03) Not Supported!

I'm not sure if these warnings may mean that I won't be able to produce a defect managed BD-RE formatted disc under Imgburn. Though I did notice an older forum thread touching on a similar concern, but I'm still unsure if that means once a virgin BD-RE has been formatted without spare sectors area available that this status cannot be altered through a second forced reformat with different option parameters in Imgburn:

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/21954-formatting-blu-ray-bd-re-with-formatdisc-not-supported-notifications/
 

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[dbminter]

Yeah, if you fully formatted in ImgBurn and then wrote in Nero, I would think Nero would undo the full format and require another full format in ImgBurn if it writes to that disc again.

 

 

Hm, you actually found good quality Verbatim BD-RE SL with a VERBAT-IM DID?  As far as I can find, Verbatim only releases cheap junk CMC BD-RE SL.  Hence why I've only gotten my BD-RE SL from Panasonic.

[Ch3vr0n]

I haven't found single layer ones either, but thanks to a connection I made on the RedFox forums I did pick up 2 boxes of the legit DL versions. Same mid, I've been looking for help for years. Although I'd still like me a few boxes of the SL versions too, DL holds SL too.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P with Tapatalk

[dbminter]

I've managed to find the good Verbatim DL's on Amazon.com.  They sell the branded ones individually.  And many Japanese resellers sell the inkjet printable ones.  In fact, I need to get some of those inkjet ones pretty soon.

[discuser]

Yeah, if you fully formatted in ImgBurn and then wrote in Nero, I would think Nero would undo the full format and require another full format in ImgBurn if it writes to that disc again.

Hm, you actually found good quality Verbatim BD-RE SL with a VERBAT-IM DID?  As far as I can find, Verbatim only releases cheap junk CMC BD-RE SL.  Hence why I've only gotten my BD-RE SL from Panasonic.

I've never used any Verbatim BD-RE single layer discs. I also don't usually use write-once medium because RW/RE discs allows me to rewrite the contents as more data is added, even though the process requires a complete erasure / rewrite as a DAO session. It may well be that the SL discs are made by another OEM like CMC which I would likely want to avoid. I know that I lot of BD-R-SL discs are not of great quality. If I use BD-R I would prefer to use M-Disc BD-Rs.  When I started with BD-RE discs I started with the Verbatim dual layer 50 GB discs, which were all in standard full sized jewel cases and were all made in Japan by Mitsubishi. I've been using only these BD-RE-DL discs exclusively up until recently but have also used some packaged in slimline jewel cases (also made in Japan) primarily for BD video recorders use in Japan. I have not encountered a single bad disc with the Verbatim full jewel case (made in Japan) media at all and the only single Verbatim disc I had that was bad is a slim line jewel case packaged one. Note that a few years ago, Mitsubishi did release an archival grade of BD-Rs rated for archival life of about 50 years. I have not tried them. However, going forward I will be using more Sony BD-RE-TL discs due to having outgrown the capacity of BD-RE-DL discs (which stores 46 GB after formatting). I'm apprehensive about how good the Sony BD-RE-TL discs are, considering my past experience with their DVD+RW discs (though those were OEMed by Ritek, a completely different source). I don't think there are any BD-RE-TL discs made outside of Japan at this time but that situation may have changed since I last checked.

 

I've found Panasonic BD-RE-TL discs to be too expensive when they were first released though they are actually made in Japan. Most major BD media brands are sourcing production from China plants today, including inventory that is sold in Japan. However, media quality produced in China plants sold by major BD brands appears to be gradually improving recently from error rates tests I've seen. Sony BD-RE-TL seems to be the most reasonably priced TL media at this time for me.

 

I re-ran an Imgburn full erasure procedure last night on the one Verbatim BD-RE disc which was known to have defects but was not ever formatted by Imgburn in fully certified mode. The full erasure process under full certification and defect managed mode is far slower (as mentioned in the older thread URL I posted - running at about 0.6X speed instead of 2X speed erasure for no defect management. However, I think only the top layer of that defective disc (Layer 0) is useable. The second layer (Layer 1) is defective. Eventually, the Imgburn log reported lots of errors and ran out of spare sectors and the full erasure could not be completed. I'll probably just use that half disc BD-RE for storing temporary or non-critical data.

 

So based on this experience I think a defect managed full erasure pre-format to prepare a BD-RE-TL could require an entire overnight run to complete if the defect mapping process runs at 0.6X speed. Because a BD-RE-DL of 50 GB capacity even with zero defects takes 90 minutes to run through at 2X without defect mapping (straight formatting / erasure). This means with a BD-RE-TL doubling the capacity to 100 GB would take double that time which is 180 minutes / 3 hours at 2X speed, so 1X speed would be 360 minutes / 6 hours and 0.6X speed in defect management formatting mode would take 600 minutes or 10 hours to complete formatting, and that even assuming the BD-RE-TL has no or very few defects to remap during erasure-formatting.

 

I may rewrite some previously written Verbatim BD-RE-DL discs and reformat them with Imgburn under defect management mode. This may reveal more bad sectors / defective discs in BD-RE discs that are already in use, or I may migrate the some of the existing data to Sony BD-RE-TL altogether if too many defects are found on the Verbatim BD-RE discs currently in use.

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[dbminter]

Yeah, I misread something from your earlier posts.  I thought you said you were using Verbatim BD-RE SL that were not CMC.  But, you were talking about BD-RE DL, which I've found to be good quality from Verbatim, too.  Don't get Verbatim BD-RE SL as they're all CMC.  I've seen some older Verbatim BD-RE DL that were made by TDK, but they have a unique problem of their own.  After about a year after formatting, even if you don't write anything else to them after that first write, they write at less than 1x, even without defect management turned on.

 

 

BTW, TL writing may not be ready for prime time yet.  In another thread I was participating in, someone was trying to get decent writes out of TL media on a Pioneer drive, but only got 1 in 5 that didn't fail Verify.  We came to the conclusion it's the nature of the TL beast.  That it may still need some firmware revisions before TL will be reliable media.  But, the recent 1.50 firmware updates to Pioneer's latest drives addresses BD-R TL media stability.  So, who knows? 

 

 

And, I'd still be wary of Sony media.  Sony used to make their own DVD-R, which was high quality.  Now, they farm out to 2nd tier Ritek.  My first BD-RE was a Sony which died before it's 5th write.  I tried 5 Sony BD-R SL's and 3 of them failed to complete a burn, let alone even Verify.  Which just bears out what I've seen since 2002: Sony makes mostly junk.  I've got all kinds of horror stories of slim line PS2's, the 2nd generation PS3 Blu-Ray remote, the PS3 I had that had to be sent to Sony after I bought it because it didn't play Blu-Ray movies correctly, the PS1 I sent into Sony for a new drive assembly that needed replacing after a year after the replacement, etc.

[discuser]

It really depends on the geographical region of which the media inventory is sold. For example, Sony branded BD-R media is OEMed by Panasonic / Matsushita in Japan for Sony BD-R 4X disc inventory sold within Japan. However, outside of Japan, the same branded Sony media may well be made by another OEM such as Ritek or CMC, or in Sony's own Taiwan media plants. Due to all these variations in media sourcing that keeps changing even from batch to batch, I think M-Disc BD-Rs would be the safest. Verbatim and Milleniata are both possible choices for M-Disc BD-Rs.

For a virgin state Sony BD-RE-TL (Japan-made) inserted into a Pioneer 09-series BD writer with the latest version 1.50 firmware dated 2018.01 and only just released in early March 2018, I get this disc info from Imgburn:
 

**************************************
Disc Information:
Status: Empty
State of Last Session: Empty
Erasable: Yes
MID: SONY-ET2-002
Supported Write Speeds: 2x

BD Disc Information (L0):
Disc ID: SONY-ET2-002
Disc Type: BD-RE
Disc Size: 120 mm
Disc Class: 1
Disc Version: 3
Number of Layers: 3
Layer Type: Rewritable
DVD Layer Present: No
CD Layer Present: No
Channel Bit Length: 55.87 nm (33 GB Per Layer)
BCA Present: Yes
Maximum Transfer Rate: Not Specified
First PAA of Data Zone: 554,925,568
Last PAA of Data Zone: 48,402,576
**************************************

This is an earlier production batch of Sony BD-RE-TL discs (Japan-made) when the product was initially released. I will have an opportunity to use more recent production batches of the same media type (also Japan-made) a little later this year as I use up the earlier batch. I'll be very interested to see how much defect there is on a virgin TL disc when defect managed under Imgburn. Going forward I would prefer to use Imgburn for TL discs if possible.

According to Pioneer 09-series BD writer firmware history, Sony BD-RE-TL was added to media support back in early 2014 and M-Disc BD-R-SL was added in late 2014. Presumably, media write quality refinements were made in firmware in the last several years of firmware updates.

I'm unsure whether I should enable OPC option in the WRITE options of Imgburn for BD-RE / BD-R writing though, and whether or not this option is applicable to BD writing in Imgburn and what impact it could have on data integrity in long term archival. The default state for this option is disabled in Imgburn.

 

I also noticed an older thread you were in regarding the CMC OEMed Verbatim BD-RE-DL discs:
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/23861-movies-always-stuck-randomly-on-50gb-bd-re-dl/

Actually that is the disc type that I encountered my first Verbatim BD-RE error on. All my other Verbatim BD-RE discs are the full size jewel case Japan made inventory. There were cheap however, and it seems, that is the reason why.

Do you have the URL of the other Sony TL thread you mentioned?
 

Edited April 6, 2018 by discuser

[dbminter]

I believe this is the thread

 

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/25151-can-someone-recommend-a-blu-ray-drive-that-is-known-to-work-with-m-discs-bdxl-discs-and-with-imgburn/

 

but I don't think Sony BD-RE TL were used.  I believe Verbatim and Milleniata BD-R TL were at issue in it.

[discuser]

I believe this is the thread

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?/topic/25151-can-someone-recommend-a-blu-ray-drive-that-is-known-to-work-with-m-discs-bdxl-discs-and-with-imgburn/

but I don't think Sony BD-RE TL were used.  I believe Verbatim and Milleniata BD-R TL were at issue in it.

Thanks. Well it's good that you agree that Pioneer is pretty much the top BD-writer brand to use. I would certainly concur. One point though, I noticed you called them "full" height drives, but in fact they are actually HALF height. All drives are half height today because they are half the height of the original full height 180 KB / 360KB floppy drives and hard discs in the old days.

 

In the last post I meant to say the cheap Verbatim BD-RE-DL discs with slim line jewel cases (which you mentioned were OEMed by CMC) were the first media type I encountered errors on, but I've corrected that in that post now. I originally started with the Japan-made Verbatim BD-RE stock about 8 years ago and the error rates on those discs seem to be holding up well after all this time. I just checked the Sony BD-RE-TL packaging for the discs I bought previously, they are all Japan-made for sure as it is stated on the packaging in Japanese.

 

 

[dbminter]

Yes, the whole half drive versus full drive debate.    I freely admit, I don't use the terms correctly.  I use the term full height to describe 5.25 inch drives because they were the original size of optical drives.  Then came the smaller size drive, "half" the height of the "full" height drive.  Plus, I'm not THAT old enough to remember when 5.25 inch floppy drives weren't the same height as the original generation of optical drives.  In fact, I only ever had 2 PC's that had 5.25 inch floppy drives on them before they were supplanted by 3.5 inch floppy drives.

 

 

I had 2 Verbatim BD-RE SL that they actually made and didn't farm out to CMC.  But, starting a few years ago, I can't recommend Verbatim BD-RE SL because they're made by CMC.

 

 

Yes, I recommend Pioneer as the only BD option.  I do have an external ASUS BD drive that I would recommend, but they don't make it anymore.  And the current ASUS model is junk.  I tested two units of it and it destroys rewritable media!    LG I only ever used because Pioneer borked the writing to 8x DVD+RW Ritek discs from firmware 1.33 to 1.34.  Pioneer eventually fixed it 2 years later in 1.50, so I took out the LG and replaced it with a 2nd Pioneer unit.  And LG is the only model that writes to 6x Ritek DVD-RW.  Pioneer won't even read them.  It doesn't recognize a disc is inserted.  The ASUS will read them, but not write them properly.

[discuser]

I think the trick is to stay ahead of the media technology so that the media format is new enough it has to be made by the original brand's manufacturer in Japan in order to avoid other OEMs. As for Pioneer, it's possible that the 09-series BD writers maybe its last good non-UHD writers. The 09-series has been officially discontinued and the new UHD-read compatible 11-series is the current product. Furthermore, the acquisition of Pioneer by Onkyo (which itself was acquired by Gibson a number of years back) may have some implications for Pioneer products in the future, though I believe Onkyo had only acquired the A/V divisions of Pioneer as a subsidiary and Pioneer's computer ODD division may carry on unaffected for the meantime.

 

 

 I had 2 Verbatim BD-RE SL that they actually made and didn't farm out to CMC.  But, starting a few years ago, I can't recommend Verbatim BD-RE SL because they're made by CMC.

[dbminter]

Sort of like Taiyo Yuden.  It seems that after they left the optical disc business, CMC might have bought their name to slap their inferior quality product on.  I don't know if they did that for sure or not, but if they did, it's pretty low.  Buying a good name merely for its reputation and sell crap with it.

[discuser]

I realize this thread is drifting off topic but being new to the forum it seems that all the other sections are about Imgburn other than the specific ODD and media threads in separate sections. But in any case, Taiyo Yuden had a joint venture with JVC / Victor Advanced Media for a number of years and they produced superb CD media which I have used, but even that operation has shut down since 2015.

I noticed that Vinpower is selling PlexDisc CD/DVD/BD media off the Plextor affiliated branding, but I can't help but wonder who the real OEM is and I haven't looked up any MID info on it yet. Speaking of Vinpower, I noticed they resurrected the Sony-Optiarc AD-5280S DVD-writer as the new Optiarc AD-5290S with the same sub-versions as before. This is probably the only DVD-writer I would go with these days, although I have a sinking feeling that the new AD-5290S is really a Lite-On drive inside as it has that telltale distinct looking "flower-petal-shaped" top cover over the disc clamp that seems to be telltale Philips/Lite-On Taiwan OEM. There were a couple of North American Pioneer DVD writers near the end of their DVD writer line that was OEMed by Lite-On and it was quite junky and I had to return them, and later stocked up on a couple of spare Optiarc AD-5280S ODDs which were very useful for error rates monitoring such as with Opti-Drive Control and other utilities.

[dbminter]

I used to use Taiyo Yuden CD-R all the time.  Had to switch to Verbatim DataLifePlus after they closed up shop.  Under the JVC/TY merger, JVC released some BD-RE with the TY name, even though TY never released any BD media itself.  Guess who actually made them?  Yep!  CMC! 

 

 

I used to swear by Optiarc, but they eventually, IMO, went pretty bad and I switched over to LiteOn.  I used to swear by LiteOn then, but they went downhill, too.  Their DVD writers have an annoying tendency.  Every once in a while, they will add pauses in the playback of DVD Video that are not layer break pauses.  You'd burn an image and get one of these pauses, usually at the start of a VTS.  Then, you'd burn the same image, and get a fine burn.  This carried over to my first BD drive, also made by LiteOn, but it was much worse.  2 out of 3 DVD's did this.  And LiteOn's BD drive was junk; stopped writing to BD-RE after 3 months.  And now LiteOn doesn't make BD drives as far as I know, so what does that tell you?

[discuser]

I used to use Taiyo Yuden CD-R all the time.  Had to switch to Verbatim DataLifePlus after they closed up shop.  Under the JVC/TY merger, JVC released some BD-RE with the TY name, even though TY never released any BD media itself.  Guess who actually made them?  Yep!  CMC! 

With JVC/TY gone, have you had any experience with Verbatim / Mitsubishi's archival grade gold CD-R with hard coating (which seems to be something applied from BD hard coating)? Any idea what the MID is on those CD-R discs as well as Verbatim's CD-RW discs?

[dbminter]

No, I've never had any of the gold based (Actually, they're silver based.  Gold branded surface, but the recordable layer is made of silver.) CD-R's.  The only experience I've had is with TY, Verbatim, and various companies releasing CMC, which I don't do business with anymore.  Well, I do business with Verbatim, even though their Life CD-R are CMC junk.

 

 

I don't think I ever used a Verbatim CD-RW, so I can't say.  My CD-RW are Memorex, but since they're 24x, Mitsubishi made them instead of the usual CMC Memorex CD junk.  My first CD-RW were also Memorex, back when Memorex made a quality product, circa 2002.

[discuser]

Going back to the original discussion of this thread, I was wondering, is there a facility within Imgburn where the user could manually specify how many LBAs logical data blocks to be erase-formatted and perhaps certify? If this is possible, I'd like to learn how to do it. For example, if I had a BD-RE dual layer disc and only the first layer (Layer zero) is useable, I was wondering if it would be possible to manually specify the LBA range for erasure-formatting. I noticed that the program itself knows how many LBAs there are in each layer and this information is specified in the disc information displayed in Imgburn.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Sorry, no.

 

The drive formats as a whole.

 

As you’ve got pioneer drives, I should mention those 2 errors you get are basically because it doesn’t support certification as part of the format process.

 

The only verification you’ll get will be from where the program takes over and zero fills each sector.

 

If you’ve formatted with spare areas, the drive will be performing automatic write verification (and mapping out defective blocks) as it does that. If you haven’t, it won’t be. The best you can hope for there (in terms of detecting problem areas) is the drive returning a Write error.

 

You don’t need to erase a bdre disc you’ve written to, just write straight over the top of it. Quick erase just attempts to zero fill a chuck at the start of the disc. You can instead save yourself a write cycle and just write meaningful data to it.

[discuser]

Sorry, no. The drive formats as a whole. As you’ve got pioneer drives, I should mention those 2 errors you get are basically because it doesn’t support certification as part of the format process. The only verification you’ll get will be from where the program takes over and zero fills each sector.

 

If you’ve formatted with spare areas, the drive will be performing automatic write verification (and mapping out defective blocks) as it does that. If you haven’t, it won’t be. The best you can hope for there (in terms of detecting problem areas) is the drive returning a Write error.

 

You don’t need to erase a bdre disc you’ve written to, just write straight over the top of it. Quick erase just attempts to zero fill a chuck at the start of the disc. You can instead save yourself a write cycle and just write meaningful data to it.

 

Thanks for the additional information on the Imgburn formatting error messages. So let me recap and see if I understand this correctly:

 

1. Originally you said that the options PREFER FORMAT WITH FULL CERTIFICATION need to be ticked and PREFER FORMAT WITHOUT SPARE AREAS to be unticked (i.e. spare area becomes available). With that combination, defect management can be realized during the disc's virgin state erase-formatting. However, since in this case the Pioneer drives show that certification-formatting is not supported, is there still any point ticking the option for PREFER FORMAT WITH FULL CERTIFICATION, even though all that does would seem to just generate a format error message on an ODD that doesn't support that type of formatting? Or is is still necessary to to tick the certification box so that defect mapping would be performed during erasure-formatting? What is the different between certified and non-certified? It would seem that even if the Pioneer drives are incapable of certification, the user could still get defect mapping out of Imgburn, so I'm unclear about the difference between drives that can and cannot perform disc certification during formatting under Imgburn.

 

2. I understand that defect mapping is possible during erasure-formatting when the correct options are set up. But what about during subsequent data-writes and verification? I know that during write verification, Imgburn will display error messages of areas that failed verification, but does the verification process also RELOCATE data from bad spots to spare areas during WRITE-VERIFICATION? In other words, does DEFECT GROWTH on the disc becomes detectable by the verification process, or does defect mapping occur only during erasure-formatting but not in subsequent write and verify operations?

 

3. Regarding full pre-erasure of a BD-RE disc that already has data and is to be overwritten, I think it would probably be a good practice if I previously had other data on the disc and wanted to ensure that all existing data is wiped out before rewriting a new DAO session on it, to ensure that no previously written data could be accessible. I think this would be the only reason to perform a full pre-erasure in preparation for BD-RE overwrite (as well as other rewritable media including DVD / CD). I was unsure over the many years of using rewritable media whether a direct overwrite would produce a less clean readable signal off the disc as compared to a pre-erasure disc first. In some cases in the past I've had odd cases where DVD+RW discs produced a better error rate quality when pre-erased for overwritting, as opposed to being directly overwritten in the same pass. So I don't mind continuing that practice but I can imagine that it depends on the media type and its quality as well as the drive used.