TSSTcorp CDDVD SH-S202J SB03 won't read disc

[dbminter]

I received my replacement drive today, but the interesting is I didn't get exactly what I sent in for replacement.  My drive was the BDR-211UBK and they sent me something in a box labeled BDR-212UBK.  So, it sounds like I got maybe a newer, "updated" model.  Maybe the 211 is no longer in production.

 

EDIT: Got a reply back from Pioneer tech support.  The 212 replaced the 211.  Although I never heard of it before.  Must be pretty new, which could be more problematic, actually, if you think about it.

 

The 212 must be just fresh off the R&D line.  There's no listing for this drive anywhere on Google.

 

[dbminter]

Just put in the 212 in an external enclosure I have specifically for testing optical drives before installing them in my main enclosure that I always use as my primary one.  Threw in a Ritek 8x DVD+RW that had written to before successfully in the WH16NS60.  No problem with the Verify!    So, I'll be swapping it into my main enclosure.  Then, I'll test it with virgin Ritek 8x DVD+RW to see if this drive still suffers from it like the past firmwares did on 3 other drives.  I have no delusions it will work, though. 

[dr_ml422]

Yeah that Job story is really something else isn't it! I mean the only thing I got out of it was the virtue behind being patient. I don't I think you have to kill somebody's family or take away their land or do anything like that to see if they learn patience. Unless he's going to really really really make a difference somewhere somehow! I learned a long time ago that what you see is what you get and that's it. If you expect anything more from what you already see then you're in for a hell of a ride! So why waste time trying to make someone, something, someplace conform to any standard anyone may have.

[dbminter]

There's an inherent problem that everyone takes away from the story of Job.  That faith is rewarded.  But, that's exactly the OPPOSITE of what Job does!    He loses his faith and only has his faith restored and rewarded when God comes down and reveals himself.  He shows Job the wonders of his creation and that reinvigorates Job's belief.  AFTER God shows him he exists, God rewards Job's faith.  What kind of message is that to deliver?  The typical ones of the Bible: contradictory nonsense.

[dbminter]

Wow, that Verify test was an ABJECT failure!    Verify failed RIGHT away!    Didn't even Verify a single sector before failing! 

 

EDIT: It's the same story as the 209/2209/211 on firmware 1.51/1.52 but not 1.50.  If the 212 writes a unformatted Ritek 8x DVD+RW, Verify will fail.  If my LG writes the same disc with the same image file, it writes and passes Verify.  If that same disc is then written in the 212 again with the same image file in ImgBurn, it passes Verify.  Same old story!    So, these media CAN be used in Pioneer drives, BUT you lose one potential write to getting it written to properly in them.

 

I did get ONE uncorrectable error that wasn't because it was apparently corrected:

W 20:42:02 Failed to Read Sectors 2267392 - 2267423 - Reason: L-EC Uncorrectable Error

[dbminter]

Well, the 212 is trash!    It fails more often than not to Verify contents at the very end of a disc, either the inner most side or the outer most side for Ritek 8x DVD+RW.    So, whenever the entire available space is written to, Verify WILL fail at 99.9%! 

 

That's it!  I'm fed up with Pioneer They've been borking firmware for this media for like 3 years now!    I will, from now on, actively persuade people away from Pioneer drives and steer them towards LG's.

[dr_ml422]

So it writes completely to the disc but it fails to verify it. Is that correct? Or does it just completely mess up the right and therefore it's not able to verify it.

[dbminter]

It must be the 212's writing ability.  Writes complete, but Verifies fail either at the start at 0.1% or at the end at 99.9%.  I put that disc in an LG and run a manual Verify against image contents and the same thing happens, so it must be the drive's writing that is wrong.  I can take the same disc that failed, with the same image, write in it ImgBurn, too, in the LG, and Write and Verify completes fine.  So, as it's been for the past 3 years with 4 different Pioneer BD writers, it's the borked firmware.

[dr_ml422]

Does this mean that if you have some important information that you wrote to the disc that it can possibly alter it by accident and thus pcause problems for whatever project you're doing at the time?

[dbminter]

What it means is the 212 isn't properly writing the data to disc to begin with.  Luckily, everything I write to DVD+RW is for temporary storage.  And, Verifies give me confidence that any important information stored on them was properly written.

 

The 212 is doing two things wrong.  First, when it formats 8x Ritek DVD+RW, Verify will always fail on the first sector.  Second, it's not writing at the other edge correctly.  The last sector will fail to Verify more times than not.

[dr_ml422]

Excuse the delay I've been pretty busy the last couple of days I took a trip down to the Caribbean for a few weeks for a little break. Anyway Pioneer must have fell off drastically because when I had my first pioneer which I think was the 112d it was excellent! Actually you could really feel how different it was from the other drives as it locked in the disc really well and it was very solid all the way through. So I guess they just fell off the map and like everything else they made they're just not doing it well anymore. They used to be the best plasma TVs out there at one time as well. They were the Pioneers as the name suggests for a lot of things. I think what they still make good might be some receivers or something like that along the audio line of things.

[dbminter]

Pioneer used to make a fine product.  The longest lasting optical drive I ever had was from Pioneer, my first BD of theirs I had.  It last over 2 years, unprecedented in my experience with optical drives.  But, ever since that first few samples, the durability fell over the cliff.  And they keep borking the firmware.  So, I can no longer recommend their products anymore.  They go on my list with CMC, HP, and Sony.

[dr_ml422]

Was Sony ever a contender in the optical drive business at all? I remember they came out with their Sony drives and then they farmed them to Nec Optiarc if I'm not mistaken.

[dbminter]

Sony actually created the very first dual format DVD drive, the DRU line.  It ended the recordable DVD format war before it could start to become a mess like the video tape format war.  Now, everyone does it.  But, around 2003, Sony was the first.

 

I believe Sony bought NEC/Optiarc and simply stopped putting Sony labels on their own DVD hardware.  Instead, they simply just used NEC/Optiarc as their arm for making DVD drives.  Sony still put their label on their DVD recordable discs and still does as far as I know.  Thought last I had any Sony DVD-R, they were made by Ritek.  Unlike the higher quality product Sony itself used to make.  One of Sony's rare quality products post 2001 was when they made their own recordable DVD's.  But even they couldn't keep doing that right and farmed out to Ritek to increase profits. 

[dr_ml422]

Those Sony DVD +- R were and if any still around, very good solid discs. Especially the 8x. You could actually feel the difference. so Sony won the format war & verbatim ends up winning the manufacturing war with their disc huh! Got to give it to Sony. They hung in there all the way with that Blu-ray when everybody else was either on the fence or against them.

[dbminter]

Following up on Amazon.com giving me 6x Verbatim BD-R when I ordered 16x, I ordered another cake stack of 50 16x.  This time, like the last time I bought 50, I got 16x, what I ordered.  Go figure.

[dr_ml422]

Wow! So if you didn't say something forget it. Well that's pretty fast for BD-R. Amazon will try you believe me. They tried sending me stuff longer than my Prime Account states and I adamantly rejected that. I specifically said I was paying for a service. That was that. They're the best bet these days. I'm looking to use more of their services like Amazon Cloud etc... 

[dbminter]

My big problem with Amazon.com is not with them but the fact that they use USPS to deliver things.  While they may actually use UPS to do the majority of the shipping, USPS will always do the delivery.  And, 4 times, the USPS has delivered my mail to the wrong house, including an Amazon.com package with a near $100 item in it!    Thankfully, the person who got it was kind enough to bring it to my house, where it belonged.  But, USPS has also failed to deliver one of my credit card bills and a gas bill before!    Good thing I keep an eye on them in the mail and my online accounts.  I was able to print out my statements and send in the payments on my own. 

[dr_ml422]

They've been talking for a long time about getting rid of the Postal Service it's actually runs on losing money every year which I read somewhere or that the postal worker told me so. It's subsidized by the federal government somehow to keep it running also I heard I may be wrong. But then privatizing it out to UPS would make sense but they would have to take over the whole post office and I don't think those guys that are messing around with packages or maybe some of them might like it reducing the load to just throwing letters in the mailbox. Post office not to knock them has gotten a little bit better in recent years. Yes that's happened to me also with the bills and and other stuff I always check online on my phone for what I owe and what's due.

Lost my backup cellphone on vacation. I'll be looking for another one. It's vital to me. 

[dbminter]

The US government has talked about privatizing the USPS for some years.  And, maybe, it might make the service better.  Or better yet just farm out the entire USPS system to UPS.  Pay UPS to deliver ALL mail, not just packages.

[dr_ml422]

You're correct. Everything to avoid blame! 

So what's new? I'm about finished condensing everything to HEVC.  I see no need for discs unless I have some nice private collection, as the hard drives are sufficient for backup.

I had an incident yesterday removing my lost cellphone from Amazon. First you have to go online. 2nd you have to choose what was actually using the phone, like Kindle etc... which is stupid because you should just have to delete the device and by default everything associated with it. It was so frustrating tstl. As the instructions never mentioned any of that. Also if you get an Amazon app phone, it doesn't use the Amazon store for updates, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So you don't know who's updating the Amazon app whether it's the Android Marketplace or whether it's Amazon and then they put it in the marketplace. Why waste time updating it and putting it in the Android Marketplace if people who use Amazon are right there already and can just swipe up any app and update it through your app store?

[dr_ml422]

I'm using the Video Disc Option on Power2Go 12 to create a DVD. Only way to encode .srt is to already have it embedded in the source. Nice and pretty quick too! 

[dbminter]

It looks like ConvertXToDVD has been "frozen" until they get a 64 bit version of the software released.  They probably stopped development of the software to concentrate on getting this new "version" working.

[dr_ml422]

Is it on their forum etc...? They're not doing anything with ConvertXtoVideo either. I wish them well. They're a stand up act compared to most vendors. 

[dbminter]

I extrapolated that from this forum thread:

https://forums.vso-software.fr/spam-t20799.html

 

Even though it was about controlling Spam, check towards the last few posts.