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[jolo]

 Many people have their own techniques when burning multimedia files to a CD/DVD.

The one I would like to ask your opinion on is how some people will burn their audio and/or video files to their CD/DVDs at much slower speeds than they would with data files. Sometimes at 2x, etc.

I was wondering if that really makes a difference in the quality of the output ? Probably that was an important thing to do when the processors/disk drives/media/RAM/Software/Burners were slower and less reliable.  I am thinking that the availability of hardware and software caching would probably create a situation where the burn speed would be independent of any quality issues.
Something I do believe in though is NOT burning directly to the media without a temporary work file in between.

I usually just stay on maximum and trust MC. What are your thoughts on this ?

Jon

[modelmaker]

MC is very trustworthy! 

Seriously, I have always burned at max speed, the only failures I've ever had have been due to the CDs themselves.

[jolo]

MC is very trustworthy! 

Seriously, I have always burned at max speed, the only failures I've ever had have been due to the CDs themselves.

Thanks. I have found the same, and no difference when I slowed down the burning speed.

If you have been on some of the real techy forums about this, you will see what I mean about how some think that if they bring the speed down very slowly, they will get a better burn and it will sound better.

Thanks for your reply,

Jon

[glynor]

I just want MC to be able to Verify the data on the disc, like Nero (and basically every other CD burning app) can.

Until then, even if it has a 98.99% success rate, I won't use it for most purposes.  Most of the time when I burn stuff to disc, it's media that I'm archiving and will be deleting from my media RAID volume.  I'm not going to risk deleting it if I'm not positive that the disc will work!

[bob]

I read an article a year or so back where supposedly a lab examined dvd's recorded at different speeds and came to the conclusion (at least in their setup) that the ones burned at maximum speed had less defined "pits" than ones burned at slower speed. Since I don't stand and watch my burns I usually burn them at 1/2 media maximum or slower. Now some drives don't actually let you manipulate the speed that much so it may be not very effective under some setups.

I actually wonder a lot about the archive quality of various cd/dvd's. It seems like there used to be more variation in types of "emulsions" than there is now. Has anyone seen any serious testing of the longevity of various discs??

[glynor]

I've seen some testing, but it was mostly older.  Generally, the Super Azo Dye type used by Verbatim (among others) is viewed as having the best longevity.  Gold reflective layers are better than silver (but less compatible with older drives and readers and more expensive).

However, recent "real life" testing suggests that optical discs don't make a very good archival format generally, and that usable lifespan can often be limited to around 20 years.  Even worse, common practices can reduce shelf life to 1-2 years.  Things that are very bad for discs include:

• Exposure to light, especially direct sunlight (or any strong UV source)
• High moisture and humidity environments
• High temperature environments (or environments that vary greatly in temperature)

(So, by these standards, perhaps the worst possible place to keep your discs is in the car.  In the "entertainment center" -- usually a source of heat -- isn't great either).

A good reference on this stuff is here: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/contents.html

[hit_ny]

I was wondering if that really makes a difference in the quality of the output ?

This is a function of
- the player that the cd will be played on.
- how well it was written
- how good the media is (presumably you want to hear this in the future).

If all you do is write to cd-r or cd-rw for short term or throwaway purposes then you can ignore the rest.

assuming when you ask how well it will play you mean whether it will skip.

If you are able to verify what is written, is bit perfect to what was on the HD, then you are half way there. Assuming that the media file you use is itself skip free .

Whether the cd wil skip requires something more. A writer that has firmware that can be queried during scanning to see how many times the writer needs to use error correction to read the cd-r. The less it needs to do this the better the chances are that the cd-r will not skip.

Only 2 manufacturers make writers that do this, Plextor (expensive) & Lite-on (BenQ's optical storage division was acquired by them earlier this yr). Even then amongst these manufacturers you might need to check for the exact model# (see cdfreaks.com). If your writer is anything but the above mentioned then you will not be able to scan for it because its firmware prolly does not report anything meaningful the software can use. The only exception here is if your writer happens to be a rebadged lite-on. Given the amt of rebadging in the industry, your chances are not bad.

The program that is used for scanning is CD/DVD speed. Lite-on & plextor have their own software as well.

If you got this far, then you can experiement with write speeds and media and scan to see which gives you the best quality score. The higher this is the less the chances your cd-r will skip. This is not an exact science and requires a bit of trial & error but you have little more information now. You still need to test playback out in the player you will use, it might be picky, might prefer slower speeds or prefer certain media.

As you can see there are quite a few variables involved, so invariably you will get many subjective opinions on it but if you have the tools to test them out then hopefully you will be closer to the answer for your particular setup.

[jolo]

This is a function of
- the player that the cd will be played on.
- how well it was written
- how good the media is (presumably you want to hear this in the future).

If all you do is write to cd-r or cd-rw for short term or throwaway purposes then you can ignore the rest.

assuming when you ask how well it will play you mean whether it will skip.

If you are able to verify what is written, is bit perfect to what was on the HD, then you are half way there. Assuming that the media file you use is itself skip free .


Whether the cd wil skip requires something more. A writer that has firmware that can be queried during scanning to see how many times the writer needs to use error correction to read the cd-r. The less it needs to do this the better the chances are that the cd-r will not skip.

Only 2 manufacturers make writers that do this, Plextor (expensive) & Lite-on (BenQ's optical storage division was acquired by them earlier this yr). Even then amongst these manufacturers you might need to check for the exact model# (see cdfreaks.com). If your writer is anything but the above mentioned then you will not be able to scan for it because its firmware prolly does not report anything meaningful the software can use. The only exception here is if your writer happens to be a rebadged lite-on. Given the amt of rebadging in the industry, your chances are not bad.

The program that is used for scanning is CD/DVD speed. Lite-on & plextor have their own software as well.

If you got this far, then you can experiement with write speeds and media and scan to see which gives you the best quality score. The higher this is the less the chances your cd-r will skip. This is not an exact science and requires a bit of trial & error but you have little more information now. You still need to test playback out in the player you will use, it might be picky, might prefer slower speeds or prefer certain media.

As you can see there are quite a few variables involved, so invariably you will get many subjective opinions on it but if you have the tools to test them out then hopefully you will be closer to the answer for your particular setup.

hit_ny,
You should get an award for your post. I think the "Golden Rip and Burn award" !!

You said it all and said it a lot simpler than I could. For myself, I have learned lots and lots from experience.  Ones entire PC environment has a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of a rip/burn.

I also think that while th e quality and reliabity of software has improved a lot, I think the opposite is happening with media.
Since the market has been flooded with low cost and lower quality media made in Mainland China,  many vendors have had to dump quality to compete. Especially at the retail level where  most people are not aware of the quality issues of different media and will get the cheapest.
I also thing that the quality issue of media is now less to do with immediate failures than it has to do with how reliable the media will be in a year or 5 years. The cheap stuff just isn't made with the materials. processes and chemicals to ensure that the magnetic bits and bytes stay on the media reliably for a long time

My favorite is genuine Taiyo Yuden and genuine Verbatim, especially on the DL end.

I know in Nero, there is a feature that will show you the speed of the burn/rip while a burn/rip is going on. I have noticed that the speed of my Taiyo Yudens stay consistent, while cheapos like the HP's the are all made by CMC in mainland china slow down as they go along.

The thing is, it one shops, it is not hard to find the TOP level media selling for about the same or close to the same of many of the lower cost media. 

I used to buy Fuji media, because they were TY. But  that has changed. One can see where the Fuji's are made and if they are NOT made in Japan, as they uised to be, they will be cheaper media from China.

Even at Sams, I purchased 100 Verbatim CDs about a year or so ago. When I ran a check on them, I was shocked to see that they were made in China by CMC.  Currently, at the SAMS I go to, I don't think any of the media that they sell is made in Japan anymore.
Finding better media is more than just knowing the name of the company.

The health of ones PC has a dramtic effect on the reliability of the burn/rip.  Disk Drives that have a bunch of bad sectors, RAM memory that might not be so hot, not enough virtual memory allocated, some corruption in Windows or the burning/ripping software itself. The firmware that is installed on the CD/DVD drives. I am using Lite-On myself and found the current Lite-On to be the most reliable of any drive I have had.

Last Point !! It is my experience that the best step I can take to ensure a reliable rip/burn is to re-boot my PC, before starting one. Even inbetween rips/burns. If there was any type of error during my current windows session, that seems to linger around and shows up when I would do a RAM intensive operartion like a Rip or Burn. I would advice people to re-boot before, as a safeguard.  Oh yes, I try never to burn to capacity on media if I don't have to.

Jon

[Alfie2]

Excellent stuff in here, just one thing that noone seemed to mention... the fact that burning your mp3, aac, ape, flac, and so to disk actually requires the system to use a codec, and the quality of this codec will affect the output immensly. Of course using lame codec (for mp3) as comes with MC is a good thing, but sometimes pplz seem to forget these things.

Also I concur with glynor, verification of data written to the media is definitly something that should go into MC.

If you want to go about it scientificly, try burning an cd from a bunch of mp3s first on 52x and then on 16x, if using a program that supports verification then tell me which one comes out fault free 

[hit_ny]

Has anyone tried verifying Audio-cdr's ?

I've done it many times with data CD/DVD and nero, But Audio-cdr's would require a wav file for comparision. If you manually create the WAV file then it can be done, but i was wondering if the wirting software you use can do these intermediate steps automatically.

Another safeguard you can try is to copy a checksum file to the written disk as well. This applies more to data discs than Audio. All verification does is verify at time of writing that all was good, but what about afterwards. If there is a problem reading then the checksum file will identify precisely the problematic files. And if there aren't any then whatever you copy off from the disc to your HD is also bit perfect.

[jolo]

Thanks all for the great comments:

I just saw an example of what I mean of when I might read about someone talking about burning "slowly" will improve the data quality and reliability. I personally think this is residue from when CD/DVD burners were slower and less reliable, that the software in particular used to need 100% of the RAM and there better not be anything else going on while the burn is going on.  I also think there are more software drivers and while I don't recommend crappy media AT ALL, I think a successful burn will almost occur on all media. That it is the reliability and the staying power of the burn that makes a difference in media quality. Of yes, the speed makes a big difference. I have said before that there is a way to set Nero to keep giving the speed of the burn while it is going on. On inferior media, the speed figured go up and mostly down as the burn gets longer. When I use my Taiyo Yuden's and DL Verbatim's the speed stays steady. Therefore a 8x TY DVD can potentially burn faster than a lower level CMC made media like HP, Memorex, and those "retail store label brands".

On the site of a store that specializes in media, supermediastore(I am NOT giving then a plug, recommendation or non-recommendation), there is a guide to burning DVDs.
The page is here http://www.supermediastore.com/burningdvdtips.html but below I have the paragraph in which the effect of speed is mentioned:
Don’t speed up.

Don't rush up the burning process, burn DVD with slower speeds. Doing so will decrease the possibilities of recoding errors. If you’re willing to take few more minutes of waiting, burning at slower speeds can brings you more stable and higher quality DVDRs.


However, I mentioned that I like to re-boot before burning/ripping because those are computer intensive operations and if there are some error messages that occurred during a session or other garbage in RAM,  I have found that I have the potential for coasters or a burn/rip program not working or working slowly.

If someone is burning a lossy format like MP3 or OGG, or whatever conversion is made, and if we tell MC to convert AND burn, the conversions get made outside of the Burn. The same with asking for normalization, that occurs first, then the burn.

Because to use smaller blocks of CPU use, I always do any encoding if needed, before burning. Then I can listen to it first.  Especially with Divx video as well.
I never like to do direct burns to media. I think it is a lot safer for a burner to write to my disk drive first.

With ripping, I have to say that I am fond of what I think is the safest way for me. Many  times I might take a full CD or DVD and riip it to a single ISO files. Then I know I have on my disk drive, a bit, by bit, exact replica of my source. Then with some of the various products that allow for virtual drives, I associate my ISO file with a virtual drive and from their I call MC and watch and/or hear my original source and have the same quality as if it came from my the original media. I can also encode the ISO file in MC and break it up into WAV, APE, Ogg or MP3 files, if I want.

In general, to make it simpler for my PC, I separate the tasks of Ripping, Encoding and possible burning a backup. I also will write to my beloved Cowon IAudio U3 portable media player, usually in OFF format to listen to on the road. Or to my Palm PDA as well.

But, I get off topic. Especially with caching on the hardware and software level, the data to be burn is ahead of the game and looked at before burning. Therefore,  I have not noticed speed of the burn having any effect on the success or quality of the output.

This possibly might be different if someone is burning from a poor quality source and especially to  poor quality, scratched media. I try for this never to occur, but if there is some damage to the source or media, the software might struggle and do some re-writing as well as having the CD/DVD burner struggle as well.

I will mention a couple of cool products that encode separately and use the latest or some specialized codecs, that I have found omn rarewares.org, like oggdropXPd and LameDrop. Simplest LAME and OGG front ends I have seen.

I also think that MC is especially strong in its ripping/burning features and allows us some flexibility to do what we want. Very reliable and FANTASTIC on the Tagging of multimedia files. So easy, the best I've seen. The organization features as well. Plus, for audio playing on a PC, nothing does it better.

Jon

[Alex B]

With ripping, I have to say that I am fond of what I think is the safest way for me. Many  times I might take a full CD or DVD and riip it to a single ISO files. Then I know I have on my disk drive, a bit, by bit, exact replica of my source. Then with some of the various products that allow for virtual drives, I associate my ISO file with a virtual drive and from their I call MC and watch and/or hear my original source and have the same quality as if it came from my the original media. I can also encode the ISO file in MC and break it up into WAV, APE, Ogg or MP3 files, if I want.

ISO rippers are not the best possible choice for Red Book Audio CDs. These programs do not have a secure ripping option like MC or EAC have (re-read capable error detection & correction system). You can make Audio CD images with EAC in single file & cue mode. Many virtual drive mounters understand this format.

I will mention a couple of cool products that encode separately and use the latest or some specialized codecs, that I have found omn rarewares.org, like oggdropXPd and LameDrop. Simplest LAME and OGG front ends I have seen.

You can use the latest Vorbis & LAME codecs also with MC. Just replace the default encoder files (lame.exe & oggenc.exe) in the [MC Program path]/Plugins folder. Also oggenc2.exe works if it is renamed to oggenc.exe.

[jolo]

ISO rippers are not the best possible choice for Red Book Audio CDs. These programs do not have a secure ripping option like MC or EAC have (re-read capable error detection & correction system). You can make Audio CD images with EAC in single file & cue mode. Many virtual drive mounters understand this format.

You can use the latest Vorbis & LAME codecs also with MC. Just replace the default encoder files (lame.exe & oggenc.exe) in the [MC Program path]/Plugins folder. Also oggenc2.exe works if it is renamed to oggenc.exe.

• I don't know what "Red Book Audio CDs." means ?
• It is great to know that I can use whatever my favorite versions are of LAME and Ogg !! this gives MC tremendous flexibility.
• If I choose to replace the MC LAME and OGG with my own favorite, would MC allow me to put my favorite LAME and OGG commands in it ? For Ogg, I use will use from Q2 to Q6, depending on what I want to do with the audio file. For Lame I like using version 3.97 and most times , -V 2 --vbr-new.  I might alter that and go to lower quality depending on how it will be listened to.
• I used to use EAC, but truthfully, I see no advantages in using EAC or MC.  It is my opinion that the reason for anyone to look at EAC is if they are using low quality source and one can use all of those settings to help rip bad quality source. But if that is not the case, I see no advantage to all of the settings and on normal good quality source, I don't think EAC would do a better job than MC.
• I might use several tools for different situations, and I find the creation of a ISO file really great so some situations. For some situations, that IS the only choice. I will tell you  that if I am wanting to back up a video,  many times, I will burn to a single , exact copy ISO file using something like CloneDVD2.  This would be mu backup, and then I can examine if the backup is valid by playing it back, etc. If things look good, it is a fast, very low risk rip of a ISO file to its original form on a DVD. I find it useful as well for Audio CDs. I will not leave the ISO file like it is for Audio CD backups, but it sometimes saves me time if I just want to do a quick Rip and file my original in a save place. I know from the ISO, I can do whatever I want, create WAV files, Ogg files, APE files, etc. Then delete the ISO file. Many times items like firmware upgrades, or other such items are sent as single ISO files that the user needs to take the ISO file and have it burnt to media, so that it can be used to upgrade firmware, maybe create a special boot disk from Seagate Labs to help me validate my Drives.
• One last use of burning a application CD to ISO.  I have a ATI video card. There are several upgrades in the MMC and graphics software from ATI throughout the year. On the the ATI upgrade, even though I purchased this thing a few years ago, it will not upgraded the software for the ATI DVD player unless it sees the original ATI CD. Sometimes it is not exactly at my finger tips. So by having a image file (or ISO) file of the original CD which I have and came with my ATI card, if it sees the image file on my drive, it accepts it and on goes the installation. The same is true for the many times I have had to change blown out disk drives ro gone with a faster disk drive and Microsoft Office. I mean, I purchased Office 2000 legally as well as upgraded from office 97 legally. Since my Office 2000 is an upgrade copy, I just have to point it to the image or ISO file of my Office 97 CD and off it goes.
  Just a little convenient and I have legally purchased all of the software.

Jon

Getting back to recording speed, do we have a consensus on this ? Please understand that when I talk about some techniques I do at times, it is not meant to be anything like a "guide", or anything that is "advised", or is better than anyone else does. I just find it helpful to me when others post some technique. I already now some ways to simplify things for me in the use of MC. I am just a hack.

Thanks, Jon 

[Alex B]

I don't know what "Red Book Audio CDs." means ?

A Red Book Audio CD is a standard audio CD. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(audio_CD_standard)

If I choose to replace the MC LAME and OGG with my own favorite, would MC allow me to put my favorite LAME and OGG commands in it ? For Ogg, I use will use from Q2 to Q6, depending on what I want to do with the audio file. For Lame I like using version 3.97 and most times , -V 2 --vbr-new.  I might alter that and go to lower quality depending on how it will be listened to.

Yes. The custom command line option is exactly for this.

However, the mentioned LAME command line is already included in the default options. MP3, VBR High, Fast is exactly the same as "-V 2 --vbr-new".

The default Ogg Vorbis quality options are as follows:
Low = -q 1
Normal/Low = -q 3
Normal = -q 5
Normal/High = -q 7
High = -q 10

I used to use EAC, but truthfully, I see no advantages in using EAC or MC.  It is my opinion that the reason for anyone to look at EAC is if they are using low quality source and one can use all of those settings to help rip bad quality source. But if that is not the case, I see no advantage to all of the settings and on normal good quality source, I don't think EAC would do a better job than MC.

This has been discussed many times. For standard track ripping (a separate file for each track) MC and EAC are on par (both in secure mode). MC is easier to configure and naturally a better option for MC users since no additional import steps are needed. EAC can securely rip a single file (wav) + cue disc image that can be mounted as a drive image. MC has a cue option, but that does not produce a similar complete disc image.

If you create an ISO image from an audio CD with ISO image copiers these programs don't use a re-read capable error correction mode and create a rip log. You really need to listen through the CD image to make sure that no audible errors occured. Also, you will never know if the ISO image contains small rip errors that are not clearly audible.

I might use several tools for different situations, and I find the creation of a ISO file really great so some situations. For some situations, that IS the only choice. I will tell you  that if I am wanting to back up a video,  many times, I will burn to a single , exact copy ISO file using something like CloneDVD2.  This would be mu backup, and then I can examine if the backup is valid by playing it back, etc. If things look good, it is a fast, very low risk rip of a ISO file to its original form on a DVD. I find it useful as well for Audio CDs. I will not leave the ISO file like it is for Audio CD backups, but it sometimes saves me time if I just want to do a quick Rip and file my original in a save place. I know from the ISO, I can do whatever I want, create WAV files, Ogg files, APE files, etc. Then delete the ISO file. Many times items like firmware upgrades, or other such items are sent as single ISO files that the user needs to take the ISO file and have it burnt to media, so that it can be used to upgrade firmware, maybe create a special boot disk from Seagate Labs to help me validate my Drives.

One last use of burning a application CD to ISO.  I have a ATI video card. There are several upgrades in the MMC and graphics software from ATI throughout the year. On the the ATI upgrade, even though I purchased this thing a few years ago, it will not upgraded the software for the ATI DVD player unless it sees the original ATI CD. Sometimes it is not exactly at my finger tips. So by having a image file (or ISO) file of the original CD which I have and came with my ATI card, if it sees the image file on my drive, it accepts it and on goes the installation. The same is true for the many times I have had to change blown out disk drives ro gone with a faster disk drive and Microsoft Office. I mean, I purchased Office 2000 legally as well as upgraded from office 97 legally. Since my Office 2000 is an upgrade copy, I just have to point it to the image or ISO file of my Office 97 CD and off it goes. Just a little convenient and I have legally purchased all of the software.

Data discs are different. ISO copiers are useful for data CD and DVD discs (technically a standard DVD video disc is also a data disc).