DVD Burning Quality Criteria

Before getting to the actual tests, we would like to say a few words about the criteria we are going to use for burning quality evaluation and analysis. We will base our statements on the ECMA standards for DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW media, which say that the total number of PI errors in 8 subsequent ECC blocks should not exceed 280. This is the first limiting parameter that we will take into account. Besides, any ECC block should not contain more than four irrecoverable PI errors (an irrecoverable PI error is referred to as PI failure by CD-DVD Speed utility, which we will also take into consideration).

Thus, we consider those DVD discs as quality media from the formal standpoint that have no more than 280 PI errors per each 8 ECC blocks and no more than 4 PI failures per a single ECC block. Besides the purely formal approach to DVD running quality evaluation, it also makes a lot of sense to pay due attention to the surface-scan graphs showing at the distribution and type of errors discovered on the disc surface. If the maximum number of errors per disk is equal, then we should regard those cases as the most dangerous when the maximum number of errors exceeds the limits over the entire disc surface rather than in one individual case.

Data Protection on ScratchProof DVD Discs from TDK

We haven’t yet paid that much attention to different way of reaching higher mechanical stability and sturdiness of the disc work surface against external influences. Once TDK started offering their media promising over 100 times better anti-scratch protection, we decided to take a closer look at these solutions and find out, how they managed to achieve that and what the other benefits of this technology are.

So, let’s start with the data we managed to retrieve from TDK’s corporate web-site. As for the technological side of the story, they didn’t offer that much of the detail there, unfortunately. We can only assume that the above mentioned effect is achieved due to special disk surfacing, which chemical contents is TDK’s corporate secret. Of course, the manufacturer paid special attention to the physical scratches, to be more exact, to the external factor provoking these potential scratches. These types of damage are the primary cause for concern for the majority of users, unlike dust and fingerprints. The latter can be removed from the disc surface with special sprays and cloths, while the mechanical damages can hardly be eliminated.

Every scratch on the disc surface is potentially hazardous for the entire medium, because it may result into its complete inoperativeness. Sometimes, even if only one single file from the game or software package cannot be read, the entire disc appears useless and the money yo9u spent on it gets simply wasted. The scratches going along the track lines are usually the most dangerous. In other words, there is always a possibility that the hardware error correction mechanism will fail to help.

The DVD-R and DVD+R media from TDK with ScratchProof DVD technology support promise to reduce the possibility of scratching significantly due to special hard surface coating. As we have already mentioned above, the manufacturer claims that their discs are 100 times more resistant against physical scratches compared with the standard DVD discs.

However, the higher surface robustness is not the only positive effect from the new work surface coating. It is also highly anti-static. The superficial charge of the new DVD media drops down much faster than that of their predecessors. And it means that the discs will accumulate less dust and will be better read by the optical drives. Moreover, all ScratchProof DVD discs allow reducing the negative effect from fingerprints, because the physical peculiarities of the protective surface coating prevent it from taking on most of the oil from your fingers once you touch the disk. And this definitely reduces the amount of dust and dirt sticking to these spots.

Note that DVD-R and DVD+R from TDK that we are going to take about today, they also offer DVD-RW 2x discs with ScratchProof technology.