I have a new video DL DVD which I ripped with Decrypter in 16.5
mintues on a NEC 3540. I ripped it in Full Disc mode with Shrink in
19.5 minutes. So far so good. I could not better those times with the
Sony/LiteOn I returned to the store - aka "The Coaster Maker".
I wiped the disc on my t-shirt to remove a finger smudge on the very
edge. My t-shirt is clean from this morning but it is the slightest
bit damn compliments of living in a subtropical swamp.
Shrink demanded 1.5 HOURS to rip that DVD. I then wiped the disc with
a clean piece of cotton cloth. Now Shrink was back to its usual 20
minutes estimate.
The moral of this story is that although you may think the disc is
clean, but the surface could have contaminants which radically effect
the NEC 3540's reading performance.
"Bob" <spam@uce.gov> wrote in message
news:430a7cd8.4198625@news-server.houston.rr.com...
>I have a new video DL DVD which I ripped with Decrypter in 16.5
> mintues on a NEC 3540. I ripped it in Full Disc mode with Shrink in
> 19.5 minutes. So far so good. I could not better those times with the
> Sony/LiteOn I returned to the store - aka "The Coaster Maker".
>
> I wiped the disc on my t-shirt to remove a finger smudge on the very
> edge. My t-shirt is clean from this morning but it is the slightest
> bit damn compliments of living in a subtropical swamp.
>
> Shrink demanded 1.5 HOURS to rip that DVD. I then wiped the disc with
> a clean piece of cotton cloth. Now Shrink was back to its usual 20
> minutes estimate.
>
> The moral of this story is that although you may think the disc is
> clean, but the surface could have contaminants which radically effect
> the NEC 3540's reading performance.
>
True of all optical devices.
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:44:06 GMT, "old jon"
<ImNotIn@ntlworld.com.invalid> wrote:
>> The moral of this story is that although you may think the disc is
>> clean, but the surface could have contaminants which radically effect
>> the NEC 3540's reading performance.
>True of all optical devices.
Indeed, but I did not expect such a radical difference - 20 minutes vs
1.5 hours.
My son is the one with the habit of wiping DVDs on his t-shirt and yet
the Sony/LiteOn did not slow down. That might be why it created so
many coasters.
The NEC 3540, on the other hand, apparently did an assessment of the
conditions under which it was operating, and slowed down to the extent
that Shring reported 1.5 hours to rip. That makes the 3540 a superior
product because it rips to high quality and not to high speed.
"Bob" <spam@uce.gov> wrote in message
news:430b20d4.2952625@news-server.houston.rr.com...
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:44:06 GMT, "old jon"
> <ImNotIn@ntlworld.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> The moral of this story is that although you may think the disc is
>>> clean, but the surface could have contaminants which radically effect
>>> the NEC 3540's reading performance.
>
>>True of all optical devices.
>
> Indeed, but I did not expect such a radical difference - 20 minutes vs
> 1.5 hours.
>
> My son is the one with the habit of wiping DVDs on his t-shirt and yet
> the Sony/LiteOn did not slow down. That might be why it created so
> many coasters.
>
> The NEC 3540, on the other hand, apparently did an assessment of the
> conditions under which it was operating, and slowed down to the extent
> that Shring reported 1.5 hours to rip. That makes the 3540 a superior
> product because it rips to high quality and not to high speed.
>
It`s a bit like soldering Bob. Cleanliness is next to godliness. My sons
didn`t used to wash behind their ears either. <g>.
bw..OJ
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 02:45:24 +1200, GraB <grab@whatever.co.nz> wrote:
>>My son is the one with the habit of wiping DVDs on his t-shirt and yet
>>the Sony/LiteOn did not slow down. That might be why it created so
>>many coasters.
>>The NEC 3540, on the other hand, apparently did an assessment of the
>>conditions under which it was operating, and slowed down to the extent
>>that Shring reported 1.5 hours to rip. That makes the 3540 a superior
>>product because it rips to high quality and not to high speed.
>My Lite-On 832S doesn't make coasters.
Ours was the Sony DW-D18A.
That's the unit that Sony re-branded but I believe they used their own
firmware which means that likely Sony screwed things up. Yet when I
asked Sony to support their unit they claimed it was "OEM" and I would
have to go to LiteOn for support. LiteOn did not want to support it
either since it was a Sony re-brand so they told me to go to Sony.
That's when I got rid of it. I will never again buy anything from Sony
- they are a bunch of arrogant pricks.
>There have been no coasters due to ripping.
>One would need to look deeper at what you were doing.
Nothing deep about it. I ripped old worn video discs with DVD Shrink
and burned them with DVD Decrypter. I used various media at various
speeds but the result was basically the same - coasters, about 1 out
of 10. Because I used Verify and still got coasters, I blame the
problem on corrupted rips. No matter what the condition of the video
DVD was, Sony/LiteOn would rip it in the same amount of time. The NEC
rip speed slows down rather dramatically depending on the condition of
the surface. I can rip a new video DVD that is clean in the same time
as the Sony/LiteOn. But when the surface is dirty or old & worn, the
NEC rip speed slows down.
I read somewhere = possibly on the official NEC optical products
website in Germany - that the 3540 has quality detection capabilities
that will adjust the angle of the laser and/or slow the read speed
down to get a high quality rip.
It would appear that Sony/LiteOn with Sony firmware does not have the
capability of assessing read quality, which is why it ripped video
DVDs at the same speed no matter the condition of the surface.
>You have to match the media to your burner.
I did all that. As I just said, I do not believe the problem is
associated with writing - it is caused by reading a poor quality video
DVD at too high a speed. The reason I believe this is because I used
Verify with Decrypter and only once got a nad burn rejected.
>One thing to look at is the firmware. Updating that can improve
>things.
Neither Sony nor LiteOn would support the unit. Sony did not even have
a product number - I had someone on their live chat forum look it up
and he/she/it said it is not a Sony product.
LiteOn claimed that it was not their product even though I told them
it was a rebranded LG 832S. They said they do not support Sony
products.
I suppose I could have flashed it with the latest LG 832S firmware,
but that would have voided the warranty and I would not have been able
to get an NEC 3540 in its place at no additional cost.
Only a complete idiot would buy anything from a company like Sony that
won't support its own products. I suspect the reason is because the
unit was a piece of crap to begin with and they didn't want to service
it because it can't be fixed. So they dropped it from their product
line and that swept the problem under the rug.
wash it with soap under running water, then dry pat with a paper towel
or microfiber cleaning cloth to get the gunk off.
Never rub/scrub with a shirt or towel, only a microfiber cleaning cloth
- regular clothes/towels create micro-scratches that are pretty deep vs.
a microfiber cloth (anything that touches the surface as you wipe will
create scratches, but some things do it far less; DVDs are particularly
sensitive to surface scratches).
preferably, use smart handling in the first place to avoid this problem
from the start - always have the disc in the case or drive, never set it
down on a desk or other surface, only handle by hub and outer ring, and
never touch the bottom. These steps alone can mean years of use before
you ever have any need to clean the disc, if ever! (works for me)
You may decide to get 'rid' of the dirty DVD problem in the first place
- simply rip all of them to the PC, dump onto any external HD that's in
a MPEG-1/2/4 'movie tank' box, and simply play back all of your DVDs
from that movie tank hooked up to your TV w/o worry about scratching at
all. Plus, you'll have hundreds of movies on hand w/o having to swap
discs, etc. either.
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 23:28:06 +1200, GraB <grab@whatever.co.nz> wrote:
>Neither Lite-On or Sony could complain if you installed a third party
>firmware or crossflashed it to another model, given their attitude.
I just got rid of it. Fortunately my vendor was understanding. I
traded it for the NEC 3540.
>I have flashed mine with CG5G firmware from CodeBrothers, official
>Lite-On firmware
What is the link for that site? I tried Google but only got a dead
website.
>I find when ripping with DVD Decrypter (more normal way to do it - try
>it)
But how do you compress the ISO down to a size that will fit a 4.7 GB
DVD -R?
>it slows down if disc is dodgy or tells me if it can't read
>something, which has happened on a few scratched discs. You can set
>both hardware and software read retrys.
If it were Decrypter doing the slowing down, then it would have been
the same for the Sony/LiteOn.
>Could you have a dirty lens or perhaps it has gone out of alignment?
The unit is brand new and shows no signs of being defective.
I ripped a new video DVD with Decrypter and it took 16.5 minutes. That
works out to about 5X. The CPU was barely loaded so there was not much
if any time being wasted on overhead. I kept statistics as it was
progressing:
After 1 minute: 3.3X (~4,500 KB/sec)
Maximum: 6.8 (~9,400 KB/sec)
If Riplock is in effect for video DVDs and it limits read speed to 4X,
then how come I got 6.8X?
Something does not add up. Could it be that the 3540 does not have
Riplock after all?
Pat with a paper towel, not wipe! That's the difference. If you pat
dry any optical disc, it won't cause scratches that would normally occur
if you wipe with a paper towel, and thus, you won't hurt the disc much
at all.
Microfiber cleaning cloth - specially super-fine fibers, synthetic,
woven to allow the cloth to pickup dust and debris, while cleaning away
grease, fingerprints, etc. First developed years ago by Toray in Japan,
a specialist in fiber weaving, and introduced to most of the world first
as eyeglass cleaning clothes. Naturally, other companies make them now,
including 3M's line of Scotchbrite cleaning clothes for electronics, etc.
Did it, woiks fine, haven't tested for DL though - other folk say it works.
>
>
>>I find when ripping with DVD Decrypter (more normal way to do it - try
>>it)
>
>
> But how do you compress the ISO down to a size that will fit a 4.7 GB
> DVD -R?
DVD Shrink, love it! I'm doing *some* of the family videos, which are
of extremely poor quality from being copied too much (one argument for
DVD over VHS!). I Author them over sized in DVDLab Pro - write DVD
Folders to HD, 5 - 8 gbs worth, then shrink 'em!
Bob" <spam@uce.gov> wrote in message
news:430b7491.8910296@news-server.houston.rr.com...
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:58:19 -0700, David Chien <chiendh@uci.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>microfiber cleaning cloth
>
> What is that?
>
> How come a paper towel won't abrade the surface. Paper has sand in it.
>
I also understand that gobbing on the disc isn't good idea. Is that true?
"Jay Stewart" <brewclanNOSPAM@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:TBtPe.310650$s54.163570@pd7tw2no...
>
> Bob" <spam@uce.gov> wrote in message
> news:430b7491.8910296@news-server.houston.rr.com...
>> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:58:19 -0700, David Chien <chiendh@uci.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>microfiber cleaning cloth
>>
>> What is that?
>>
>> How come a paper towel won't abrade the surface. Paper has sand in it.
>>
>
>
> I also understand that gobbing on the disc isn't good idea. Is that true?
Not after eating peanuts.
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:10:46 GMT, spam@uce.gov (Bob) said in
rec.video.dvd.tech:
>On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 10:58:19 -0700, David Chien <chiendh@uci.edu>
>wrote:
>
>>microfiber cleaning cloth
>
>What is that?
>
>How come a paper towel won't abrade the surface. Paper has sand in it.
*Patting* with a paper towel won't - rubbing will.
On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:13:31 -0400, Al Klein <rukbat@invalid.net>
wrote:
>>How come a paper towel won't abrade the surface. Paper has sand in it.
>*Patting* with a paper towel won't - rubbing will.
I find no difference whether I clean the discs or not. The kind of
surface damage goes a lot further than the very top of the surface.
Anyway, the rental places clean the discs before letting the public
use them for obvious reasons - they lose money if customers bring them
back because they won't play.
Surface Condition and Read Speed 
Linear Mode
