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Sony BWU-100A (2x Blu-ray Writer)

By Vincent Chang - 20 Dec 2006

Quality Check and Scans

Quality Check and Scans

KProbe2 is one of the frequently used applications employed for testing readability of written discs. Written by a former employee of LITE-ON (though not in an official capacity), it works naturally on LITE-ON optical drives and helps to give a numerical value to the burn quality of a DVD. This is expressed through the amount of PI (Parity Inner) and PIF (Parity Inner Fail) errors found on the written disc and there is a certain amount of correlation between these values and the write quality of the drive on the various media that we tested. As an estimate of the disc quality, the average values for PI and PIF for a readable disc should not be more than 280 and 4 respectively.

While the values returned by KProbe 2 are certainly useful for assessing the readability of a written media and the DVD writer that was used to write the disc(s), we must stress again that the average PI and PIF values should be taken as just an indicator; a disc with a less than ideal value may be read without any problems on a drive. What worked on one drive might not necessarily work on another (not to mention that disc quality variation may occur as well).

KProbe 2 Scans
Manufacturer / Speed Disc ID PI Average PIF Average
Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL MKM-001 2.82 0.71
Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL MLM01RD30 20.86 0.06
TDK 8x DVD-R TTG02 1.86 0.06
Ritek 8x DVD-R RITEKG05 27.98 0.08
Fujifilm 8x DVD-R TYG02 14.67 0.02
Verbatim 8x DVD-R MCC02RG20 3.77 0.17
TDK 8x DVD+R RICOHJPNR02 10.33 0.10
Fujifilm 8x DVD+R YUDEN000, T02 0.78 0.01
Verbatim 8x DVD+R MCC003 1.57 0.02
Ricoh 8x DVD+RW RICOHJPNW21 369.90 5.95
Mitsubishi (MKM) 6x DVD-RW MKM 01RW6X01 1429.0 1135.0
Verbatim 4x DVD+RW MKMA02 2.82 0.71
Verbatim 4x DVD-RW MCC01RW4X 31.84 0.42

There were a couple of burns that didn't pass the KProbe2 test, namely the Ricoh and MKM rewritables, though that doesn't necessarily mean the problematic discs were total duds. It's quite likely that the discs are still readable. Most of the media did all right and we have a few KProbe2 scans for those who are interested.

Fujifilm 8x DVD+R

Fujifilm 8x DVD-R

Ricoh 8x DVD+RW

TDK 8x DVD+R

TDK 8x DVD-R

Verbatim 4x DVD-RW

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