S203B - Very High PIE, is this normal?

Ok, so reading through the scan threads I am seeing a trend with this drive. The PIE results are all very high, its not uncommon to see them at an average of about 100.


Heres one scan below that seems to be about the norm with my S203 Burner - awesome PIF, poor PIE. I've gotten results similiar to the scan below on dozens of discs now (TYG02, MCC03, CMCMAG(something), etc)

Thoughts? Whats going on with this drive? Cause for concern?

I'm confused about what drive you are talking about. The scan is different from the title. What firmware do you have on that drive?

Its a confusing thing....

See the screenshot below, the dropdown says S203B (just like the physical drive itself says) however the "recorded by" portion always says S183. Unless Newegg switched stickers on the drive, this is an S203B running the SB00 firmware

I'm glad someone else thinks thats as strange as I do. Thoughts?

This drive [the 203B, in general] seems to report itself as a 183B on DVD-R. No worries. It's normal, and shouldn't be a problem. It's similar to--although not exactly the same as--how older Lite-On drives reported themselves. Some other Samsungs also report themselves as a slightly different model number, due to the internal naming in the firmware.

No it's not normal

Go to have a look here and show me how that is normal.

I did one time see a members S183L show up as a S182X

My 203B seems to report itself as 183B in the "Recorded by" bit as well for some reason.

Hey rolling56 remember my 183L drive after updating the firmware it showed Samsung 162 drive. Don't know what was up with that.

Anyone know if this Samsung S203B drive will ever show up as a retail drive at Best Buy?

yep you are the one i'm talking about I just didn't feel like looking through all the scans to find it Did you ever upgrade to SB02? I wonder if it will show up the same or correctly?

I have no idea if they will show up at BB sorry. I don't know anyone that works there.

For S203B firmware version SB00 this is quite normal because there is a "S183B" text string in area where it should read S203B.
Samsung firmware engineers being lazy.

Flash with firmware SB01 and see what happens.

Heyyo pinto2 how come all of the drives don't do it I'll check it out Monday.

That question would better be adressed to Samsung.
I've my guesses but would rather not speculate anymore on this. Thanks.

Updated to SB01 - same deal - DVD+R's are reported as S203G but DVD-R's are still reported as 183's.

Oh well

Ah depends on using + or - discs. That narrows it down some. My 183L gives more PIF's using -R's.

How does a +R MCC004 look or T02?

[off-topic]

I noticed the way that some drives were reporting themselves in the other thread already--that's where I got my "this is normal" post. It's just a thing with some chipsets & the drive. Normal with the combination.

+R's don't usually show "Recorded with" unless burned with CD-DVD Speed. If you burned a DVD-R with it, there's a chance that CD-DVD Speed would report it properly [although the disc will still be embedded with S183B information].

[end off-topic]

If it was normal all of these drives would be doing it pinto2 what are we gonna do with this one?

[At least we can all agree that the nomenclature is the last thing we need to be focused on here....unless it just bothers everyone.] I wonder if another firmware update could get rid of the high PIE on some of these discs. I'm sure the drive is capable of unbelieveably low PIE errors. Maybe if they used a faster 12x RPM and didn't use Z-CLV for 8x?

Hi
As pinto2 points out. This is a f/w thing.
However not only is it affected by the - media aspect. But the burning s/w also contributes to this. Hence some get the 183 bit. While others do not.

you probably have very bad quality yuden media, or counterfeit media.

look here.

how about this

8x media burned at 20x

My drive reports dash media as an SH203B

Hi
What s/w did you use to get blank dvd.
Try a disc that has been burnt.
That's when you'll get the misreport if at all.
You also need to flash back to SB00 f/w too.

Hi
Yep THAT is BAD.........................NOT!!!

i just had to......

I did not uderstand the whole thing. You all are correct it does report the drive as a SH-S183B with dash media.

Zebad started it