Kprobe and 411s: don't understand!

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers LiteOn / PLDS / Sony Writer
#1

Mm I did a couple of scans of ricohjpnr01 burned @4X with FS0F and scanned with FS0F @ different settings under kprobe.

First I did usual read@4X with Sum 8 Ecc… gave very BAD results (like nearly 1000 PI and huge PO)

Thought it wasn’t quite normal so I did next with read@1X with Sum 8 Ecc and it gave pretty NORMAL results (100 PI, nearly 10 PO).

MMm strange so I did one read@MAX and Sum 8 ECC and it gave about the same results as… read@1X.

Now I’m really really puzzled. Please someone, shed some light on this … paranormal behave :bigsmile:

#2

Leave your firmware alone, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Not too unusual to see confusing scans on the Ricoh media. It’s because the disc is somewhat “marginal”, so each time the drive mounts it the resuts are different. Scanning at 2.4x (3x in Kprobe settings), will usually give more consistant results on such discs.
Does the disc play in whatever player it needs to play in?
You can also confirm the discs readability by running a read-speed test in CDSpeed or DVDInfo. If the drive slows down to read it, then it may be less than great quality.

#3

I think it’s the firmware:

I’ve got the same experience with one of these discs using the same burner/firmware. I burned it, tested at 4x as usual, and got PI/PO averages of 400 and 70. I supposed it was a bad disc and burned the material again, on another ricohjpnr01 from the same batch, with similar results (I didn’t even bother to finish the scan).

I took me quite a lot of effort to compile this particular disc, so I burned it to a Taiyo Yuden, and forgot about the ricohs.

When I read this thread, I took one of the supposedly bad discs, and scanned it at max speed. This time the scan was quite good (averages 32/0.144).

As I already read the rdgrimes post when I did this, I proceeded to do another scan at 4x without ejecting the disc. I didn’t had to let it finish, as it started at with constant ~250 PI.

I restarted the test two more times at max, and two more at 4x, and the results are consistent, it starts about 30 at max, and about 250 at 4x.

I guess we can infere that it’s not true that “each time the drive mounts it the resuts are different”, as stated by rdgrimes.

The disc seems to play OK in my home player, so I suppose it’s not as bad as the 4x scans may suggest, but it is clear to my understanding that there is something wrong here, and as I successfully burnt (i.e. obtained good KProbe scans at 4x with) some discs from the same batch with previous firmwares, I guess it may be a firmware thing.

I have the KProbe scans images, just in case someone wants to have a look at them.

#4

any links to the previous version of firmware? id like to use it if its better…litonit site doesnt have them.

#5

It’s the firmware. Try FS07 and you’ll get much better results, regardless of the scanning speed. Also, FS07 has a much better error correction reading scratched discs than FS0B or FS0F.

#6

Originally posted by rdgrimes
[B]Leave your firmware alone, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Not too unusual to see confusing scans on the Ricoh media. It’s because the disc is somewhat “marginal”, so each time the drive mounts it the resuts are different. Scanning at 2.4x (3x in Kprobe settings), will usually give more consistant results on such discs.
Does the disc play in whatever player it needs to play in?
You can also confirm the discs readability by running a read-speed test in CDSpeed or DVDInfo. If the drive slows down to read it, then it may be less than great quality. [/B]

Yes I do read them without any problem but as I own quite a good player (Philips 728) which eats just about anything, I’m still not that sure that the disc is really well burnt.

I try asap @2.4X. I can post pics if useful.

#7

has anyone tried kpeobe version 1.1.23 ? this could be a bug in kprobe…

i do not use 1.1.26 becuase it locks up when i try to save the images…

#8

No I dind’t. BTW if the standard is 280 PI @ 1X, why do everybody scan @2.4 or 4X and not @1X ?

#9

-thibouille- You are not the only one thats confuzzed…
And all of you talking about FW, sorry, this is not the point!

I have done readings with K-Probe from the beginning of my 411S purchase.
Lets start with basics. The standard for reading DVD-R discs is stated in “Ecma-338” and maybe in “Ecma-337” (OC-Freaks refers to last mentioned as well).
For details go here:
(http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-338.htm)
If interested there is a pdf-file for dl.

Refering to this standard ALL READINGS (with K-Probe?) should be done at 1X SPEED, 8ECC as I understand it.

This is “somehow” confirmed by OC-Freaks here:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80545
“Also these standards are probably when the disc is scanned at 1X reading speed.”
[hmm… “PROBABLY”(my note)],
[and] “So to get results directly comparable to the standards you have to scan a disc twice at 1X reading speed”
OC-Freaks continues;
“And the acceptable errors are:
1 time with PI/PO sum set to 8 ECC to get a result comparable to the 280 PI errors per 8 blocks standard.
1 time with PI/PO sum set to 1 ECC to get a result comparable to the MAX 4 PI Uncorrectable (Called PO in K-Probe) per block standard.”
OC-Freaks continues;
“Use this as a guideline for good discs:
PI (Parity Inner): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 280 PI errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceeds 280.
PO (Parity Outer): No larger areas on the disc should exceed 32 PO (actually PI uncorrectable) errors, do not worry too much about high single spikes that exceeds 32. (Note that this is not completely correct according to the standards, but is still a good guideline, read the first technical post if you wonder why this is not a 100% correct way of reading the results compared to the standards).”

As I read the above, OC-Freaks opinion (here) is; READ AT 1X SPEED 8ECC with K-Probe, if you want to compere to the standard by “Ecma”.

But supprisingly, he in next sentence says;
“And another note is that we normally scan/recommend scanning the discs at 4X CLV speed since this saves time compared to 2X/2.4X and 1X scanning and still offers CLV reading, but by lowering the speed to 2X(DVD-R/RW)/2.4X(DVD+R/RW) or 1X the amount of reported errors may drop on some discs.”

This is confirmed on all his posts. “All” DVD-R media is read with K-Probe AT 4X SPEED 8ECC. Even in the review of 411S:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/127/5

Gentlemen, here is something realy wrong. How can we with accuracy and thrught compere READINGS AT 1X, WITH THOSE READ AT 4X SPEED? And Then compere to “STANDARD”.
Its not a matter of “timesaving” or matter of that we will get a “drop of errors”.!
Even if we read/ test ALL media at 4X SPEED, what are the boarders/ standard (PI/PO values) for good media in this cases? And how accurate are reading by K-Probe, if compared 1X (as standard) with that of 4X speed)?

No, the matter is; if we are using and reffering to ONE STANDARD, we must follow this standard TO THE POINT! This is as I see it the only way to rate media with “fare” and accuracy in K-Probe.

#10

There’s nothing “accurate” or “inaccurate” in any Kprobe scan. Kprobe simply reports how the drive is responding to the disc.
If the drive reports errors, then Kprobe records that fact. How a given disc behaves in a drive at one speed vs. another speed is the issue, KProbe is not the issue.

Many folks are beginning to notice that with some discs, the difference between scanning speeds is striking. But the fact still remains that on a really good disc, the difference is not so striking. You might see error counts in the range of 2-10x higher when scanning at 4x vs 1x, but on a high-quality disc, the values at 4x will still remain below the ~300 PI standard.
So if you can get a good scan at 4x, it doesn’t really matter what the results are at 1x, it’s still a good disc.

If you need to read a data DVD at higher speeds in your computer, then scanning at 4x or higher might be appropriate for your needs. But if you are looking at a movie DVD, it only needs to read at 1x.

Once again I need to stress that the only appropriate purpose for using Kprobe to error-scan your discs is to find the right combination of media and burn speed for your burner, to get the lowest possible error rates. The actual error rates and numbers are not the point. It is true that very high error values generally corespond to the disc’s poor playability on other drives, but the difference between an average PI value of 5 and 50 is insignificant in terms of playability.

You are measuring the discs’s readability, which is impacted by many variables:

  1. the burning drive (including firmware version)
  2. the media itself
  3. The burn speed
  4. the reading drive (including firmware version)
  5. the reading speed

You cannot single out any one of those variables as a “cause” of a particular scan result, unless you do a series of tests where only that variable is changed. Even then the other variables cannot be strictly controlled, particularly the variations between discs of the same media type.

The botom line is that some discs just seem to defy logic, and you’ll probabaly never figure out why they behave the way they do.
Even the slightest tracking error during a burn, or scan, will have a big impact on the disc’s readability, a slight variation in dye distribution or quality will have a similar impact. Media that is of mediocre quality will be much more likely to produce such problems.

#11

Yes -rdgrims-
You are right on one point. There are many small things that have to be “right” to get the big THING (in our case 411S) going.

But, we have to keep to the topic as posted by -thibouille-.

I am not pointing out that there is something wrong in/ with K-Probe. I just wana discuss the ways we are using K-Probe and the luck of other methods that may be used to apply to the standard by ECMA. If a standard states one kind of testing method, why should we then test and compare something else? 1X Speed contra 4X Speed on 411S.
Also, to my knowledge (from this forum) the K-Probe can only be (fully) used with Lite-On drives. This means that the drive (Lite-On) is testing the drive (Lite-On). Discs are written (bad or good) and checked (bad or good) by same part!? Wierd.
Arnt there any other progs to test what we are talking about. If there is a standard there must also be progs and apparatures to prove the standard, or?
And as part two, participating this forum also helps all of us to try understand why our drives behave as they behave (oohhh… Big words)
We have to admit that there has been many probs with this drive. I, luckyly have not had almost any!

Sure there is a lot of bad media on the market today, but this fact is discussed all over our forum…

And the reads themselv can show complete different pictures. Se the pics below. [Have to resize pics…]
Specs:
Disk1: MAXELL (DVD-R) Data Media, rated 4X, burn2X
Disk2: Princo (DVD-R), rated4X, burn 2X
Media on disks: MOVIE Star War II
Burned with: CloneDVD
WinXP Pro…

#12

Maxell at 4X with K-Probe

1maxell_4x8ecc_fs0f.png585x551 5.82 KB

#13

And Maxell 1X K-Pobe.

[The differance is even bigger on Princo, so I will not even bother to up it.
BTW, Princo goes the other way; scan at 1X=550 PI (at top),
scan at 4X=1100 PI (at top)]
If of interest messege me!

1maxell_1x8ecc_fs0f.png585x551 6.84 KB

#14

I too get strange results with KProbe - I can read the same disk in several times with the 411S and get several different results, ranging from low (good) scores to high (bad media) ! with the same disk! Go figure.

I have given up wasting my time with it as its results are not consistent enough to be a precise measuring tool.

#15

strange… ive found kprobe to be very consistant with my 401s

if a disc has errors over 300 then its not going to read good or have errors or read slow! if its under 300 it reads fine and at full speed in Speed tests…