So out of old-fashioned curiosity, I was interested in seeing what "sheep level" this writer is. I re-downloaded the old "weak sectors utility" test and burned the sd2old, sd251, sd290, and sheep3 files.
Using WinDiff, I attempted to compare the folders.
The BDR-205 was able to make out the sd2old and sd251 files as identical, but the sd290 and sheep3 files as unreadable. Which I guess makes that out to be a 2-sheep burner?
My Toshiba SD-R5112 and Creative Labs Encore DVD8400e both could only read the sd251.dat file burned with the BDR-205. They couldn't even read the sd2old file.
Then I burned the disc again, this time using the Toshiba. With this disc, all three drives could read the sd2old and sd251 files, but could not read the sd290 or sheep3 files.
What this essentially comes out to, is that my new burner cannot write a file that my older drives can read, but my older burner can write a file that both my old and new drive can read. So basically, my old burner can write discs of better quality than my new BDR-205, right? I mean, I find it incredibly odd that both my writers can correctly write the sd251 file, but the newer BDR-205 cannot write a good sd2old file. Supposedly, the sd251 is harder to write than the sd2old, so how is it that even possible?
So is there a better method for easily testing how advanced the burn quality of a drive is? It worries me now that some time down the line, I'm going to end up having discs with unreadable file because I've upgraded from my BDR-205 to something newer, and those drives won't be able to read them. :S