A few quick questions…
When scanning for the quality of the burn, does it matter what speed you’re scanning at?
Am I understanding correctly that the burning speed, disc, and speed are all factors of the outcome of the quality? What are others factors?
I’ve noticed more people worry about the PI Errors. True?
Lastly, I currently have a Liteon SOHW 832S and I’m considering the purchase of a BenQ 1650. Good choice? Got other suggestions?
Thanks.
a very good choice… and it does matter what speed you burn at, otherwise you wont get the correct results…
As for pie’s, people do worry about them… but only after you got past 50… the main priority is the pifs, as they can cause jumps in the disk.
If you get good quality media, you should have nothing to worry about… if you get bad quality media… your likely to have to re-buy a load of dvd’s
Speed is important for scans. Here in the forum was set some standards as following:
Liteon burners up to 1693 --> scan speed = 4x
Liteon burners after 1693 --> scan speed = 8x
BenQ burners --> scan speed = 8x
NEC burners --> scan speed 5x
Plextor burners --> scan speed :o I’m not sure, but it should be 2x
On your SOHW-832S, scan at 4x. 
I’d prefer a LiteOn for scanning, as BenQs tend to be a bit odd with scanning discs burned in other drives (higher error levels I think).
But other than that, the BenQ is an excellent choice of burner. I’d keep your LiteOn standing by for scanning, though.
Edit: Geno beat me to it, and was more thorough
Wow, you guys are awesome with the replies!
I’d like to post my results of a scan and have you guys look at them… once it’s done.
Thanks!
You’re welcome 
Here are the results of my scan. From what I’ve read, I understand that I want PI errors below 280?
What should I do now? Test more media? Buy that BenQ 1650?
General Information
Drive: LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-832S
Firmware: VS0E
Disc: DVD+R DL (MKM 001)
Selected speed: 4 X
PI errors
Maximum: 867
Average: 177.91
Total: 4801423
PI failures
Maximum: 213
Average: 5.17
Total: 179320
PO failures: n/a
Jitter: n/a
Scanning Statistics
Elapsed time: 37:31
Number of samples: 194735
Average scanning interval: 1.34 ECC
Glitches removed: 90458
Can you post the pic? It’s easier to read
Buy the BenQ - keep the Litey for scanning. Even without a pic of the scan results, that doesn’t look too good.
Could be that it’s not as reliable a scanner as newer Liteys, or that it’s a bad burn?
Sorry, I thought that the numbers were ok. Here’s the pic… Hope it’s not too hard to see.
Any advice would be greatly appreciate!
although im not used to dl media… it looks like a bad scan… i have heard that the only reliable dl disks are those made by verbatim…
Your scan looks bad.
Could you please make a Read Transfer test (Press F2 while on the Benchmark tab in Nero CD-DVD Speed) and post the picture here?
What does the graph tell you that the numbers don’t? I thought we were just concerned w/ the PI errors not exceeding 280?
Here’s the Transfer rate. What does this tell us?
Pi errors should not go above 280 (which yours does) but good burns tend to be substantially below 280. On your drive since it scans at ecc8/1, pif should not go above 4 which yours defanatlly does too. The numbers can tell you something but the graph tells you more (like is there just one little spike that might not cause problems or is there a large bad area). You defanatlly have large bad areas and the scan gets really ugly right before the layer break (the middle of the graph).
The transfer rate test basically trys to read through the entire disk at maximum speed. If the drive has to slow down to read a spot, that is usally an indication of a bad spot on the disk. On yours just past the 3 gig point, where the graph drops down, it means the drive had to slow down to read the disk (signs of problems in that area of the disk). It doesn’t look good.
Fyi mkm001 is verbatim dual layer (that is what you are using, right)?
Just one other thing, liteons tend to be a bit more critical or pif errors (because of the ecc8/1 scanning). Mathmatically, it is harder for a disk to stay under 4 pif scanning ecc8/1 than for it to stay under pif 32 for a drive that scans at ecc 8/8. Also, I scan with a liteon 851s@832s (they are the almost the same drive and I cross flashed my 851s to an 832s) and compared to a benq 1650, my liteon at least seems to be more critical of errors (higher errors are reported on the liteon and bad spots start to show bad earlier on the liteon). That is just with my liteon of course as drives can vary.
Reguardless, it doesn’t look like a very good burn.
Again, thanks to all for the very useful info!
Ripit, thank you very much for the detailed info! I need it especially cause all of this is still new to me. To answer your question: Yes, I am burning Verbatims. Am I correct to assume that the Verbatims don’t burn well with my Liteon 832S? or did I get a bad batch of discs? I’m considering replacing my burner with a BenQ 1650 ASAP if it’s gonna give me cruddy burns like this.
I have not heard of a lot of bad batches of dual layer verbatim media but it is always possible. Its more likley that your drive does in fact not like the media. You may or may not be able to fix this by trying diffrent firmwares. It might also be a very good idea to consider running omnipatcher on your firmware and apply the recomended tweaks.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=97590
Of course modifying firmware will void your warranty and Its not my fault if it kills your drive and the normal disclaimers.
Again, it may or may not fix your problem with this media. You might have to do a little playing with the firmware of a new drive to get it to work well with a particular media too though.
I wouldn’t nesasarilly consider your drive a bad drive. Its a bit old so maybe a new drive would compliment it and allow use of a broader range of media. I think I would defanatlly keep it for scanning and perhaps burning of some 4x/8x media if you have any. I still ocationally burn with mine (I have some old 4x media that burns beter at 8x on this drive than most drive/media combinations).
Fyi here also is an example of how the graph tells more than the data.
General Information
Drive: LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-832S
Firmware: VS0B
Disc: DVD+R DL (MKM 001)
Selected speed: 4 X
PI errors
Maximum: 85
Average: 10.51
Total: 239042
PI failures
Maximum: 7
Average: 0.51
Total: 17963
PO failures: n/a
Jitter: n/a
Scanning Statistics
Elapsed time: 25:25
Number of samples: 231435
Average scanning interval: 1.09 ECC
Glitches removed: 0
From this information. you cannot tell if there is a large area of pif that goes up to 7 that will defanatlly cause problems, or just a single spike that may or may not cause problems. When you look at the graph, you see that there are just a few single spikes that go over 4, so they may or may not cause problems, so you do a transfer rate test to help see if those spikes will cause problems. The transfer rate test is nice and smooth, so the spikes most liklly won’t cause problems. This is an mkm001 burned about 10 months ago (I just scanned it now), most liklly burned on my nec 3500.
Thanks, Ripit! Very thorough - exactly what I needed!
