I can use my NEC 1300a to distiguish between A grade and B grade media - if
it can`t read a disc properly its B grade. Its as simple as that;

Longten B grade DVD-R media - burned in NEC at 4x was terrible 2x a little
better still did not read properly and a film burned at 2x played thru and
then stopped at a particular place always a sign of compatibility trouble
but you ask maybe its just the NEC maybe its a crappy drive ?

I tried the Longten disc in an LG 3200e same problems at same point in film
and also a Sony DAVS400 and again at the same point in the film - but it
works fine on your notebook you say so the media is good and all 3 players
must be crap ?

Well no actually media can be held accountable for compatibility to a
certain extent beyond that it becomes the players problem. In this case the
media played on 1 drive ok (notebook dvd-rom 2001) but on 3 others it had
the same problem therefore its easy to blame the media - 3 players - 2 of
them virtually brand new (Sony DAVS400 & NEC 1300a).

The next discs I bought were Lead Data after reading a lot of good things
about them - burned them at 4x in the NEC 1300a they read perfectly - played
them in the LG 3200e and it gets to a point in the film then stops pauses
and skips like with the Longten burned at 2x tried them in the Sony DAVS400
and it plays fine the notebook doesn`t recognise them.

So now we have 2 modern drives that play these ok (Sony & NEC) and 2 older
drives that don`t (LG 3200e cheap year 2000 & notebook year 2001) do you see
a pattern emerging ?

Then I burned the discs at 2x and again the NEC & Sony have no problems with
them and now the LG 3200e will play them all the way thru except there is a
slight frame drop every minute or two throughout the film. You say its the
media ? why then is there a difference in playback on this particular drive
if burning between 4x & 2x - if it was B grade media it wouldn`t play on any
of the drives so its good media its just the player is B grade.

Like there are B grade media`s there are B grade players I want you to
understand that.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 14:32:14 +0100, "Nick Le Lievre"
<inbox@nicklelievre.com> wrote:
Here's an article about media quality
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1292168,00.asp


John Thomas Smith
http://www.direct2usales.com
http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 14:32:14 +0100, "Nick Le Lievre"
<inbox@nicklelievre.com> wrote:

Then you have another problem. B grade you can burn to, but there can
be playback problems for video or it will start to burn then stop. If
it doesn't burn at all then you require the latest patches for your
software or later firmware versions. Most just update their software
to the later versions an dthen they are burning.

There was a post in I think alt.video.dvdr or one of the others where
someone was uisng Nero 5.5.9 and couldn't burn. Told then to use Nero
5.5.10.50 and now they are burning. Some require the latest firmware
while others the latest software patches and then thre are some media
that simply won't work to well no matter what you do. And then there
are some dvd players which oinly like a certain brand of dvd media.

Which is why you often see in this news forums and others slamming one
brand and others saying that same brand is great for them.

There was a very big discussion on this very subject a while back in
alt.video.dvdr
If you do a google search you will see the very long thread on this
very subject. www.google.com

"CAM" <CAM@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:he36nvki8o06i0qre8ouafmlf2k2ahckou@4ax.com...
I can burn to the B grade becuase I flashed to a hacked firmware which
supports that particular disc - reading from it is entirely different
however but it burned ok at both 4x and 2x just unreadable on anything after
4x burn and only readable properly on notebook after 2x burn - 2x burns of
movies played back on all other machines resulted in stop, then skip and
playback stop after about an hour.

There is B grade media and B grade players thats what your left with after
dealing with other software/firmware issues.


Aye

I probably read it already I used google-groups seaches a lot.

"John Thomas Smith" <jtsmith@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:up36nv0o5fhe62ppievp6gi087ca5etaa6@4ax.com...
Thanks but I`ve seen both qualities so I know the difference and I know when
my player is not good enough and when its the media.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 17:22:46 +0100, "Nick Le Lievre"
<inbox@nicklelievre.com> wrote:

The problem you are experiencing is due to better error correction
capabilities in some players. Also your disc could be out of spec,
depending on the speed you have burned them. You need to check the PI
and PI of your discs. I assume that some has a high value of PI and
PO.

Check this thread about Tools to measure DVD+/-R(W) burn / read
quality?
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12034

A lot of B grade media are media that didn't pass QA-test at the
factories. Too not mark this media as scrap, the factory sell it to
companies that bring them on the market at a lower price.

If the burner uses a good writestrategy, you will get discs with a
higher percentage of error but still in margin of the specs. This
discs can still to be read on some players.

Check this thread in cdrlabs about the write quality and strategy of
Plextor PX-708A at 8 speed.
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12750

The slamming doesn't make sense as t same madia can burn differently
in different burners.

"masbango" <masbangocuracao@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f734d4d.1909887@newsreader.euronet.nl...
Thanks I`ll check that out.

So the discs I`m producing probably have a high amount of errors but are
still within spec but due to the high amount of errors I need a player that
has better error correction - so these players like LG 3200e cannot read
some in spec discs.

Thanks a lot for the technical advise.

Go read this thread.
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q... 3&safe=images

Google news search is a good tool for finding what posts were posted
when going back months or years.

Suggest you go have a long read.

There was a very long discussion on a grade vs b grade some months
ago.

"CAM" <CAM@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:mp77nvs50goq4g3t1opbl65ib674ifi1ve@4ax.com...
I know I use it all the time

Well B grade is out there I guess but the only discs I`ve ever seen
advertised as B grade were the Longten discs and they were truly awfull - I
personally don`t think there can ever be a disc compatible with every drive
because dvd-write strategy generates errors the amount of which depends on
write speed unlike studio pressed discs so if your player just does the
basics (really designed for studio pressed discs in mind) and they`ve cut
out the error correction to cut costs - you`re gonna have trouble with any
disc.

Errors are generated on A grade discs as well as B grade discs just maybe
more to B grade which means it requires super error correction to read em.

Nick Le Lievre" <inbox@nicklelievre.com> wrote in message
news:bkuqp5$6594p$1@ID-77022.news.uni-berlin.de...
I just want to correct this information I just tried a Datasafe "O1ne" (Lead
Data) in my notebook again and it does recognise them - I could of sworn it
wouldn`t recognise them the other day well now at least I can use the
TV-Out.