Hi guys,

My Sony/Optiarc Burner (model AD-5170A) seems to be extremely sensitive
about scratched disks.. so much a blemish and the DVD doesn't play
correctly, yet my standalone player doesn't have any problem with the usual
marks and scuffs.

Also my standalone player has a really hard time starting playback on dual
layer recordable DVDs.. single layer blanks are fine and commerical
(pressed) DL movies are also fine, it's only recordable DL that causes
problems. Basically the player refuses to start playback or even
ackknowledge the disc, but after ejecting and re-inserting (and start/stop)
enough times (like repeating process 10x over) it eventually starts playing.
It plays fine for the rest of the disc after that - until next time.

Any idea what could be causing either of these issues ? Is it due to the
type of laser or what ?

Chris

Skeleton Man wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2...ror_correction

"The result is a CIRC that can completely correct error bursts up to 4000 bits,
or about 2.5 mm on the disc surface. This code is so strong that most CD playback
errors are almost certainly caused by tracking errors that cause the laser to
jump track, not by uncorrectable error bursts.[citation needed]"

So some kind of error correcting code is used to strengthen DVD playback,
making it reject scuffs and scratches. It could be, that the signal to
noise ratio is already so bad, that a lot of errors are being corrected
even with pristine media. That weakens the ability to handle scratches
or scuffs, if the surrounding area is already hard to read.

I don't do a lot of burning, but have run a few error scans with different
brands of media. You'd be surprised how bad some of your burned disks are.
I only started doing error scans, after I had a drive basically hang while
trying to read disks. That is when I became more curious about quality of
burns.

Before buying a drive, I had a look around CDFreaks. They have reviews
and a forum. These are some references I found to your drive.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/devices/DVD_.../AD-5170A.html
http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/en/Optiarc-AD-5170A/

This is an example of a CDFreaks forum thread regarding 5170A.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=194738

CDFreaks also does reviews of drives, and the reviews include
error scans, to show how well the drives work. I don't see a
review for the 5170A.

To search the CDFreaks site, you can try this. Go to this site,
set the domain to "cdfreaks.com" and put "AD-5170A" in the
search box at the top of the page. There are a few hits there,
and maybe if you track down some more threads about the drive,
all will become clear. With the domain set to cdfreaks.com ,
you get to see any review articles, or forum threads, for your
drive.

http://www.altavista.com/web/adv

If you read enough of those reviews, you'll discover just how
flaky a lot of drives are. There aren't a lot of winners out
there. Most people are happy, if they can find one type
of media that works well, and has a good error scan.
There are examples of scans here.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Lite...rformance.html

Typically, you'll spend twice as much for sample packs of media,
as you do for the drive. The sample packs of media are purchased,
in the search for the "good stuff". Try some "3 packs", and when
you find media that agrees with the player, you can buy larger
quantities.

Paul