There is a post in wiihacks forums that claims that DVD+R places more strain on PS2 (slimline) and Wii lasers than DVD-R does. Can any of the experts at afterdawn please confirm or deny the below? Also, I'm asking about DVD+R and DVD-R coming from comparable quality, say, Verbatim DVD+R 16x and DVD-R 16x. Quote from wiihacks: "When you continuously use DVD+R in your wii, the little piece of data that is in the disc that sets the booktype for the disc to be read on the wii, the laser have to strain itself to read the data and after a while, the laser starts to break down causing the laser to have difficulty to read the media after a while, so the only way to allow normal function of the wii's laser is to turn down the pot in the laser from 700ohms to 600ohms or worse yet 500ohms, but this tweak kills the laser faster if you don't know what you are doing. All this info I just said it is no where to be found on the net......so everything I do is through trial and error, I sat down and with my PS2 some alcohol to drink (lol), an oscilloscope and other testing equipment and a bunch of dvd-r and dvd+r medias I began testing the behavior of the laser when reading the two different medias and I see for myself that the laser don't have to add extra voltage to read the dvd-r media as a matter of fact, it uses the same original laser voltage when reading dvd-r, but with the dvd+r, the laser was behaving very erratic and the laser voltage was clipping therefore causing the game to force itself to read the data also freezes in between game intros. I've tried the same method on my wii also and it shows me the same thing too. So that is my little theory on dvd-r and dvd+r" I remember reading years ago on afterdawn how some experts here at afterdawn determined that the first V12 slimline PS2 had a laser that was pretty much guaranteed to die. Thus, I thought it appropriate to ask a question about lasers on this forum. Granted, the member who made this post is quite active in that forum, but considering how he himself claims "it is no where to be found on the net", it's not that I doubt his word but I would just like some clarification and/ or confirmation. I'm also curious if the discrepancy with the DVD-R and the DVD+R was merely due to bad DVD+R burns. Anyways, if anybody has an "oscilloscope" to verify comparable DVD-R vs DVD+R quality, that would be great.
That idea that DVD+R puts "more strain" than DVD-R (or even vice versa, where DVD-R puts "more strain" then DVD+R) is completely ridiculous. In fact, it all comes down to the disc. This person has probably come to this conclusion by way of fallacy logic. Ritek media is pretty well known for its poorer reflectivity, thus it being harder to read and burn. This is an issue with its inorganic dye. By contrast, Verbatim metal AZO dye and foil quality is far superior. A Ritek DVD-R would put "more strain" on a laser as compared to Mitsubishi/Verbatim DVD+R. For as much as people love Taiyo Yuden, sometimes TY discs are not the most reflective in equipment, causing skipping and excess work by the device to read the media. An oscilloscope has NOTHING even remotely to do with testing optical media. If you don't know what that is, read up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope This person is just ... um ... misled. Yeah, that's a good word: "misled". (I'm avoiding the temptation to say something far more insulting.)
lordsmurf, thank you for your informative reply. What you have said makes sense. Also, it appears my lack of understanding about oscilloscope may have led me to ask my question incorrectly. Forgive me for my lack of understanding, the wiihacks member used the oscilloscope to measure the voltage behavior of the laser in his PS2 and Wii. He did not use oscilloscope to measure optical media quality. Allow me to rephrase my question (unless the answer is still the same): This person used his oscilloscope to measure the voltage and test the behavior of his PS2 and Wii lasers, and claimed that with -r, it used "same original laser voltage" as normal media, but with +r, the voltage was "erratic" and "clipping" due to +r having a piece of data setting the booktype that causes the laser to read this and get "strained". Can any of the experts please confirm or deny this claim? Note: In my rephrased question, I am NOT asking about DVD+R vs DVD-R quality, but rather if the wiihack member's claim that in general, +r causes more laser voltage use and more "strain" on the laser is true or not. (lordsmurf, from how I interpret your answer, my guess is that the answer is that DVD+R of the same quality as the DVD-R should have same original laser voltage for both if an oscilliscope is used to measure, is this correct?) Thanks in advance, I appreciate the input from experts for teaching people like myself, who are sincerely trying to learn.
Yes, I think you understand what I wrote. While I have no doubt the machine can strain more on different discs, it has nothing to do with the format itself, but rather the discs being tested. More specifically, the manufactured discs. As I mentioned, a Ritek DVD-R will likely cause more issues than a Verbatim DVD+R. The drive in the machine, the age and cleanliness of the laser, and other factors are just as important. The tests performed by that person, while well-intentioned, are completely flawed, and the results are thereby skewed into the ridiculous.
The laser diode output is measured in milliwatts. The power output varies depending on the speed of the disc as well as on firmware settings (a rough estimate of the minimum required power is the square root of the highest recording speed X 50). On playback, however, the laser output is generally fixed to a standard. Push-pull signals from a DVD+R will be different from those from a DVD-R because of the HF wobble signal that modulates the tracking groove, but that only affects focusing and tracking during recording, not diode output in milliwatts. The DVD+R HF wobble versus DVD-R pre-pit address systems have no effect on playback--the situation for the Wii--because the pickup unit follows the recorded pits, not the groove or the address system at that point. (In this regard, optical media are very similar to magnetic media: one calibrates to a fixed playback standard using calibration and alignment media and then adjusts the recording parameters to produce standardized playback.) Ritek uses several organic dyes for their DVD production. According to the specifications I've read and the test data from their production (using industry standard equipment) and from independent testing, there is no indication that their discs or sputtered mirror layers differ significantly from those of other top manufacturers.
I have no fancy test equipment,or fancy tech talk mumbo jumbo. I know from past experience from the last 5 yrs: Burner quality!!!!!! Burner quality!!!!! Burner Quality!!!!! There's some awesome drives,mediocre drives,and purely crap drives out there.You'd probably see a hell of a difference with an ocsilloscope when looking at backups from a pc of crap HP drive compared to a Pioneer,Plextor,Benq drive. Any drive can have a bad reaction to a certain format,burn speed,Burn engine,and certain MID coded media.. This reaction is usually found on stand alone players,game consoles,and pc drives that's doing the playing.. People say to use this format for this type of drive,it's total BS.People say they're drives can only play a certain format-again,total BS because of the quality of some of these dvd-rw drives. The quality booktyping drives will amaze someone who wants to play there backups anywhere they desire. Lots of different lasers are being used to burn and read.The more drives playing those backups,then higher chances of finding drives that'll have certain problems with a certain format,certain MID coded media,and certain Burn engines. Burn engines can also factor because they are also different and the picky players will tell you. Dvd backups are harder to read.There's a dozen things that can trigger them: Pixellation,Freezing,Skipping,Jumping. Then there's the compatability issue: No Disc,Dirty Disc,Wrong Region,Wrong Format messages that drives give when they can't recognize backups.Is it a clean laser,dirty laser? The only test equipment I have is the Nero Disc quality scanning tool,but the scans will vary according to which burner does the reading because they're all different. You can't go by what everyone else says as to what's superior for Wii,PS2,or any other dvd drive. It's all up to the burner being used, and the quality of backups that it produces. Best formula if you want superior compatable quality backups: 1)Quality booktype capable drive 2)Quality plus format blank media like Verbatim/Taiyo Yuden 3)Standard 8x and higher burn speed. 4)Your burn engine Wii backups,ImgBurn is preferred. For myself,Imgburn yields lower compatable backups than Nero 6.6.0.14.There's no contest after my experience with each. Someone else's burner/process,probably the opposite? It's all up to each individual. For any playback problem,there's only a limited amount of things you can do.If you have a certain issue with a drive,you have to find the right formula that suits it,and all your drives drives.You'll have to test burn,and play.Test burn,and play.Test burn and play. Take notes on what drives have issues when you change something. Switching/upgrading to another drive,then the whole process of finding the right formula begins again. The key to dvd backups regardless if it's a player or game console: Quality!!!!!
This all comes down to the old "theory vs practice" scenario. While the paperwork might suggest Ritek is just as good as others, thousands of complaints online (from different people!) cannot be ignored. Testing on multiple burners, ROMs, recorders and players consistently show reading retries, fails and other problems with Ritek, as compared to other media. A lot of people blame it on "disappearing data" (which is baloney), instead of simply admitting: -- #1 They never tested the discs after the burn, so there is no basis by which to claim the data "disappeared". It was simply NEVER THERE to start with. -- #2 Acknowledging that Ritek is not one of the best discs, it never has been. It's an average piece of media, with known quality problems. Most praise (and harsh comments) toward Ritek is quite undeserved, it's just a mediocre disc. Of course, Ritek is only one of several discs. We could equalliy pick on MBI, CMC, UmeDisc, OptoDisc and several others, pointing out weak points of those not-the-best/mediocre/poor discs. The last poster nailed a lot of it: - Good burner (and write strategy) - Good burning software/engine - Good media - Booktype not so much, but it can help a bit - Proper burn speed (depends on drive + disc, to be honest) I also would not say that drive/disc combo information is "BS" necessarily. Two cases: BTC + TY media is a no-go, awful results in general. XBOX + most DVD+R can be the same way, depending on which stock drive is in use (not XBOX 360, the old XBOX). There are indeed some legitimate issues with drive/format/disc incompatibilities.
The specification data are not theoretical. They are the results of testing on calibrated test equipment. As for practice, I have also conducted thousands of tests on Ritek media as well as the others; and I form conclusions based on that testing--both physical and mechanical. The quality of any recording depends on the quality of the drive, the quality of the medium, the quality of the recording software, the settings in the computer, and the compatibility of the all the elements involved. "Proper" recording speed is a function of the write strategy--a different strategy is required for each speed allowed, and that means more than simply changing the multiples of the pulse rates and the power settings. One can argue that proper firmware settings are a part of the recorder quality--the more, the better. But excellent drives can give terrible results on excellent media if the two are not aligned for each other.
