[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally posted by zachary80 Is there any reason not to do a direct copy from drive to drive? It seems like it would be the most efficient way and have less chance for errors, especially if you verify the data.

I normally make a bitwise copy on hard disk using NERO then burn the disc image - the copies are normally pretty good but I tend to get occaisional drop outs - might be my burners though, in any case the copies are good enough to play in the car ...

Some of my CD players are a bit fussy about CDrs though.

 

[krayzie]

Can someone point to me what are these "black cdrs"? I have no idea what you guys are talking about...

I have this old Ricoh 8x8x32 burner and it is so picky on blanks... the only ones I've found so far that I get zero dropouts using Nero are the Verbatim / Mitsubishi vinyl cdr metals (Metal Azo I think), Imation used to sound okay until in recent years I can't get them to burn properly (audio has static)... I can't burn Maxell blanks at all (always error halfway through)...

I've heard that indeed the middle layer is different from brand to brand, and there are like 3 main material combinations on the market today...

 

[krayzie]

Oh nevermind I figured black cdrs mean cd blanks with a black backing...

Anywayz, as I see most ppl on the web recommends Taiyo Yuden as the brand of choice... And then memory strikes, if anyone here ever played with Metal Tapes in the 80's and have came across That's Suono which was so good it was considered as the Sony Metal Master / TDK MA-XG fighter at the time, the brand "That's" is actually Taiyo Yuden...

 

[some1x]

The forums at www.cdfreaks.com is probably source for CD/DVD media and drive quality.

In brief, burning cds isn't rocket science, just get good drive and media.

Example of good drives: Lite-On and Plextor drives

Example of good media: Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim. (Media tend to have much more variations. read the forums for more details)

 

[The Quality Guru]

From what I've read, Mitsui CD-R's with the Phthalocyanine dye offer the longest shelf-life- 300 years, optimally. I'm referring to the Mitsui Gold Branded or Unbranded sort, which I believe is one of the best kinds. However, I read of possible read errors that users have experienced with the unbranded Mitsui Golds (though not the branded) so I'm not so sure. And the gold layer of the Mitsui's is quite reflective, I believe, so I don't know what the does to jitter, etc. Taiyo Yudens and certain TDK's are also rumored to be among the best . . . But really, I'm not sure! I have to do some more research!

Anyway, here are the results of a Froogle search on the Mitsui Golds. They're not cheap, but not terribly expensive either. Depends on where you buy, too, of course, and in what quantity. Also, do note that Mitsui makes a bunch of other CD-R models, too. Froogle: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=mitsui+gold

 

[Glassman]

Quote:

Originally posted by Distroyed If you use EAC, regardless of the burn speed (burnproof enabled, of course), you wont create a noticeably degraded copy until at least 4-6 generations later, even on the most sensitive of equipment.

generations doesn't matter at all, each time you rip and burn CD using EAC with proper read & write offset, you end up with perfect - bit to bit copy.. you can do it as many times as you like and in the end you'll get the same data as from the original.. the only problem is with CD's readability in common stand-alone CD players, becouse their optics read the disc once and it should be read perfectly.. using good burner and media, you'll get pretty low jitter and very few C1 errors, so the player's drive won't have much trouble with proper reading.. but even badly burned CD with high jitter and many C1 errors (but w/o C2 errors) can be read perfectly using EAC and then burned properly, so it will 'sound' better in stand-alone players..

with both lite-on and plextor drives one can easily test jitter and C1 error count using concrete media and concrete writing speed.. just buy a few different blanks, test them, find your favourite and buy hundreds of them

 

[TonyTripleA]

Agree that number of generations of copy will make no difference if they are all reliably copied. You are just transcribing 0s and 1s and as long as there are no errors you can make any number of generations of copies.

But, that said some CD players ability to read CD-R media is better/worse than others. The NAD C540 was not reported to be as reliable at reading CD-R, from what I have read, but the later C542 was supposed to be modified to fix this. My Denon UM-30 Cd player just refuses to read about half of the CD-R media I put in it... very frustrating, as I usually like to use my backup copy in the bedroom and keep my original locked away from the kids.

Experiment, your mileage may vary.

TonyAAA