Question about EAC and error correction and CD drives

[markl]

My computer has two drives on it, one is a DVD-burner, the other is a regular CD burner.

I've found that when using EAC, the CD-burner seems to be a lot more picky about which CDs it can rip successfully without errors than the DVD drive. The CD drive often encounters songs on certain CDs it can't complete ripping to the hard drive because of excessive read and sync errors. I can then take that same CD, put it in the DVD drive and more often than not, it can rip the track fine. This also applies to CDs that can still rip OK on the CD drive but I still get the dreaded red bars going across the error correction screen with much slower reading of some maybe slightly scratched discs/tracks. I can put that CD in the DVD drive, and it goes much faster/easier.

So, clearly, the CD drive is more "sensitive". My question is, is that a good thing in that the drive is better adept at detecting and correcting errors than the DVD drive? Or, is that a bad thing, and the DVD drive clearly is more "powerful" (or however you want to put it) and less prone to being thrown by iffy CDs?


Any ideas?

 

[Dusty Chalk]

At what settings are they each? I think that's the main question. If the DVD drive is not set at secure, and the CD is, then it's the good thing answer to your question. If they're both set at the same thing (implying also that they both have the same capabilities), then it means your DVD is better (probably newer, and less error prone, probably not misaligned yet).

 

[markl]

Hi Dusty, yes they are both in "secure" mode.

BUT, I used EAC to detect drive features to determine the settings, and under the secure mode button, there are three other boxes:

1. Drive has "accurate stream"

2. Drive caches audio data

3. Drive is capable of retrieving C2

On the DVD-burner the top two boxes are checked, on the CD drive, the bottom two are checked. No idea what, if any difference this makes.

I have read that using EAC to detect drive features is iffy at best and unreliable at worst, but how the heck else are you supposed to know about which of those three stupid buttons are supposed to be checked for your particular drive? ESP?

IIRC, at the time I set them up, either EAC or the software I use to actually burn the CDs from the stuff I ripped to my hard drive with EAC (Easy CD Creator) told me that the CD-Rom was the "superior" drive, so that's what I've been using. Does that make any sense or ring any bells? It probably wasn't EAC that made that pronouncement.

Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE EAC? Why can't someone with a budget and some engineers use his extraction methods but put a nice friendly user interface on it, and oh, I don't know-- an INSTRUCTION MANUAL?

 

[binkgle]

this is by far the best eac guide i have found, it helped me in almost everything i needed, and anything else can be found with google

http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac-qs-en.htm

i use nero's infotool to find my drive capabilities, but you don't have nero........ you could dl the trial and use it then.

allowing the drive to use c2 info to detect errors makes the read faster but less reliable, and many drives don't have perfect implementation of c2. i'd suggest turning it off.

what models of drives do you have? in my experience plextor and lite-on drives are best for eac, and, well, most things

 

[markl]

Quote:

allowing the drive to use c2 info to detect errors makes the read faster but less reliable, and many drives don't have perfect implementation of c2. i'd suggest turning it off.

Hmmm, well my CD burner is the one that uses its own C2, but it's the one that goes slower...

Quote:

what models of drives do you have? in my experience plextor and lite-on drives are best for eac, and, well, most things

binkgle, whatever standard issue is on Dell's most recent computers, no idea how to tell what they are (likely whatever they can get cheapest at any given moment), except that when EAC pulls up their info, it lists them as follows:

CD: HL-DT-STCD-RW GCE-8483B

DVD: HL-DT-STDVD-RW GDR-8163B

 

[binkgle]

hmm, can't say which is better, i have an hl-dt-st dvd-rom drive, but i almost never use it cause i've a plextor dvd burner and lite-on cd burner..............

have you ever thought of using accuraterip? that will tell you if your rips are good or not. it's kind of a plugin for eac that enhances functionality.

http://www.accuraterip.com/

use their forum, it'll help get you going. that way you can use the faster drive and it'll tell you whether your rip is perfect or not