What do I need to know about verifying burned CDs?

[Hilary]

I have CD Architect and it does what it does quite nicely except it's like a ten-year-old product; it doesn't do some things that you'd think any product would just be expected to do. Like verifying a burn. Or burning an image file into a nonvolatile location in your pc so you can take it and burn it onto physical CDs with Nero which DOES have a verify-after-burn function.

Am I missing something? Can I create a CD in CD Architect and then burn a dozen exact bit-for-bit copies in some application that will verify bit-for-bit each burn?

 

[JoeH]

1. What version of CD Architect are you using? A 'Ten year old product' would seem to need an upgrade. The newest verisons of DVD and CD Architect have all kinds of new bells and whistles, probably (but I'm not 100% sure) has the bit verify function as well, and most likely an ISO file-save too?

2. Why the need for bit for bit analysis of all twelve copies? Are they all going to be duplication masters? Is this for a mastering house, or are you just making copies for clients? These days, the state of digital blank media, (more reliable than it's ever been) and the current crop of drives used to burn them has made the bit-for-bit thing mostly moot, unless you're a mastering house sending projects off to a pressing plant and need to check this stuff regularly. Are you getting an usually large number of rejects or unplayable discs back from clients?

 

[Hilary]

No, I'm just paranoid. These discs will be given to people to whom I do not want to give bad discs.

Actually I have no idea what is considered acceptable among you people here who really do know what you're doing.

According to Nero Speed, the discs I'm burning rate:
Max C1 errors in upper teens, a few 20s
Average C1 errors 1.44 (Average 20 discs)
Total C1 errors 4758 (Average 20 discs) only one over 7000
No C2 errors
Quality scores all 97s and 98s

Is this good? I tried a few commercial cds and they were a lot better than this.

H

 

[silvister]

i am using sony CD Architect 5.2 what you are using , i am try to find the option , but still i have no information about that.










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[Massive Mastering]

@ silv -- It's not a program option. It's a hardware option.

@ Hilary -- BE paranoid. I've done tests with Nero Speed and the only reasonable conclusive and consistent thing I've found is that Speed is inconsistent and inconclusive at best.

 

[JoeH]

Here's how I look at it/deal with it overall:

For my own paranoid brain and safekeeping, I keep 24bit and 16bit (dithered) Master copies of everything on Hard drives and DVD/CD-r Backups. No data loss to speak of in any of those formats, so I know they're safe for the ages.

We do serious data verification only for masters that are going out for replication.

For audio CDs, we copy (usually via ethernet) over to one of three duplication systems, and use the best blanks we can afford. (in our case, it's the Discmakers Ultra's). There's just not enough time to verify each and every disc we make, we simply keep standards as high as we can, do occasional batch checks, and send them out.

I can't think of the last time we got a returned failed disc based on corrupt media. The few times that we DID get a return in the last few years was often due to pilot error, or old antiquated CD players that just couldn't read ANY kind of burnded (vs. replicated) media.

It's good to be paranoid, to a point. Eventually, you just gotta get moving and get some work done.