View Full Version : Printer scratching printable DVDs ?


Gints Klimanis
January 27th, 2005, 05:06 PM
Hi,

I've noticed that my Epson R800 ink jet printers occasionally etches some scratches on the printable DVD-R. These scratches line up with the data tracks, so they're a bad type of scratch. Largely, this is not a problem, but since I often print DVDs while others are burning on another computer, I often burn a printed DVD. Once, I noticed that the burned DVD skipped the area around the scratch, leaving a visible ring in the DVD. I just tossed the DVD, but I should have verified the burn. The Epson manual recommends against printing before burning, but no matter the order, the disc is occasionally scratched. Has anyone tried a workaround, such as sticking a label to the bottom of the DVD or something like that ?

Rob Lohman
January 30th, 2005, 05:55 AM
I would never ever attach a label to the bottom side of a disc,
that's just asking for troubles. Sounds like this is just the way
it is, you may however be interested in a new technique:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050126A8046.html

Also see this thread here on DVi:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19725

You may want to do a google search on LightScribe.

Personally I ALWAYS verify a burn (only possible with a data CD/DVD),
burners are so fast these days that a verify round doesn't matter
much and especially with DVD discs I find this is important to do!

Brandon Greenlee
February 5th, 2005, 05:00 PM
Is it possible to verify using Encore?

Rob Lohman
February 6th, 2005, 05:47 AM
You CANNOT verify a DVD VIDEO! Only a DVD/CD DATA disc can
be verified.

Lars Siden
February 6th, 2005, 06:48 AM
Hi,

Just a thought:

I always make an ISO file first - then I burn the ISO to DVD. That way I can verify a video disc as well.... at least it works for me. Usually I burn using NERO ( I use Encore for authoring )

// Lazze

Brandon Greenlee
February 6th, 2005, 08:27 AM
Hrmm

This sounds like a very good idea. Encore even seems to burn slow.

I never knew you could just go straight to an iso with encore, but I think I have found where you can do it.

I will feel better burning everything with nero than encore anyways.


Edit:/

So if you can't verify a DVD video disc - how can you insure there were no underburn ect errors? Watch the whole thing through?

Bogdan Vaglarov
February 6th, 2005, 07:33 PM
May be you can't verify DVD but you can still check it for read errors using Nero free tool CD/DVD speed.
There from Tools you chose Scan disk and check the Surface scan option. The utility will read the disc sector by sector and if it has trouble reading some parts it'll show yellow or red.
If PC DVD drive can't read the disc sure it's damaged. Red means your disc will freeze in a DVD player, yellow still might be readable. After doing this I always check my DVDs in the set top player - especially the last minutes are prone to skips depending on media quality, etc.

Rob Lohman
February 8th, 2005, 04:47 AM
Lars: how do you enable verify in that case? I can't enable verify
when burning disc images (even if they are data images)!

There are special DVD verify tools out there that can verify a DVD
disc. There are also tools to check if everything on a DVD can be
read. A simple way is to simply copy the DVD back to your harddisk,
if that works it is at least readable.

Dan Euritt
February 8th, 2005, 12:23 PM
nero has place where you can select to check the burned disc, but it's kinda pointless in my mind.

the dvd needs to play on settop boxes, not the computer it was burned on, so checking every burn won't help, unless random checking has identified a problem that must of course be fixed.

Bogdan Vaglarov
February 8th, 2005, 12:50 PM
Anything burnt on a disc is more or less data for the PC drive.
Checking for read errors the disc you just made can help you understand 2 things.
1st - if it has bad sectors it's useless even in the PC (no matter DVD video or back up disc). Not to speak it won't play in DVD player.
2nd - if no errors you can be sure it's fine to read it in PCs but it's still not guarantee your set top player will like it.

Now depending on your experience with certain DVD burner, certain media and DVD player you can skip the error checking.

For example now I use TDK media (mostly made by Tayo Yuden) which is burning well in my LG drive and most important my crummy Samsung player doesn't freeze on them.

Brandon Greenlee
February 8th, 2005, 01:43 PM
When burning large batches of discs (such as 40 dvd's or so) what is a good way to verify your not sending out any bad discs?

If I have a chance I usually try to try each disc out in my dvd player and do a 30x fast forward (about 15 seconds or for the whole thing) for each disc.

If not I'll at least do this method on every 5-10 discs or so.

Is it pretty much understood if the first one burns correctly that the rest will? (if using the same media/burner)

Just wondering how others approach this situation?

Rob Lohman
February 9th, 2005, 05:23 AM
Dan: yes I know it is there. That's what I said and is what I'm using
all the time with DATA discs. While you can argue that everything
burned is data (content would be a better term), audio, data and
VideoCD discs are all burned in a very different manner. Audio and
video discs have much lower number of correction bits (this is why
you can get an 800 mb video cd on a 700 mb disc), so it is NOT
the same thing.

What I am saying is that this verify option is greyed out on my
system (and has been through all previous systems and Nero
versions here) when burning:

- a disc image (for whatever format, whether it is audio, data or DVD)
- audio cd's
- video cd's
- video DVD's

Lars Siden
February 11th, 2005, 02:47 PM
Rob,

If I say "I don't know" - will that make you happy :-)

Story is as follows:

I have 2 machines both running Win XP Pro same patches and the rest of the "yidda yadda" stuff...same version of Nero. On my "file server" I can turn on verify in Nero when I burn images - but not on my "workstation". The only things that I can imagine being different are:

1. On Verify Enabled machine I have a Philips DVD/RW+/- burner, on the other a NEC 2510

2. Some how the NERO installations are different

Will try to find an answer!

// Lazze - the verified one! :-)

Rob Lohman
February 14th, 2005, 04:18 AM
That's very interesting to know Lazze! I'll ask around some of my
friends, see what they can do...

p.s. I'm always happy! <g>