Post from Brian

From: mclaren
Subject: writeable CD-R drives
--
There's been much enthusiasm of late about
writeable CD-R discs, CD-ROM-writing drives,
and the prospects of releasing your own
microtonal music on your very own CDs
burned on your very own home computer.
This would be wonderful, if the technology were
ready for prime time.
It isn't.
"The problem with the writeable CD technology
is that you have to make an `image' to be written
to the disk. (..) If you want to back up 650 MB, you
want to have another 650 MB on your hard disk
empty to store the image, which is then
transferred to the CD-R (..) You get *one shot
at writing to the disk* from beginning to end.
You can do multiple sessions, but that's a *real
hassle too.* The point is that once the CD-ROM
starts to `burn' you can't stop it. If there's a
glitch, brownout, operating system hiccup,
horribly fragmented file, or any number of
things, then the CD doesn't get burned, and you
end up with a *blown session.* These are
common, and *the result is a totally useless
disk* that must be discarded. It takes
a couple of hours to prepare your files to be
burned into the disk. If something changes,
you have to start over. And if your hard disk
isn't fast enough, you can't even burn the
disk at all.
"One vendor told me that the quad-speed CD-
ROM writers *were kept off the market*
because the system requirements were
outrageous, and tolerances for error was
nil. I recommend people buy a cheap Tahiti
optical drive and use it for backup and
archiving instead--at least until a new
technology arrives called *packet writing.*
Packet writing is now being standardized,
and it will allow a CD-R to act a little more
like a normal optical drive insofar as
using for backup is concerned. I'm told
that many of the CD-R units on the market
will be upgradble to packet writing
technologyw ith a BIOS revision. Make sure
to check before you buy a CD-R. Until
packet writing comes along, these devices
are *close to being useless for the average
user.*" [Dvorak, John C., "Inside Track,"
in PC Magazine, March 26, 1996, pg. 91]
The test reported on this forum in which
a 15-minute audio file was written to
CD-R is, alas, meaningless. The acid test:
how often does the drive and disc combo
produce a bad burn when a full 680 megs
of audio data are written non-stop to
CD-R disk?
Reports suggest that the error rate right
now is around 60%, depending on the brand
of CD-R disc. That is, 6 out of 10 discs
produce a bad burn and a blown disc which
must be discarded. Worse still, my gearhead
friends inform me that the writeable CD
technology is so flaky that to get good
results, people who burn their own CD
ROMs must check the grapevine to see
which brand name of writeable CD-R
disc has a bad error rate this month,
and which manufacturer came out with
a good batch. One month TDK writeable
CD-R discs produced near-100% bad burns,
the next month it was Mitsui, the next
month Sony... And it changes from one
month to the next. You get the idea.
Worse still, many CD-R writeable drives
will burn discs that other brands of
CD-ROM read-only drives cannot read.
Let's take some detailed examples,
from "The Great American Burnout,"
Multimedia World, July 1996, pp. 58-
66, in which 20 different CD-R burner
drives were compared:
"JVC's Personal Archiver 2X for
Windows 3.x and Windows 95 eliminates
compatibility issues; but it limits you
to burning discs on JVC recorders..."
"On the HP SureStore 4020i, none of
the included software would run our
write tests..."
"[On the Microboards PlayWrite 4000]
premastering packages can record Red
Book audio tracks, but they lack
audio-editing features, and [the
Microboards'] Red Roaster's ability to
set up subchannel codes for subindices
and program pauses...]
"[MicroNet Master CD Plus] the 512K
buffer can be a problem with slower 486
systems...]
"Though it supports all modes of writing,
the drive failed the CD Extra test. According
to Olympus, the PC versions of Gear don't
handle the [Olympus Deltis CD-R2] properly,
causing the failure..."
"[On the Pioneer DW-S114X] we created CD
Extra discs without a problem; but the read
tests failed, with bad sector errors. This
recorder requires CD-R media to be in pristine
condition..."
"We couldn't get [the Smart & Friendly CD-R
1002] to burn a CD-DA + XA two-session disc.
Our attempts to add a session after recording
a session with audio tracks resulted in a
cryptic `Toolkit or virtual CD error' from
Easy-CD Pro. Since we were able to add data
on the very same CD-R disc using the same
software but another recorder, the Sony
mechanism appears to have been the culprit..."
"Easy-CD Pro returned a cryptic `Toolkit
Error: 136' and Gear's manual stated that
the [Sony Spressa 9221] doesn't support
CD Extra..."
"While the write performance is excellent,
the [Yamha CDR100] cannot effectively
double as a reader, because of slow
access times..."
The Philips CDD 2000 got the highest marks
from Multimedia World magazine--which,
compared with the dismal results from the
other drives, means that the Philips CDD
2000 might actually *work*--some of the time.
Now let's deal with some anecdotal evidence:
Gary Morrison and I paid for a CD-R audio
disc as the pre-master of our CD release,
"Detwelvulate!" containing 74 minutes of
Ivor Darreg's microtonal music.
I tried to play the CD-R master last week.
It's now unplayable, some 18 months after
it was burned.
Despite all the nonsense about the photoreactive
dye lasting 10 years, 20 years, 500 years,
or what-have-you, the brutal reality is that
CD-R discs don't last very long. A year,
maximum. Probably less.
The problems afflicting CD-Rs, once written,
are legion:
[1] Fingerprints are permanent. They cannot
be burnished off. Try to do so, and you'll
destroy the CD-R because you'll smudge the
photoreactive dye.
[2] The photoreactive dye is laid down in a
single continuous spiral track 1/10 the width
of a human hair. As the disc endures thermal
stress in winter and summer, the single
continuous spiral track distorts and finally
becomes unreadable.
[3] If the spiral dye channel is even
microsopically off-center, the CD-ROM
drive will accumulate so many errors as
the drive head runs from the inside toward
the outside fo the CD-R disc that the disc
will be unreadable.
Thus, unfortunately, the writeable CD
technology is not ready for prime time.
I researched the technology 6 months ago:
it was dismal. Packet-writing drives are
now beginning to become available, but
it doesn't seem to have helped the abysmal
error rate of the CD-R media, nor has it
helped lengthen the ridiculously short life
span of dye-based CD-R discs once burned.
Those of you who are contemplating buying
a CD-R writeable drive to burn your own
microtonal audio CDs would do well to
wait another 3-5 years. Perhaps the technology
will have been debugged by then.
--mclaren


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