Burning Too Many Coasters? Just Who Made These Crappy 100-for-a-Dollar CDs???
Written: Apr 18 '01
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great, lengthy informative review
Cons: --
The Bottom Line: CDR Identifier v1.63 is a little util you can use to find out who manufactured a CD-Rom.
|
|
|
| soothsayer's Full Review: CDR Identifier |
CDR Identifier is a simple program with one function; identify the manufacturer and disc properties of your CD. This may seem trivial to some, but to those who burn CD-Rs, this utility provides a wealth of information.
CD-R discs are not the manufactured the same. You may notice that some are silver, some are gold, some have blue undersides, some green. We now even have exotic flavors like black discs, and silver-on-silver. Which to buy? What to avoid? Whatever you buy can affect the outcome of your burn, and the archiving of your data. Traditionally, the most reliable are the gold discs, the least reliable are the widely available silver and green discs.
The face of the CD-Rom, the top part, is the reflective layer. It can be manufactured with a gold or silver (aluminum). Gold is the most reflective, and durable of the three. The reflection of light off of it is excellent. If you have problems reading a CD, perhaps try a gold disc.
The underside, the colored part is where data is written. The colored part can be thought of as a mask. When a CD is burned, the writing laser burns through and eats away the mask to create a microscopic pit that represents “1”. The parts where the writing laser does not burn represent “0”s. It is the “1”s and “0”s that make up the binary code, or digital language used by computers. Later on, when the CD-rom is being read, the reading laser will extract data by reading these pits and non-pitted areas.
There are two major dye types making up the mask; cyanide a blue dye, and phtalocyanide which is a transparent dye. When you apply cyanide dye to a disc with a gold reflective layer, the blue turns to green. Phtalocyanide applied to a gold disc will appear greenish gold underneath because the dye is transparent. The archival quality of cyanide dyes is poor. First generation discs made of this type of dye will last 10 years. Later generations using a modified cyanide formula have a span up to 50 years. The dyes with the best archival quality comes from phtalocyanide. Gold discs with this dye can last up to 100 years or so claimed.
Besides dye type, there is the quality issue. There are so many CD-Rom variations on the market, what is the best to buy? Some people say trust only gold discs, or buy audio CD-Rs for mixing music CDs. Gold discs with the greenish gold underside are fine, but they are hard to find nowadays. Silver discs with green/blue underside are cheap, and can be found all over the place. For these, buy a good name brand whenever there is a sale. Silver audio CD-R are supposedly designed for use in stereos. Most stereo CD systems have no problems reading computer CD-Rs, so why should you spend more money?
So which brand to buy? According to CD Media World, the best quality CD-Rs are manufactured by Mitsui Chemicals (under the brands: Mitsui, HP, Sony, Philips); Taiyo Yuden (brands: Taiyo Yuden, 3M, Sony, Philips); TDK (brands: TDK, 3M, Pioneer and Yamaha); and Kodak Japan (brands: Kodak and BASF). Medium quality discs come from Ricoh Co (brands: Ricoh, KAO); Mitsubishi Chemicals (brands: Verbatim, Traxdata, Sony); Hitachi Maxell (brands Maxell, KingTech); and Fuji Photo (brands: FujiFilm). The worse quality are those manufactured by small factories, they produce for brands you can get at a bargain, like those “100” cds for 10 dollars you see at CompUSA.
So how does CDR Identifier work? The program works by reading the special pre-data area of the CD, called the ATIP. This is where all the information regarding the CD’s manufacture is located. CDR Identifier has two large icons. One is a button you press to learn the ATIP info, and the other will copy the contents to the clipboard/memory.
CDR Identifier will tell you the sector location of the ATIP; it will tell you the Disc Manufacturer; the Dye Type used; the Media Type; the Capacity of the CD; and finally the rated min and max Recording Speed, if any. If you have more than one CD drive in your computer, you can choose among them.
If your CD reader/burner cannot read the ATIP of the CD, this program will do nothing for you. You can find out if your CD burner supports reading the ATIP. Just insert a CD in your drive, run this program and see if any information shows up.
The latest version of CDR Identifier is v1.63. It is freeware, and available for Windows only. It is a 108K zipped download, available from www.gum.de/it/download/
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.