The long-lost feature or how to get better burn results with 50GB/100GB BD-R DL/TL

Hello everyone,

@coopervid, @kufo and @tectpro tested how to achieve the best burning results on BD-R DL / TL for people that still burn their data/movies to BD-R discs. Especially regarding the avoidance of layer break issues.


First, a little introduction, so everyone knows what is happening.


What is this long-lost feature, and why is it lost?
Well, it is not lost; it is an often-deactivated feature as people typically want to burn as fast as possible. The feature we are talking about is called Hardware Defect Management.


What is this Hardware Defect Management?
Outtake from the Multi-Media Command Set Description for Write-once Blu-ray Disc (BD-R):

“The Defect Management system of BD-R provides methods by which a defective Cluster in the
User Data Area may be replaced by a Cluster from a spare area.”
“Defective clusters are replaced from the allocated spares.
The defect management and recording management information needs to be updated many times during use.”


What does that mean?
A special area on the BD-R is or has to be created. When burning the BD-R, a few things will happen.

1. The burning process will slow down, usually by 50%, meaning 2x becomes 1x. Sometimes it might be less.

2. During the burning process, the data written is verified, which is why it slows down the burning speed.

3. If the drive detects a defect, the sector will be written into the spare area that has been created.


Won’t that affect the playability of the media?
No. Hardware Defect Management has been specifically created for this purpose.




Enough with the technical mumbo jumbo; let’s get to the testing process.


Test equipment:

Hardware:

Pioneer: XD06U, S07U, S06 and S12U

LG: WH16NS60, WH16NS58, BU40N

Buffalo: BRUHD-PU3

TTSTCorp: TSST SN506BB



Software:

IMGBurn (to burn the files)

Test scenarios 50 GB and 100 GB BD-R DL/TL.


Media:

50GB: Verbatim M-Disc, Verbatim blue, yellow, Victor, Memorex
100GB: Verbatim M-Disc

ATTENTION! The tested media is mainly imported from Japan. However, when you buy imported media, ensure that it is manufactured in Japan as there is now media manufactured in other countries, for example, Taiwan.


How we checked the burning results.

LG WH16NS58 and VPTools (this tool only works with this specific drive)




Recommended for Hardware Defect Management

1.IMGBurn

2. Quality media (we have tested some brands and show the results below)

3. A burner capable of burning BD-R 50GB/100GB.

While this should work with every burner capable of burning BD-R 50GB/100GB, we found during the tests that a Pioneer burner achieves the best burning results in combination with quality media.






IMGBURN setting:














Special drive settings:

1. PIONEER

These settings are only for Pioneer Drive Tools and do not affect other drives as they explicitly only work with Pioneer drives.


When using a Pioneer burner, you need the Pioneer tools on the Pioneer webpage. Settings will be provided in screenshots. Please note that there is often one tool for a specific Pioneer drive; if you have more than one Pioneer drive, you may need more than one tool. Example: XD06U, S07U, S06 and S12U all need a different tool!

Tools can be found here:

Code:

 https://pioneer.jp/device_e/product-e/ibs/device_e/dev00001r_e.html 

Settings for Pioneer drives (please see below screenshots)










Always select the save setting to the drive for the settings to take effect and before burning a media. These settings only need to be applied once and will be saved in the internal drive memory.

NOTE: Not all Pioneer drives have special features, as seen in screenshots for the XS07U and XD06U. However, it is always good to check.

 

Continuation:

2. LITE-ON

Please disable the SmartBurn feature with the help of IMGBurn. It has to be disabled every time the machine is restarted, as it won’t be saved permanently.

SmarBurn interferes with defect management and may create coasters.
Screenshots of the coasters will be shown later.






3 Other drives

It is possible that the drive you are using has a special feature that interferes with the creation of the spare area or the hardware defect management usage. Please check your drive’s manual.





Creation of the Spare Area

Just so you know, the below process needs to be repeated for each media you burn.










Burn the media

Once everything is set up you can burn the media with IMGBurn.
Set the burning speed of your media in IMGBurn and burn the media as usual.
Depending on the media, a slower speed may result in a better result.
However, during our tests, we had some media that could be burned at a higher speed and had no bad side effects.

ATTENTION:
1. IMGBurn recommends that AnyDVD is disabled during the process.
2. Enable the Verify option in IMGBurn. Depending on the media, this will help to a certain degree to determine if the media is bad or if your drive might have issues.
3. As mentioned in the settings of IMGburn the creation of the spare area will take up space.
Selecting Preferred will use up around 3.5% to 4% of the media. This needs to be factored in before burning a media or shrinking your movie to fit on a disc.

 

Test Results:

Reference scans of pressed UHDs, created with WH16NS58 and the VPTools mentioned above.
Kindly note: For comparison between pressed media and burned media, certain information is listed in VPTools that has been highlighted in yellow, which makes differentiation easier.






Burned media scans

This is a reference scan of high-quality media with hardware defect management disabled.


Verbatim M-Disc 100GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management disabled, and 2x speed. The area highlighted is a peak at the layer break, which usually causes the player to hang/get stuck/stutter etc.





Verbatim M-Disc 100GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed. The layer break peak went significantly down.



Verbatim M-Disc 100GB burned with WH16NS60, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed.



Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed.





Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 4x speed.



Victor 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed.




Victor 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 8x speed.





To be continued

 

Continuation of the burned media scans:


Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 8x speed.


Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with LG WH16NS58, hardware defect management enabled, and 4x speed.



Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with LG WH16NS58, hardware defect management enabled, and 6x speed.



Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with Pioneer S12U, hardware defect management enabled, and 8x speed.



Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with LG WH16NS60, hardware defect management enabled, and 6x speed.



Normal Verbatim 50GB burned with LG WH16NS58, hardware defect management enabled, and 6x speed.



ATTENTION: Below screenshots are with SmartBurn enabled and disabled.
The difference can be seen in the high peak when SmartBurn in enabled.


Victor 50 GB burned with Lite-On iHBS112, hardware defect management enabled, and 6x speed., SmartBurn enabled.




Victor 50 GB burned with Lite-On iHBS112, hardware defect management enabled, and 6x speed, SmartBurn disabled.



ATTENTION: Below screenshot is for LGBU40N as well as BUFFALO BRUHD-PU3, which are identical drives.
The drive might be a good reader but could be better for burning.


Victor 50 GB burned with LG BU40N, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed.


Victor 50 GB burned with Buffalo BRUHD-PU3, hardware defect management enabled, and 2x speed.

More scans might follow.

 

FAQ

Q: Why do I need the Pioneer drive tools? Can I not just burn my media like normal?

A: To achieve the best results with your Pioneer Drive, the Pioneer Drive Tools are needed to enable/disable the setting that would be overwritten by the drive even though they have been selected within IMGBurn.


Q: What do the settings in IMGBurn do?

A: With the settings, the drive will write and read to confirm that the data written is ok. This only works when specific settings are set and the disc has been “formatted”. It will not work otherwise. Therefore, resulting in a slower writing speed.


Q: Why is the burning suddenly so slow?

A: This is a side-effect of the performed settings in IMGBurn and is entirely normal. The burning speed is reduced by half, meaning 2x becomes 1x, 4x becomes 2x and so on. Therefore, burning a 100GB disc might take up to 400 minutes! But on the other hand, the quality of the burned media improves significantly with the right burner and media used, as shown in the test results.


Q: My drive still burns at full speed even though it was mentioned that it should be slower.

A: Please verify that the setting in the Pioneer Drive Tools has been saved to the drive’s memory.

Also, verify that the disc has been formatted as mentioned, or else there will be no effect.


Q: Why didn’t you use OptiControl for verification?

A: There are a few reasons why we decided not to use OptiControl.

- It doesn’t work with newer drives
- The program is buggy
- There is no support for discs with more than 50GB capacity.
- The program costs money, but there are no longer improvements provided.


Q: I have a MAC. How can I achieve the same?

A: Unfortunately, the tools mentioned are only available for Windows.
However, it might be possible to use a burning tool for MAC.
Check that it supports Hardware Defect Management and how to enable it.
Unfortunately, we are not able to help with that.


Q: Does this method also work with CD/DVD?

A: No. As the standard has only been implemented for BD-R.


Q: I get a semaphore timeout period has expired error message with my external slim drive. What is that?

A: Please ensure it has sufficient power when your drive is connected via a USB.
Either an extra power supply or a Y cable depends on the manufacturer. Pioneer allows for both solutions for most of its external slim drives.



Q: Can I verify my disks with another drive/tool combination?

A: Yes, if you got an ASUS/LG drive with an MT1959 chipset, you can cross-flash it to the WH16NS58 and use the free tool QPxtool.
How to know if my drive has an MT1959 chipset and cross-flash it:

Code:

 https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/guide-for-flashing-uhd-drives-for-anydvd.79023/  

QPXTools can be found here:

Code:

 https://github.com/speed47/qpxtool 

When you use the tool, please select a maximum 6x speed to get reliable results.
Higher speed creates issues.
When scanning pressed media, please disable AnyDVD before inserting the disc and starting the tool.


Q: I get the message: "Failed to Write Sectors xxx - xxx - Reason: No Defect Spare Location Available". What does that mean?

A: The message indicates that the spare area for hardware defect management is full.
This could have the following reasons.
1. The setting has been set to Maximum in IMGBurn, creating a minimal area.
2. The setting has been set to Preferred in IMGBurn; in this case, the media is highly likely of lousy quality.


Q: Does this method improve the readability of 100GB BD-R with my player?

A: Most standalone players do not support 100GB BD-R. Burning your media with this technique won't improve readability for something the player does not support.


Q: I get warning messages: "Waiting for buffers to recover..." and "Waiting for hard disk activity to reach threshold level..."

A: This happens when the hard drive is not fast enough to provide the data while burning the disc.
Kindly ensure that the burner and the hard disk share a different USB hub when connected via one.
The recommendation is not to use a USB hub, as it can create errors/warnings.
This error could also be caused by SSD connected via USB.
Please always ensure that all your USB drives have enough power.

 

Q: You mentioned in the "Burn the media" part to enable the Verify option in IMGBurn. But how does that help to determine if the media is bad or if your drive might have issues?

A: During the Verify phase, which happens after the media was burned, IMGBurn checks if the data matches.
If there is a mismatch there will be information that looks similar to the below example..

Code:

Verifying Sectors...
Miscompare at LBA: xxxxxxxx, Offset: 0, File: \xxxxx
Device: xxxx
Image File: xxxx
Total Errors in Sector: xxxxx

Q: During the verify phase I get "Failed to Read Sectors xxxxx - xxxxxx - Reason: L-EC Uncorrectable Error". What does that mean?

A: Try to burn the media with a slower speed, this can help to reduce errors on media of lower quality.

Please see below screenshots the media is from the same package and both media are burned in the Pioneer S12U. This example shows how the burning speed can make a difference in the end result.

This is is burned with maximum speed and produced an error in the verify phase.



The below media is burned at the slowest speed.