CDRinfo.com, is the unchallenged world wide web leader in optical storage and general hardware testing. It offers to the public, along with its news and reviews services, the publication of the results of extensive tests on all major brands of optical storage drives and media. These tests, of unprecedented quality, cover a wide range of devices and are considered by industry insiders as standard reference, incorporating scientifically based and unbiased testing methodologies, which are further enhanced by presentations and comparisons. They exhibit a high degree of professionalism that helps to educate and inform both the average user as well as the technical community on the quality of what is currently available on the market.

It is therefore no surprise that most industry leaders consider the CDRinfo.com team as a group of highly motivated individuals, whose efforts have helped technical writers and other journalists, both in the printed and electronic press, formulate and establish their own influential view with regard to what exists on the market and the relevant technology opportunities.

Now that the CD/DVD drive and media marketplace is running at full speed, it is very important to keep our site readers well informed on the quality and performance of available products. Here, we can help them choose the most appropriate device or media according to their own needs through our reviews. Each and every drive we review undergoes an extensive and tortuous battery of tests. Furthermore, we have always chosen to define our suite of tests in such a way that they can be easily reproduced by any of our readers. This is achieved by using standard equipment and software, widely available on the market.

To date, our site has offered to the on-line user community, an innovative section devoted to Media Quality Tests where users can access a database of existing test results and make comparisons according to various selection criteria. They can further submit their own results by using a standard web interface. It resembles to some degree, the free on-line track/song name databases and is unique throughout the whole web, both for it's design as well as its breadth.

Disc quality has and always will be a key issue with CD/DVD duplicators, media manufacturers, distributors, media publishers and end users. Media manufacturers and distributors especially, are highly interested in disc quality, since media must be tested to ensure conformance to standards and license agreements, and of course, satisfy customer needs. In an effort to accommodate both manufacturers and end users, CDRinfo.com performs a large series of media tests to reveal the big picture while at the same time allowing fine detail examination whenever necessary. As we adopt more media tests in an already rich repertoire, the results of which we then publish on our site, the need for more advanced and sophisticated media analysis becomes a matter of course. Furthermore, CDRinfo.com pursues a policy of continually enhancing its comprehensive media test reviews with more accurate quality analyses and scans.

Starting with the first New Year's reviews, we further broaden our arsenal of testing equipment with the acquisition of the well-known hardware CD testing equipment from Clover Systems. These units are available on the market at a very attractive price, so that many small duplication services, individuals or businesses producing their promotional compact discs, or even dedicated audiophiles, can themselves now provide quality assurance testing to easily check the produced discs.

The Clover Systems CDX Compact Disc Analyzer, is a high-speed tool to quantitatively measure the quality of a CD. It will analyze CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-I, CD-R, Photo-CD, Enhanced CD and CD-RW discs at 4X, 8X, 24X, 32X or 40X speed. It effectively measures disc quality by examining the quantity and severity of CIRC errors generated during playback. It also provides the capability to measure signal parameters related to pit geometry, such as asymmetry and reflectivity. Together, all these bits of information provide a thorough analysis of disc quality. The Clover Systems Analyzers can also perform various format-checking tests on data discs, and do bit-for-bit data comparison on all types of CDs.

By using this new equipment to conduct tests incorporated in our reviews, we intend to establish a firm basis for comparisons among different drive performances and media quality tests. Professionals will now be able to more easily acquire quality equipment and media for their purposes according to the published test numbers in the tests conducted by our team and presented on our web site.

The CDRinfo.com Team, always striving to offer the most up-to-date information and the widest range of choices to our beloved readership, is once again breaking ground and expanding its activities by making use of the latest test equipment from Clover Systems. We once again hope the service we offer our readers will be of some benefit to you all.

From the Editorial staff, the Engineers and Technicians and all of us at CDRinfo, we wish each and every one of you a Happy New Year.