The results were disappointing for almost all the discs. As you can see in the table below, both the LDC and BIS signals were well above the acceptable limits. Only the Verbatim BD-R 2x 7.5GB disc reported good results with the Pioneer BD burner, followed by the TDK BD-R 4X 25GB burned at 8x with the same drive and the Moser Baer India BD-R 6X 25GB burned at 6x with the Sony drive:

When you are dealing with complicated measurements such as those required for checking the quality of the Blu-ray discs, it would be wise to avoid any bold statements and conclusions. That because our tests were performed using equipment that was actually a home brew PC system and the BD-ROM reader/software, which are always lack accuracy and repeatability. In addition, consider that you cannot ensure that the surface of each disc is completely free of any microscopic particles microscopic such as dust or smoke when you make a measurement.

For all the discs, the Long Distance Code (LDC) values were higher than the Burst Indicator Subcode (BIS), which is normal since the first is related to the error correction code added in each data sector to protect the main data and the latter is actually protecting the pickets, which are columns that are inserted in between columns of the main data at regular intervals and works as a burst indicator mechanism that can detect bursts of errors.

So what could have caused these 'bad' results?

• Not reliable software/reader
• Insufficiently cleaned discs
• Poor writing strategy of the BD burners for each speed, especially for the 6x and 8x
• Low media quality

It 's really hard to come up with any conclusions just from a single test. But it would be safe to say that disc we used for the test were brand new and their quality must be adequate if not high. In addition, all the discs were carefully cleaned and looked in perfect shape with naked eye before testing. But is the 8x burning speed very high for the disc found on the stores today? Soon we will be able to test the same discs using more reliable equipment.

On the other hand, testing the discs 'out of the box' after cleaning them is closer to the scenario of a consumer using a Blu-ray recordable disc for backups of data or video. Despite the many errors reported for each disc, none of them caused any problems to our BD readers and they were fully readable, which is quite encouraging.