Maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand the practical purpose of all of this?

Don't all CD burners burn a good CD 99.9% of the time?

[Deleted by Admins]

(in reply to malibu_ss_1966)

Quality is MORE than just "it reads ok" - would you be happy with a car that just had an indicator that there's "some petrol in the tank"?

Using C1/C2 test software, you can determine how much of the low level error correction is being used up dealing with the CD as it is NOW, which will give you an idea how much is left to deal with subsequent damage or deterioration.



Remember the famous Tomorrow's World CD test?
They showed how much abuse, in some quite viscious scratches and abrasion, that an audio CD could take.
But it ONLY took it, because it was absolutely perfect to start with - today's cheaply produced, but still expensively sold junk, has nothing like the resilience, because the production quality is so low.

Are you happy to write your CDs the same way?

(in reply to malibu_ss_1966)

Well, no of course I want to know how much petrol is in the tank because I don't want to get stranded somewhere. What adverse effect does a person experience from a less then prefectly written CD?

(in reply to malibu_ss_1966)

If your written CD is only just good enough, then the the slightest scratch, fingerprint or ageing deterioration is going to give you readability problems - it depends how long you NEED it to last, though written CDs should really be duplicated, stored seperately and checked - probably yearly - if they form a critical archive.

In general, a marginal quality burn also tends to point to poor quality media, which is also bad for lifetime - to use the petrol tank analogy, it won't go very far.

(in reply to malibu_ss_1966)