Archival CD burner.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 10:55 am

The local camera shop where I've purchased most of my equipment was telling me that regular CD burners don't do as well at burning pics because they burn them too fast. Is this really an issue in your opinion? Is an 'archival burner' going to do a better job because it burns them slow... or is this the photography world's way of selling another piece of expensive equipment? I know they make some very pricey archival burners that burn both CDs and DVDs. I was looking at the fancy new one they had called 'BurnAway'... but it was $249 for the one that burns CDs only! For that price, I have to wonder if it REALLY does a better job... or would you even know the difference?

Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 339

Yeah I don't know if I believe that.

A digital image is made up of 1s and 0s. A burner, no matter how fast it burns, records the exact combination of 1s and 0s for each image. Sounds to me like a slower burner would be exactly that. A slow burner.

Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 661 Location: manchester, uk

Well burning or reading at a speed faster then your computer can handle CAN cause faulty data. Ever try ripping an mp3 from a cd at speeds faster then your pc can keep up? You get skips and clicks in the music. I can imagine any data, including photos, can do the same type of thing.

However, there's an easy solution: lower you burn speeds! My burner has a max speed of 48x but I usually burn around 36x or 40x because I know for sure my pc can keep up at those speeds. If you're concerned about it, just lower it more! Just because a burner is speedy doesn't mean it CANT burn at lower speeds.

Plus, I believe once a cdr is burnt, its burnt... the data and information is there and the only way it will become corrupt is by the cdr deteriorating. If you burn a cdr and check the files afterwards and they're all perfectly fine then the burner has already done its job, its no longer responsible for anything that happens to the data after that.

If you really wanna put money into something archival, buy gold archival cdrs, they're more reliable then regular cdrs and you're not getting ripped off.

Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 339

withnosocks wrote:

Ever try ripping an mp3 from a cd at speeds faster then your pc can keep up? You get skips and clicks in the music. I can imagine any data, including photos, can do the same type of thing.

That's not quite the same thing though. I work with music files a lot and I've found that MP3 files are not that stable to begin with. A friend of mine simply will not take my advice to convert his mp3s to WAV format, so he keeps getting the "mp3 burps" as I call them....and I get the same result from my 8x burner when burning mp3s, so that doesn't really apply. WAV is the most stable type of audio file and causes FAR less problems. An image file doesn't have the same instability that an mp3 does, so that's kind comparing apples to oranges.

Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 661 Location: manchester, uk

Frost wrote:

withnosocks wrote:

Ever try ripping an mp3 from a cd at speeds faster then your pc can keep up? You get skips and clicks in the music. I can imagine any data, including photos, can do the same type of thing.

That's not quite the same thing though. I work with music files a lot and I've found that MP3 files are not that stable to begin with. A friend of mine simply will not take my advice to convert his mp3s to WAV format, so he keeps getting the "mp3 burps" as I call them....and I get the same result from my 8x burner when burning mp3s, so that doesn't really apply. WAV is the most stable type of audio file and causes FAR less problems. An image file doesn't have the same instability that an mp3 does, so that's kind comparing apples to oranges.

Even wav files can get skips in them though, thats why audio fanatics insist on using EAC because you can configure it to your cdrom and avoid all errors.

I know because I once had a burner upgrade before a pc upgrade and I would constantly get cdrs which were burnt from WAV files (I was copying cds without any mp3 compression) that wouldn't play on my cd player till someone told me to knock down my burn speed and they were fine.

Okay, so I should have used WAV instead of MP3 in my example, my bad lol. But maybe you've just never had the misfortune of having a pc slow enough to be slower than your burner speed lol

Fact is, if your cdrom or burner is running faster then your PC can run, you're gonna get problems... whether its the burn process failing and ending or corrupting your files or whatever, its not good for whatever you're burning.

Joined: 27 Jan 2004 Posts: 339

The point still stands, however, that an "Archival CD Burner" is a waste of money.

Just turn down your burn speed.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:14 pm

Frost wrote:

The point still stands, however, that an "Archival CD Burner" is a waste of money.

Just turn down your burn speed.

I did a google search (google is your friend!) and there do appear to be CD-R media available, which are specified as "archival quality". These are the actual disks, not the drive. I'm not sure you need a special burner to use them, and I haven't read enough to be convinced that the dyes used in these "archival CDs" are any more stable than regular dyes.

Would be worth looking into, though. I think the more significant concern isn't the longevity of your CDs, but rather the availability of hardware to handle them. Probably CD and DVD drives will be obsolete long before the dyes or plastics in your CD degrade, but that's just speculation.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:08 pm

Here is a good article on the subject.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:55 pm

Thanks guys. My concern is that the pics I have actually get put on the CD AS THEY ARE... with no flaws visible or invisible to the eye... I want it ALL there. And according to the guy at the camera shop, the speed causes it to miss bits and pieces of data... and he didn't associate it with the issue of the computer not being able to keep up. So, I guess my question should be if the computer CAN keep up... is burning in a regular CD burner (the one that came already installed in the computer) going to be an issue? And would it be safer to slow the burner down?... although I didn't even realize that could be done and have no clue how to do it. If I can't figure it out, I guess that will be my next question.
And thanks for the article, Chris... I'll read it tomorrow.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:56 pm

While you're burn speed can be affected by the hardware, another culprit is your burning software. Good burning software is equipped with alogrithms to prevent speed mismatches, process interruption errors, and other stuff like that.

Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 661 Location: manchester, uk

newbie328 wrote:

Thanks guys. My concern is that the pics I have actually get put on the CD AS THEY ARE... with no flaws visible or invisible to the eye... I want it ALL there. And according to the guy at the camera shop, the speed causes it to miss bits and pieces of data... and he didn't associate it with the issue of the computer not being able to keep up.

If it missed pieces of data then you wouldn't be able to read the data after you burnt it and checked it on the pc. and they certainly wouldn't just be there and then disappear over time because of the burner. I really think this guy was trying to sell you a slow burner for way more then its worth.

Quote:

So, I guess my question should be if the computer CAN keep up...

depends what kind of processor you have, how much memory, maybe even the motherboard too.... versus how fast your cd burner is... the burner may say on the actual drive the speeds. mine says 48x12x48x which means write speed and read spead are 48x but re-write speed is 12x. you'll have to look in your manuals. or if your burner is burning cds at full speed and all your data is okay when you check it afterwards then you know you're okay.

Quote:

is burning in a regular CD burner (the one that came already installed in the computer) going to be an issue? And would it be safer to slow the burner down?...

like i said, only if you're having a problem burning them at full speed and you'll know right away if your cd doesn't work, the images on the cd dont open immediately after burning or the burn process fails.

Quote:

although I didn't even realize that could be done and have no clue how to do it.

it just a matter of software... if you burn with xp it doesn't let you do anything... I use Nero, its a great program with lots of control. very reliable.

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:36 pm

I've burned literally hundreds of CDs worth of data and music (only a few CDs of photographs) and I've never experienced data corruption that the CD recording software didn't detect (and therefore abort the burn process). I think most cd burners use CRC checks or something similar to verify the data, I think you might be able to specify whether or not to perform this. I know some software will read the entire CD after burning and compare it to your original data to make sure they are identical (mode is usually called "write and verify") but I never use this as it takes about twice as long to burn a CD this way.

Typically if your CD drive burns data faster than your computer can manage, you get an error where your buffer is empty and the CD-writer has nothing to write to the CD. The software or drive detects this and spits out your CD, unfinished and typically unreadable. This isn't really a problem now as modern CD-RW drives / software have "buffer underrun protection" mechanisms.

I think the guy is selling you a bit of a line, unless of course there is some kind of special archival CD type (which there might well be) that needs a special burner to write. And like I said, my google search turned up "archival CDs" but I didn't research this enough to determine whether or not it's hype. Use google and be critical of advertisements and you should be able to get some information. Regardless, as a general rule a modern CD burner will not introduce errors in your data that aren't detected during the write process.

Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 661 Location: manchester, uk

walter23 wrote:

I've burned literally hundreds of CDs worth of data and music (only a few CDs of photographs) and I've never experienced data corruption that the CD recording software didn't detect (and therefore abort the burn process). I think most cd burners use CRC checks or something similar to verify the data, I think you might be able to specify whether or not to perform this. I know some software will read the entire CD after burning and compare it to your original data to make sure they are identical (mode is usually called "write and verify") but I never use this as it takes about twice as long to burn a CD this way.

Nero does that, I always verify written data, it doesn't take that long if you have a fast(ish) burner and pc. Usually at 40x it takes a few mins to write the data and few a verify it... surely doesn't take longer then 10 mins which is awesome considering I remember burning cds when I was like 16 at 8x and it would take 45 mins to an hour or something insane. anyways I think its worth it

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 10:46 pm

Well, I see the 'archival CD burners' advertized in all sorts of photography magazines and sales catalogs and this new 'BurnAway' is suppose to be the top, so it's not just my local place trying to sell me a piece of useless equipment... it's obviously something that's being pushed pretty hard in the entire world of photography. I just wanted to see if anyone felt they were necessary or in some way better than a regular CD burner. I wasn't concerned with any info disappearing after it was in existence... not sure where that came from... sorry if I misworded something. Thanks for all the info.

Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 893 Location: Cincinnati, OH

Umm...Sorry for this, but CD's are burned not burnt!...lol