software that detects errors?

[POD84]

I'm considering purchasing an external blu ray drive. My pc only has a dvd drive. I was wondering if there is a software that will detect errors on the blu ray discs? For example if a disc is scratched, is there a program that be used to detect if the disc will have errors instead of having to watch everything on the disc to find out.

[Katatonia]

VSO Inspector or DVDInfoPro do a good job checking possible surface & CRC read errors on CD/DVD/Blu-ray/UHD discs... depending on what disc formats your PC drive is capable of reading.

VSO Inspector is freeware, and perfectly accurate with its results. DVDInfoPro is paid software, but has a detailed sector graph scan where you can visually tell exactly where the errors occur on a disc and/or on which layers.

Either program will let you know if a disc has any read errors on the drive you're checking the discs on... but that doesn't necessarily mean a different drive won't encounter problems reading the same disc.

[POD84]

Originally Posted by Katatonia

VSO Inspector or DVDInfoPro do a good job checking possible surface & CRC read errors on CD/DVD/Blu-ray/UHD discs... depending on what disc formats your PC drive is capable of reading.

VSO Inspector is freeware, and perfectly accurate with its results. DVDInfoPro is paid software, but has a detailed sector graph scan where you can visually tell exactly where the errors occur on a disc and/or on which layers.

Either program will let you know if a disc has any read errors on the drive you're checking the discs on... but that doesn't necessarily mean a different drive won't encounter problems reading the same disc.

hmm i see. thank you.

[avexhype]

I don't believe so, even so more with scuffs, scratches, or smudges on discs. For a program suite to detect those type of things, it must be command-proof, sector-guided, and programmable within prior operating systems like Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows XP.

[kevers7290]

Bumping this thread. I'm looking for a Mac OS compatible program that can detect errors/bad sectors etc. on Blu-ray discs. I used IMGburn on PCin the past, but there seems to be no Macintosh equivalent.

[David M]

I'd be surprised if there is anything on the Mac. Apple turned its back on optical media a while ago, and they also don't seem to care about modern OSs running older software.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by Klumbo

Once you have a spend plan, you can socialize it with your executive team. I recommend sharing it with your sales counterparts first to get their buy-in. After all, if you’re investing in areas that they wont take advantage of, then why bother? Your goal with socializing the spend plan is to build consensus here. At the end of the day, no one gets paid in leads or conversion rates.

This has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

[Spooked]

Has anyone used AnyBurn for detecting errors?

[danielrg]

Originally Posted by Katatonia

VSO Inspector or DVDInfoPro do a good job checking possible surface & CRC read errors on CD/DVD/Blu-ray/UHD discs... depending on what disc formats your PC drive is capable of reading.

VSO Inspector is freeware, and perfectly accurate with its results. DVDInfoPro is paid software, but has a detailed sector graph scan where you can visually tell exactly where the errors occur on a disc and/or on which layers.

Either program will let you know if a disc has any read errors on the drive you're checking the discs on... but that doesn't necessarily mean a different drive won't encounter problems reading the same disc.

I downloaded VSO Inspector and gave it a try. The installer wanted to install a driver which I declined, but it still gave me the option to run the disc scan. Does anyone know if installing the "driver" enables more scanning features?

Anyway, I bought the Rocky Heavyweight Collection which is 6 discs, and 3 of them had some light scratches on the edges. I didn't want to exchange the set if I didn't need to, so I wanted to test the discs without watching/ripping them (ripping them to SSD wastes it's life since I'd just delete the ripped files).

Inspecting the Rocky BluRay from the set, VSO inspector ran at about 3x speed when scanning layer 1 of the BluRay, then dropped to about 1.5x speed when scanning layer 2 of the BluRay.

Here's a screenshot of it partway through the surface scan (it's past 50% so it already checked the edge with the light scratches and it didn't have issues)



Overall it took 1 hours 3 minutes to do the surface scan the BD-50 (43.7 GB used on the disc) with my Pioneer BDR-XD05S external USB drive. It showed status of sectors being scanned.

Then it ran the file test. This appears to read each of the files and make sure there are no errors. It shows status by filename during this test (e.g. E:\DCMV\STREAM\xxx.m2ts) It took 1 hour 9 minutes and also passed.

I think it's important to note that it appears that VSO Inspector can't detect disc issues of they can be corrected by the drive. The drive's firmware will automatically correct errors using the disc's FEC if it can, before it returns the data to the operating system. The only time the OS knows about errors is if they cannot be FEC corrected by the drive. Technically for playback, uncorrectable errors are the only errors that matter. I believe occasional, FEC correctable read errors happen even with perfectly good discs.

Then just to compare, I ripped the BluRay using MakeMKV, and it ripped without any issues.

One more note - I have found that this drive is a bit more sensitive than my actual BluRay players hooked to my TVs (I have a Sony and a Panasonic) and will show issues that will often not be noticeable on watching. That's because those players can just "skip a frame or two" resync to the track and keep on playing. Things like MakeMKV will choke trying to rip a consistent file if there are any errors. I've had discs I can watch without any visible errors/glitches (even knowing where they are based on my rip attempts) that I cannot successfully rip. In one case I returned the disc and the other one had the same "authoring" error even though it looked pristine, but it played on all my players no problem.

Alternatively, I have not yet had a disc that wouldn't play in one of my players but that WOULD rip successfully. So I generally trust my computer's BluRay drive to test discs.

[danielrg]

Originally Posted by Spooked

Has anyone used AnyBurn for detecting errors?

I haven't used it, but in reading about it from your link, I think the only function that could find errors would be the "Copy Disc to ISO" function. The "rip" function only works with CDs.

I have used MakeMKV and it certainly will find errors, but it will only find the _first_ error because it will give up after that. Well you can try titles individually to see what can rip... but it isn't really a "test" because it isn't comprehensive. It IS a test in that if it completes successfully I know the disc will play in a regular DVD/BluRay player.

I imagine AnyDVD would be similar - the rip would just fail at some point but it might not tell you what sector or why.

[Katatonia]

Originally Posted by danielrg

I downloaded VSO Inspector and gave it a try. The installer wanted to install a driver which I declined, but it still gave me the option to run the disc scan. Does anyone know if installing the "driver" enables more scanning features?

I don't think it makes any difference as far as scanning discs is concerned.

Originally Posted by Spooked

Has anyone used AnyBurn for detecting errors?

Originally Posted by danielrg

I haven't used it, but in reading about it from your link, I think the only function that could find errors would be the "Copy Disc to ISO" function. The "rip" function only works with CDs.

AnyBurn has a "Disc Surface Test" on the main menu screen. It's a better checker overall than VSO Inspector since it has a sector graph screen similar to the one in DVDInfoPro. It's what I mainly use now to check discs.

Here's a screenshot from AnyBurn:



They all pretty much work the same in the end though. If a disc has an issue, any of them should detect it in the same drive.

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by kevers7290

Bumping this thread. I'm looking for a Mac OS compatible program that can detect errors/bad sectors etc. on Blu-ray discs. I used IMGburn on PCin the past, but there seems to be no Macintosh equivalent.

You'll be best off installing Windows via VMware Fusion or Parallels, and just running Windows on your Mac. You can still install Windows for free this way.

[danielrg]

Originally Posted by Katatonia

I don't think it makes any difference as far as scanning discs is concerned.

AnyBurn has a "Disc Surface Test" on the main menu screen. It's a better checker overall than VSO Inspector since it has a sector graph screen

Funny the website help pages don't show that option. Must've been added in a version later than they used to make the help pages. I installed it and there it is!

It does say it on the AnyBurn main page though so my mistake for missing that:



So I also used this feature "Disc Surface Test" to scan my Rocky disc (see my last post) - it took 1 hr 3 min, the same time as VSO Inspector took, and appears to be the same test as the VSO Inspector "surface scan" (under the hood anyway).

It is nice to have the sector/block map , and it also has a "time elapsed/remaining" and tells the speed in MB/s which are all nice.

Here's a shot from me testing Rocky BluRay:



I hope the thread is useful for future interested parties!

I'm hoping I've done my part:

[Toscaclarinet]

Just adding in a note in support of VSO Inspector. I use it to scan every single disc I buy because sometimes I am not going to get around to watching something for a while. Then if I get playback issues later I know it is not the fault of the disc. Films generally take 45 mins to 2 hours depending on size and also the disc layout. I generally set it off scanning and then leave it so I don't really care about having a graph display.