VSO-Software presents second report about burners and media use

August 31, 2006

Back in 2005 VSO-Software started with its performance type database for drives and media. Now, approximately 18 month later VSO has presented their second report about burners and media use, a report based on a unique database which contains the data (brand, model, firmware, burn speed, media type….) of more than 14 million! successful and unsuccessful burns, collected by VSO products, such as ConvertXtoDVD, Blindwrite, PhotoDVD and also some 3^rd party products which use VSO technology.

What are the most popular CD and DVD writer manufacturers ? What is the best DVD format to use (+R or -R) ? Is it that important to update the firmware? Have the last trends changed since December 2005 ?

Database summary

Total records	*14.069 million*
Average hits per day	*52 985 new records*
Ratio success	*95 %*
Number of drives	*1 983*
Number of media	*995*
Number of drive manufacturers	58
Number of media manufacturers	18

With 50 000 new records per day we can quickly analyse the behaviour of a new drive and detect compatibility issues. We use this database for support, suggesting the best drive or the best media brand for customers.
The average burning success rate has reached 95%, increasing by 2.5 % since December O5.. Some people may consider it not very high, but the behaviour of customers leads to believe they try several times in case the burn fails, and before realizing it is an issue of poor media quality, or another reason, the success rate is lowered. As we will see later, the best drive combined with the best media can increase the success rate up to 97%.

Compared to their first report, published back in December 2005 , the number of records increased by more than 11 million and based on this data the company awarded NEC with the "Best Drive Manufacturer Award" and MCC/Verbatim with their 'Best Media Manufacturer Award".

Some of you may note now that the success rate is the 'only" measure for the quality of a given drive/firmware/media combination and that there is no other rating included which represents the burning quality of a given drive/media combination. I have to agree, I miss something like this too but a look on some details are indicating that almost only higher quality media have very high success rates. Therefore, an additional disc quality rating is not implicitly required and nevertheless, for many user, this database in combination with VSOs disc and drives analysis tool, VSO Inspector, could be a big help to solve problems and/or to find the best media for their drive/firmware combination.

The full report can be found over at the VSO-Website here.

Source: VSO-Software