VSO offers participation in anonymous drive/media database

March 30, 2005

Beginning with Blindwrite version 5.2.12 and CopyToDVD version 3.0.49, users may opt to join a program that will compile a new performance type database for drives and media. This is optional of course and can be skipped during the installation. The details of the program can be found on this webpage or can be read below:

Media and hardware statistics :

In order to improve the quality of our software, and to establish a chart of good media based on real world experience on a wide range, we collect media and hardware information.

Participation in this program is free, anonymous, and optional. It requires an internet connection.

If the user refuses to participate, no information is sent
If the user accept to participate, a small block of information is posted at completion of each burning sequence.
The informations sent are very small and no noticeable impact on system performance.

What information is collected:

Each time a burning sequence finishes, the following information are automatically posted to our web site :

The VSO software that has submitted this
information, and it's version number (ex: "C3 3.0.48.94" for CopyToDVD)

The burning device manufacturer and model string
(ex: "PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-108")

The firmware revision of the burning device (ex:
"1.18")

The inserted media identification string (ex:
"RICOHJPN-W01-01", a ricoh DVD+RW media)

A unique identifier for the media (a hash
string, which differ for each series of media. this help to find out if
media is fake of good quality brand)

Media Kind (a numeric code representing the type
of media DVD-R, DVD+R, ...)

Logical Write Speed (The information returned by
the drive)

Burn Size (size in sectors of the data to be
burned)

Written Size (size in sectors of the data
effectively burned)

Burn Date (When it's been burned)

Completion Time (Time to burn, from start of
lead-in to start of lead-out, with Written Size will give us the real
writing speed)

Status (a code telling is everything went ok, or in case of error, what kind of error we had)

All these informations sent are protected with a hash key, to avoid malicious attempts to send faked informations.

We *do not* collect any information that may help identifying a given computer or person.

How it's turned on or off :

A registry key used to store the flag for participating
to this media statistic program.

Open Regedit (click "Start" menu, then click
"Run..." and type "regedit" and OK)

browse key
:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareVSOCopyToCD

search Value:"Web_media_stats" (REG_DWORD)

if absent or set to 0, no information is sent
if present and set to 1, the aforementionned information is sent

Why did VSO implement this feature?

"For VSO, it will be an opportunity to be more reactive and provide more reliable products. By detecting new drives released in the market, latest firmware, and statistics about media usage and failure rate, the real time information will be used to improve the technical support and knowledge. We don't collect any information about users or the kind of data burnt. Of course, this is optional, and users can deactivate the feature at the installation.

Drive and media manufacturers will be able to benefit of the data collected to improve their own products as well. They can contact us for more information.

Users will benefit of this exciting database by checking which drive and media are the most reliable. A special web space will be available in a few weeks for end-users and webmasters."

Those of you
wanting to keep up with further information on this new database or other VSO products may visit their website. This seems as though it
could become a nice featue and it reminds me a bit of video card performance
results that are posted on the web, where you can see which combinations of hardware give the best results. Except this database will offer quite a few more interesting stats. It also seems to be well thought out as they have tried to stop people from adding erroneous information. Might be interesting to read what is compiled, depending on what ths new page looks like.

Source: VSO