In my last post, I detailed the haul of BDXL media that I managed from my trip to Japan earlier this year. Now it was time to put the discs to use, by backing up the photos I took from that trip.
Software Tools
Interestingly, I came to quickly realise that many of the usual suspects when it comes to optical disc and drive testing software did not support BDXL.
Nero CD-DVD Speed would have come from a time too far back to know of BDXL, so it thinks its a dual-layer disc instead, with the plot truncated at 50GB.
Opti Drive Control doesn’t fare much better – it seems to run the test, with the plot exceeding the width of the window. After a while, it simply crashes. I had some hopes for this as this was the spiritual successor to the above, but it may just be the case that BDXL media was just too niche.
ImgBurn is always useful to have around – it supports BDXL burning just fine and can burn “discovery” test discs just fine (a bit of a waste though). It even logs burn speed data into “.ibg” files for plotting (note the license). Nevertheless, the author of ImgBurn developed a tool for this purpose called BurnPlot …
… and to my surprise, it too makes the assumption of a 50GB BD-R DL disc size. Surprising how such a subtle thing can expose the assumptions made by the developers.
Now there is a tool out there which I will decline to name that explicitly indicates support for BDXL. In the past, I have tried the software, but I found the UI to be lacking even though it does have some very specific features not found elsewhere. However, I do remember that the author of that particular tool had a particular disagreement with a large optical media forum (since defunct, of which I was a member) over allegations which they declined to prove and the whole kerfuffle exposed a number of things that the author had done, which in my opinion, were unfortunate and detrimental to the optical disc scanning community. Those who were around at the time will know what I’m talking about, but this is something I really don’t want to discuss in any detail not knowing the full facts. Given the situation, since then, I have not felt any desire to support this software. Apparently there were also disagreements with other forums and authors of software tools which were publicly noted (although some of it is only available in the archives or lost to time). Needless to say, I think this is not highly relevant nowadays …
Mainly because we have a new option, in the form of QPxtool, an open-source, free tool for checking quality. Originally intended to aid the Linux users in accessing the same functionality as available as in Windows-only tools (e.g. PlexTools), it seems to have evolved to support a variety of drives and features. The official version is a bit dated, so I grabbed this unofficial enhanced version with a build for Windows …
It seems this tool has no problems supporting BDXL discs – above is a transfer rate test for a three-layer disc and below, a transfer rate test for a four-layer disc. The tool also supports quality testing, but you’ll need a compatible drive (more on this in the following parts).
It also shows just how nice the Pioneer BDR-X13JBK’s BDXL read capability is – a nearly CLV 6x (~5.8x) readback is much faster than a CAV 6x.
Burn #1 – HiDisc TL BD-R @ 6x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
First disc off the block is the defective HiDisc-branded Verbatim.
I decided to try the first one at the full 6x maximum burn speed that the BDR-X13JBK would allow. It succeed with some noticeable WOPC slowdowns likely due to the defects, completing a nearly-full disc in just under an hour and five minutes.
Unfortunately, it seems the defect was big enough to cause a file to be unreadable. The rest of the disc is still verified okay, but this lengthened the process quite a bit. I guess the error correction just isn’t enough to compensate for the gaping hole in at one of the layers.
The burned area is clearly visible, with the hole in the disc being very close to the inner-radius.
Testing the disc using my LG BH16NS55 and QPxtool, it is clear that the disc has a slow read on L1 (second layer) and a failure to read near the beginning of L2 (third layer). Not the greatest start.
Burn #2 – Verbatim TL BD-R @ 6x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
This time, I chose a disc from the Verbatim-branded stash, so no defects this time.
Write and verification completed successfully at 6x (note – I forgot to capture a screenshot of the write completing).
The underside is similarly darkened by the burn process with no noticeable patterns or defects.
A cross-check with the LG BH16NS55 shows no issues at all. Note how the 6x CAV readback the LG is capable of is only ~4.19x average. This makes the Pioneer significantly faster.
Burn #3 – Ritek TL BD-R @ 6x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
Time for the Ritek discs. I’ve not been a fan of Ritek since they burned me badly in the early days of BD-R, but perhaps they’ve changed?
No problems here at all, it seems the write and verification completed at the full 6x.
The underside also shows a nice and even darkening with the burn, no discernable patterns.
No problems reading the burn in the LG BH16NS55 either, with a smooth transfer-rate test (TRT) curve.
Burn #4 – Sony QL BD-R @ 6x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
This one’s probably going to be the most expensive disc I’ve burned in a while, but you only live once, right? Let’s push the pedal to the metal and see what happens.
No problems it would seem – burn and verify at 6x. Burn time is about an hour and 22 minutes which is long. Reminds me of burning CDs at 1x in the old days …
The light golden surface has darkened slightly, but it remains just as translucent and much brighter than the triple-layer discs.
This too, seems to read out just fine on the LG BH16NS55. Smooth curves indeed. So it seems workable discs are possible at 6x.
Burn #5 – HiDisc TL BD-R @ 2x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
This time, choosing a non-defective disc from the pile, let’s see how we get on at 2x.
A 2x burn takes three times as long (roughly) as a 6x burn, completing in just shy of three hours and eight minutes.
It verifies as being burned correctly, so HiDisc products can work (when they don’t have holes in them).
The problem with TRT tests is that the curve is just as smooth – so we can’t exactly tell if this burn is better or worse …
Burn #6 – Ritek TL BD-R @ 2x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
The Ritek also burned at a similar time at 2x and verified successfully.
Another smooth curve. All is well!
Burn #7 – HiDisc TL BD-R @ 2x LG BH16NS55
Why should my Pioneer drive be having all the fun? Time for the LG to prove it can burn too.
It turns out, the LG burns a little quicker – when 2x is selected, it actually achieves 2.1x for a three-hour and two-minute burn! Verification is successful, as expected.
The LG has no trouble reading back its own burn. If you’re wondering why I didn’t test it in the Pioneer … well, it was busy and I didn’t feel like wearing out its blue laser …
Burn #8 – Sony QL BD-R @ 2x Pioneer BDR-X13JBK
Time for a slow and steady burn with the second of three Sony QL discs.
This burn took an agonising four hours to complete, but it did verify much faster at 6x.
Readback was similarly perfect as previous burns. Can’t really complain, but I’d have to say that XL in BDXL probably also stands for “eXtra Long” time …
Some Rewriting Action: Sony TL BD-RE
As I’m on a new computer, I just whacked a BD-RE in and hit burn on the ImgBurn Discovery option. Little did I know, the default setting is not to use “FastWrite” (i.e. no verify) and thus, it seems that this write was done with verify.
As a result, we have a new record for slowest burn ever. This disc took just shy of six and three-quarter hours to burn with an average write rate of 0.9x (i.e. 2x write with verify-after-write).
The disc did get darker after the burn and its slightly chocolatey-brown colour is noticeably different from the BD-R varieties.
The TRT is smooth, but only at 4x. I suspect this may be a limitation of the LG BH16NS55’s capabilities.
As it was a rewritable disc, I tried rewriting it in the LG BH16NS55 but I found that a quick erase managed to error out for some reason. I tried a full erase which took three hours with a write retry.
Learning from my previous mistakes, this time I wrote with FastWrite and had a separate verify pass thereafter. This time, the LG seems only to have read the disc back at 2x, rather than 4x. Is this a sign that the BD-RE write quality or reflectivity is low after multiple passes? I’m not sure. But it still seems to read back slowly but smoothly …
Conclusion
Overall, it seems that the BDXL format just works with all burns at both 6x and 2x verifying successfully and showing smooth TRTs on the LG BH16NS55 with the exception of the defective disc that literally had a hole in a layer. Triple-layered discs took about an hour to burn at 6x, or three hours at 2x. Four-layer discs took about an hour and 20 minutes to burn at 6x or about four hours at 2x. I’d have to joke that the “XL” in BDXL probably also stands for “eXtra Long” time required to burn these discs. The readback capability of the Pioneer BDR-X13JBK in its ~6x CLV is also notably faster than the 6X CAV of the LG BH16NS55.
The BD-RE might well be pushing the limits. I’m not sure if it’s just my particular disc, but it seems the first write from virgin status was fine, but the LG BH16NS55 had issues with rewrites at one very particular spot on the disc. Perhaps there’s a tiny scratch on the surface layer, but this is perhaps a risk as BDXL really pushes the optical capabilities of blue-violet lasers to the limit.
As I had a few more discs, I ended up doing a few more writes which I haven’t posted about here. But my fears still remain – a disc that tests with a smooth TRT may be anywhere from an excellent burn to a marginal burn that error correction can “hide”. How good are my burns and how do I find out? Stay tuned for the next part …
Thank you for this research. I am planning to archive some of my data on BDXL too, I don’t have that much trust in HDD and SSD in term of longetivity, it defo set my mind of whatI shd do.