From: D Yuniskis on
Hi George,

George Neuner wrote:
> With my unit I found a significant difference between the finding of
> hand entered coordinates (charting a course) vs recording the current
> coordinates while on station. Most likely the coordinate registers
> had more precision than the display and what could be hand entered.

I think this is one of the "cardinal sins" of user interface
design! Machine can't hide anything from the user that the
user is allowed to specify.

> Cruising to a new destination, I'd would get within 100 or so feet of
> the waypoint buoy (or whatever) - easy visual range if not in bad
> weather. But if I maneuvered right next to the buoy and replaced the
> hand entered waypoint with a recorded one, even if the displayed
> coordinates were the same, on the way back the unit would steer me
> right over it.
From: JW on
On Wed, 19 May 2010 16:11:28 -0400 George Neuner <gneuner2(a)comcast.net>
wrote in Message id: <c638v5p5ohqtsivtqjcdi7vm2emk92bqnc(a)4ax.com>:

>No.
>
>First, music CDs (stamped or burned) have no error correction.

Not true.

http://www.samsungodd.com/eng/Information/ODDTech/ODDTech.asp?functionvalue=view&type_no=3&no=8

"Each track on an Audio CD consists of sectors with each sector containing
1.75 seconds of audio. Also, each sector has error detection and
correction codes to prevent or correct any possible data error or damage,
as well as the control that tells exact location of the audio."

and

"Audio CD (Red Book, CD-DA)
First CDs were for audio, so the CD-ROM of today is divided into
time and track. Sector is the basic unit that constitutes each track.
Sectors contain error correction code (ECC), as well as audio data. As a
result, A little scratches on disc surface do not translate into any sound
troubles."
From: D Yuniskis on
Hi George,

George Neuner wrote:
> On Tue, 18 May 2010 13:12:19 -0700, D Yuniskis
> <not.going.to.be(a)seen.com> wrote:
>
>> George Neuner wrote:
>>> On Mon, 17 May 2010 09:52:20 -0700, D Yuniskis
>>> <not.going.to.be(a)seen.com> wrote:
>>>> Is there an easy/high-speed way to verify prerecorded
>>>> media is "playable"? E.g., discs that see lots of
>>>> circulation (e.g., "Blockbusters", public library, etc)
>>>> that need to be verified as "undamaged" before being
>>>> reintroduced into circulation?
>>> There's no way for you to check the integrity of the stamped aluminum
>>> cookie other than to try to play it ... on the production line where
>> Why is that? Can't you just "read" it in a DVD-R
>> (or whatever)? Verify no read errors, etc.?
>
> No.
>
> First, music CDs (stamped or burned) have no error correction. Data

Huh? I thought CD's had a CRC and that the CRC was physically
distributed around the track to take advantage of the fact
that "scratches" are "local". <frown> Though this is just
a remnant of a memory from years ago -- maybe it pertained
to MO drives?

> CDs and all DVD formats do have block error correction ... but being

OK, you've confused me (too early in the morning to be thinking :>).
"... have no error correction" "do have block error correction" ??

> playable means only that error correction or overscanning allowed the
> particular drive used to get a clean or repeatable read. Another
> drive may not be so lucky.

OK. But isn;t that true of any removable medium? I.e., just
because I can read a floppy, doesn't mean *you* can read it (?)

> Overscanning is rereading the block[*] with the head offset. Consumer

Offsetting the head hopes to get a better read than where it
*should* be reading the track? (I was under the impression
the head was servoed to *follow* the track's location)

> disc players now typically overscan (up to) 4..16 times with varying
> head positions. The ability of the drive to overscan makes a big
> difference in how well a damaged disc will play.

OK, so that's just a matter of how "good" the user's "media
player" is. But, is there some "norm" which defines the
criteria that a media player *should* be able to accommodate?
I.e., how do you ensure media from the publisher is "acceptable"
(since "I" may have a crappy player, etc.)

> [*] since CDs and DVDs are recorded using spiral tracks, rereading the
> same area is a complex maneuver. Consumer units have a few seconds of
> delay in playback to allow for read-ahead overscanning.
>
> Since music lacks error correction, music players read the same
> "block" multiple times and play the results if they get a repeatable
> read - they skip if all the read tries return different results. VCD
> and DVD players skip if they exhaust overscan retries without getting
> a (possibly corrected) clean read.

Meaning, their (video) buffers run dry before they can "recover"
so they just "move on". I am trying to recall how my LVD's
handled problems...

> However, most computer disc drives lack overscan (the mechanism is the
> same as the consumer unit but the firmware is different). Computer
> drives generally rely solely on ECC and on the operating system to

Ah, so the "difference" lies in "data" vs "music"?

> retry failed reads. The expectation (realistic or not) is that people
> are more careful handling data discs. Good copiers such as Nero are
> able to make the drive overscan, but it won't do so normally.
> [I don't know if you've personally experienced this, but often a
> scratched disc will play just fine in a consumer player but have fits
> or not play at all on a computer. It is most likely to occur with
> music CDs but can happen with any disc.]

I will have to try this. The only time I have seen problems
with (audio) CD's is when trying to play copied discs in
the car (though I attributed that to using "non-audio" media
and the laser seeing the wrong color ink, etc.)

[I also had a store bought disc which was apparently defective
but that's an exception]

> On the flip side, with recordable discs there is the issue of +R vs -R
> recording formats and media reflectivity. +R players can read -R
> discs, but the reverse is not true. Even if the player can read the
> recording format, it may have problems dealing with different brands
> of discs. All recordable media is less reflective as compared with
> stamped discs and the reflectivity varies by manufacturer (what mix of

Understood.

> dyes is used). With darker discs, the player can perceive phantom
> pits which it interprets as corrupt data.

My experience with recorded DVD's (not data) has been *better*
in the computer than in the player! E.g., I put slide shows,
home movies, etc. on DVDs and can almost always play them
on a PC. Yet, often have problems playing them on a player.
(I discarded one player simply because it had so many problems
with these media that I figured the player was defective!)

> Players that read recordables have a variable reflectivity threshold
> which is determined by trial and error when the disc is inserted and
> identified ... but not all players have enough range to reliably read
> all the different brands of discs.

Ahhhh...

>>> Probably you were looking for an answer like: "stick it in the player
>>> and run this <obscure> software" ... Sorry.
>> Yeah, something the functional equivalent of "playing it and
>> 'watching' it" -- except at high speed. (e.g., a library
>> probably loans thousands of DVDs daily. It's just not
>> practical to "watch" every one as it is returned...
>
> You can take a look at Nero DiscSpeed (www.nero.com) and/or K-Probe
> (www.k-probe.com). They purport to determine disc quality and are
> meant for periodic testing of archive recordables. They can be used
> on any disc, but IMO they really can tell you only how well your own
> equipment is working. I would not go so far as to say a disc which
> passes their tests is widely circulatable.

So, the approach the public library uses -- regardless of *what*
it actually is -- is flawed. Even if they have a consumer player
"in the back room" and sit and watch every disc reported as
"defective", there is no guarantee that they will *see* it
as defective! I.e., all they can hope to do is verify
something is GROSSLY defective (my point being: this is a collosal
waste of their time!!)
From: Vladimir Vassilevsky on


George Neuner wrote:


> First, music CDs (stamped or burned) have no error correction. Data
> CDs and all DVD formats do have block error correction ...

You are plain wrong.
RTFM.


Vladimir Vassilevsky
DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
http://www.abvolt.com
From: Grant Edwards on
On 2010-05-20, D Yuniskis <not.going.to.be(a)seen.com> wrote:
> George Neuner wrote:

>> First, music CDs (stamped or burned) have no error correction. Data
>
> Huh? I thought CD's had a CRC and that the CRC was physically
> distributed around the track to take advantage of the fact
> that "scratches" are "local". <frown> Though this is just
> a remnant of a memory from years ago -- maybe it pertained
> to MO drives?

CRC is error detection, not error correction.

--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Let's all show human
at CONCERN for REVERAND MOON's
gmail.com legal difficulties!!