Originally posted by: pxc
Are there any PC test programs besides Plextor's Q-Check that can report C1 errors? Nero CD-DVD Speed won't let me select "Report C1 errors" on my Pioneer DVR-105 or LiteOn LTR-52327 burners.
If you have a Lite-On (as well as most Sony/Lite-Ons), or certain recent Sanyo burners, then you can use "CDDoctor" (for Win32/ASPI), or "WSES" (for DOS - AFAIK there is no Windows version yet).
Sanyo also sells a very expensive testing program, it may also be called "CD Doctor", but the program I'm talking about is free, and originally written by someone in Japan, but there are Englsh-translated versions on the internet.
That being said, I recently decided that Nero's CDSpeed tester is probably better. Although it cannot report C1 errors, it will show a dip in the transfer-rate graph if the drive's firmware has to re-read something. CDDoctor will not show that, although it will show C1 errors. Actually, running both utils probably isn't a bad idea. Both will of course report C2 errors on a Lite-On drive.
Originally posted by: pxc
When I worked at a CD replication plant we had all kinds of dedicated testing analyzers that can report far more info on disc quality than the *toy utilities* available on the PC.

I'm still heavily biased for and against certain brands based on how awesome or horrible the brands tested in those analyzers (Kodak is unbelievably bad, blue AZO media with a good reflective layer is amazingly good... very, very low BLER rates).
Thank you for that "professional" confirmation on azo. It matches what I've found in my experience as well. I actually think that those are the best media out there, the Mitsubishi azo discs, in terms of compatibility/longevity/quality. I'm surprised that Kodak's tested so bad, but I did have some issues with their "InfoGuard Silver" media.