How much lens damage do backups cause?

[jalvarez82]

What I mean is.. What is the life expectancy of a DC lens if you play burnt CDR games all the time?

I've been told that playing backups can cause damage to the lens, so I'm just curious.

Thanks.

[ch0pzta]

Ive done a little bit of research on this recently, and the two main things that seemed to be a common concern were poorly sorted files in the rip itself that causes the laser to seek longer more often, and the use of poor quality discs with lower surface reflection forcing the laser to work harder to read it.


There is no doubt more informative answers to be provided by more knowledgable people than myself but those two points seemed to be mentioned a bit.

[krssn]

There is no doubt more informative answers to be provided by more knowledgable people than myself but those two points seemed to be mentioned a bit.

Nope. You did a good job...

There are however rips that are sorted better than the original. Those rips should compensate for the poorer reflective layer...

[jalvarez82]

Awesome. Thanks guys. You made it pretty clear.

So, poorly made backups will naturally destroy your lens, while good quality backups with more efficient rips won't cause any harm at all.

[krssn]

...more efficient rips won't cause any harm at all.

I wouldn't say that. Even original discs wear the laser out in time.

[jalvarez82]

True. But, decently ripped backups on good quality CDRs will cause less strain. Correct?

[ch0pzta]

I believe so. Might be a job for Mythbusters.

[Raen]

This question is surrounded by myth honestly. Some claim that using burned copies do harm the laser, no matter what, but that's not entirely true. We've answered this already a lot, so doing a search could lead to to the answers, but ch0pzta already summarized.

Food for fought: there are rips that are dummied and even better sorted than the original GD-R counterpart, so what do you think that causes more strain to the laser, the CD-R or the GD-R?

"Burned discs damage/kill the laser" simply put this way is a myth.

Using good quality media is always must, be it on the DC, PC, PlayStation, etc - Taiyo Yuden/JVC and Verbatim AZO (not the Verbatim "Extra Protection" ones made by Moser Baer India) CD-Rs are the best.
When using crappy discs you surely realize that whatever system you use them on, it'll struggle more to read them, be it on the Dreamcast, on PC or a simple room DVD Player.


EDIT: Read from this post onwards and you'll be enlightened.
http://dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtop ... ser#p61698