FalconMedia Pro Ultra Hard Coat Scratch Resistance

FTI’s Ultra Hard Coat (UHC) scratch resistance technology is the most reliable solution to protect mission-critical data against potential disc surface contaminants and mishandling. Applied to the media’s polycarbonate layer during the manufacturing process, UHC technology dramatically increases the disc’s scratch resistance and also helps fend off other contaminants such as smudges from fingerprints. Because most spills and other contaminants cannot readily bind to the UHC surface, the disc easily wipes clean. Performance is not impacted, and the data is protected.

Ultra Hard Coat vs. Standard Disc Abrasion Test

Abrasion Test

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TEST REPORT: FTI ULTRA HARD COAT (UHC)

This report describes comparison of scratch resistance of UHC DVD-R compared to standard DVD-R.

A device called the Taser Abraser was was used to apply uniform stress and scratches on the tested discs. The scratched discs were then tested for electrical performance and visualized under a microscope.

Figure 1: Taser Abraser 5135 used in this test, standard equipment in the optical disc industry to evaluate hard coat materials.

Results

Scratch resistance comparison between standard disc and UHC disc was done at different number of abrasion cycles. The discs were recorded before the test and measured after abrasion test on the DVD CATS tester. The evaluated parameter is max PiSum 8, which corresponds to the number of errors during reading of already recorded data from the disc. The DVD spec for maximum PiSum 8 errors is 280, but discs often perform with no problems up to PiSum 8 of 560.

taber uhc graph

Figure 2: An example of impact of Taber Abraser test on PiSum 8 on UHC disc with 10 abrasion cycles.

Figure 3: Result of scratch test with different cycles on UHC discs and standard discs.

Tests were performed with different number of abrasion cycles. Discs without Falcon Ultra Hard Coat protection performed very poorly and failed after even 1 abrasion cycle.

	UHC Disc (max PiSum 8 errors)	Standard disc (max PiSum 8 errors)
1 cycle	Not tested	1050 (read failure)
5 cycles	90	1500 (read failure)
10 cycles	140	1500 (read failure)
20 cycles	195	1500 (read failure)
30 cycles	300	1500 (read failure)
40 cycles	420	1500 (read failure)
50 cycles	600	1500 (read failure)
Table 1: Result of scratch test with different cycles on UHC discs and stadard discs without Falcon Ultra Hard Coat protection. Average value of errors was tested in scratched area.

To visualize the differences the discs were examined under a microscope:

uhc vs standard disc

Conclusion

Ultra Hard Coat provides excellent scratch protection for the discs. UHC discs show sufficient scratch resistance up to 40-50 abrasion cycles, while standard discs show read errors already after 1 abrasion cycle. Microscope images show considerably less scratches on UHC discs compared to standard discs.

Report provided by Falcon Technologies International.