Idiot needs help

[bitter_old_man]

What burner do you have? What firmware version?

Barry

[bitter_old_man]

I've only burned one DL disc so far and I used DVD Decrypter to burn it. It worked perfectly.

Barry

[BaysideBas]

In my experience don't try to burn at the highest rated speed, regardless of media. Even with brand name media such as Verbatim. I got a couple of cake boxes of the Verbatim "looks like a movie reel" media, rated at 4X, and burned at least a dozen coasters, would get a write error about 2/3 of the way through every disc. It wasn't until I throttled back to 2X that I was successful in burning on those discs. Since then, I've found other media that, in one instance, would suffer from compatibility problems on playback. Throttling back the burn speed corrected that as well. And, since the burn process is actually a small part of the authoring process, I have instituted a policy of using no more than 1/2 the rated speed on all my projects and I'm that much happier with the results.

[bitter_old_man]

I've burned several hundred DVDs at 16x on my NEC-3500 with no problems. There are also plenty of documented cases (PIE/PIF scans) where media burned at less than its rated speed results in a poorer quality burn.

Always keep your burner's firmware up to date. The firmware contains the writing strategies for media. Updated firmware may contain improved writing strategies for old media and writing strategies for new media.

Barry

[Anole]

I've tried slowing down my burns, in hopes of getting better discs.
After several hundred (of many types of blanks), I don't really know for sure if it helps or not (any more).

The main reason I slow down, is to make sure the computer can keep up with the data requiremens of burning two DVDs at the same time, at 8x or 12x.
As long as I don't launch -some- as-yet undetermined application, they generally work fine.

But I gotta say, -some- newer burners beat the pants off -some- older burners, and that has to come down to writing strategies.
Or, it may just be better drives, but what is "better" about them?

For years, I'd fought with a top of the line, name brand burner.
I updated the firmware whenever I got impatient.
My test case was a direct DVD to HD to DVD copy, so nothing about editing nor authoring applied.
My results were ... sporadic at best.
Last summer I got an 8X NEC 2500 burner, and all of a sudden, I could do no wrong.
It wasn't just the new media I had. All my old 1x, and 2X media suddenly was gold!

I've since graduated to dual NEC 3520's, and as mentioned, can burn two DVDs at once, certainly at 8X, and with some media even at 12X.
(I'm not pushing 8X media to 12X, that's what the drive recommended)

So, either your problem has to do with authoring and the burning software, or it's the media, or it just might be the drive.

[BaysideBas]

There are also plenty of documented cases (PIE/PIF scans) where media burned at less than its rated speed results in a poorer quality burn.

Barry, then are you saying that those using older burners should not be using them to burn to media rated faster than the burners are capable of?