Tips for more reliable burns?

[Segarza]

Hi guys!

I'm very frustrated that more than half the discs I've burned at 4X or 8X speeds fail Toast's verify, and appear to have some kind of burning error or media defect. I find this totally unacceptable. I've been forced to burn at 1X speed, which results in more compatible and nearly error-free burns. This however takes forever, and add the verification phase time, and it is just too much. Does anyone have any tips? Blank media recommendations, dvd burner drive, etc. anything that will help??

I wonder if there's a faster way to verify a disc's integrity after burning it.

[kai]

what hardware are you running? Could be a buffer underrun problem. (the computer can't spit out the data fast enough to the laser burning the track on the disc)

[Segarza]

Dual G5 with 512MB RAM, Pioneer 107D DVD recorder, using TDK DVD-R Media. I've tried burning with Toast and NTI Dragon Burn, same problem, unless I burn at 1X, more often than not I get discs that don't pass the verification stage. At 1X a 3GB disc takes about 40min, plus verification time, that's too much for me.

I don't think it's a buffer underrun problem, because the discs apparently are fully recorded, if I don't choose to verify, everything would seem ok, in the verification stage is when I get the error, and consequently problems playing the disc .

[Alexa]

Maybe you have a bad batch of discs.

I use a brand called "Mitsui" and rarely get a buffer prob. I believe we have similar hardware and software specs. except I have pioneer 106a?

[Vinnie03]

I've been having the same bad luck! At first I thought it was a bad batch of disks, but I have two different spindles of fuji 8x disks. One is with a printable hub the other is the regular printable type. Then I tried burning on a 4x disk, still same problem. The disks are randomly plagued with glitchy spots, digital glitches i call them I dint know their technical term. Last night, I burned a 30 minute program to dvd using 8x media but recorded at 2x speed, and it worked fine. This is on a P4 3.4ghz system with 512 meg of ram, using SATA maxtor 16mb cache 300 gig drives. I disabled hyper threading and noticed no change. So is this merely a speed problem?

Thanks,
Vince

[Damon_C]

I would make sure your drive is defragged.
You should definitely update the firmware if you haven't already. Firmware is probably the top factor effecting bad burns. The DVR-107D is on this page:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,2076_4273_128163990,00.html

It is also possible to get a bad batch of discs, though if you've already tried a few that's probably not it. Fuji, TDK, and Sony are the most reliable discs I've seen that are commonly available.

You may want to try installing the ASPI layer, just in case. Not sure if this plays a part in newer machines but it works wonders on some systems: http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.jsp?cat=%2FProduct%2FASPI-4.70&filekey=aspi_v471.exe&sess=no

Good luck. You shouldn't have to lower your speed to 1x, so don't settle for that. If necessary, exchange the burner.

[MagnumDB]

I've had many problems with TDKs, to the point where a few years ago, I had gone through half a spool of discs, all coming up as coasters. My Mac was still under warrantee and Apple mailed me out a new DVD drive.

Even with the new drive that shipped to me, I continued to get ONLY bad discs.

Turns out that once I switched the brand of DVD, it worked on the first burn. I switched to Verbatim. I've never had a bad disc since the switch. Not on my own DVD player, and I've never received a callback from clients about bad discs.

It's at the point where I only feel comfortable when I know a Verbatim disc is in my computer. Though it may be time to take a chance at something new - Taiyo Yuden, by JVC.

[Demistate]

Here are my tips for creating high quality DVD discs from a burner

1) Get a new DVD burner every 2 years. The lasers can start to decay after this time. Most Drives "learn" how to burn on media that's not in its internal list. If the laser decays over time this list can become in-accurate. Hacked firmware can reset this list, or force the burner to "re-learn"
2) Buy High quality Media. Tayio Yuden use to be the best. I'm not sure of their quality now that they've been bought by JVC. Ask your media dealer and they will tell you which ones are high quality discs. Not all media is compatible with all drives. The best media are the ones that work the best in your drive. There is no "Best Disc" only a "Best Disc for my Drive/Firmware combo"
3) Use DVD+Rs. They have a hint track built into the disc. This means that they will track easier even if the burn isn't so great
4) Buy software/hardware that supports Book Type setting, so you can make your discs appear as if they are DVD-ROMs and not DVD+Rs. This increases compatibility with older players, even ones that can't read DVD+R discs.
4) Check out http://www.myce.com/ and browse the forums to get tips on creating the best quality burns.
5) Get a tool to check the quality of your discs. Lite-On drives have very good diagnostic tools for determining burn quality.
6) Find out the optimal burn speed from the MYCE forums.
7) Don't buy a Sony Drive. They are rebranded NEC drives with most of the useful diagnostic tools and Book Type changing abilities removed.


Myce forums are a very good resource for all kinds of optical related stuff. I use to use a custom hacked firmware on my older Lite-On drive that increased burn quality with the discs I was using.

This looks like a good place to start:

http://club.myce.com/f61/f-q-pc-dvd-writers-revised-22-april-2006-a-118794/



Good luck down this deep rabbit hole.