Upgraded my writer, your thoughts on my new speeds?

[joed1228]

DMA is on.

Internal 8X DVD±RW/±R Dual Format Drive
Average burn time is 37 minutes on the dot for every burn.

16X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±RW/±R
Average burn time is now 24 minutes.

These are IO Magic brand writers with Ritek blank DVD's. Are my slow times because of the drives, blanks or something else? The 16x was even used on a P4 3.2 ghz system that's built fairly well.

I am eyeing the new Pioneer 16x burner but this is getting expensive, what do you guys think I should do to get that 8 minute burn time (or something under 15 minutes)?

[tkamin]

something sounds really bad... at X4 it shouldn't be more than 15 minutes...
what's the software? have you tried different media?

[Bodyslide]

On my Pioneer 108 I can burn at 8x in 8-9 minutes, 6x at 11 minutes and 4x at 15 minutes. Is the media only rated at 2x?

[bugster]

Moved you to DVD Writers forum

[joed1228]

I have used Ritek and Supermedia blanks, they havent helped. The Ritek is rated at 4x and the Supermedia is rated at 8x. DVD Shrink says it burns at 4x and 8x too.

I contacted IO Magic, they are no help whatsoever. They literally gave up on me.

[budz]

I contacted IO Magic, they are no help whatsoever. They literally gave up on me.

Return the IO MAGIC drive which is crappy and go buy a PIONEER 108 or a PLEXTOR 712 drive.

[Skith]

I believe the IO Magic is a rebagged NEC 3500A. It is an excellent drive.
Quality wise, my NEC 3500A runs circles around my Plextor 712A.

Check out http://club.cdfreaks.com, specifically the
Hardware Recorder -> NEC forum.

There are many hacked firmwares which allow for overspeeding/better media support, bittsetting, and more (by "The dangerous brothers" "Herrie" and "Liggy"), as well as links to firmware made by TDK, and MADDOG (both companies also sell rebagged NEC 3500A's).
-Please use the search function, most questions have been asked and answered multiple times-

*Flashing with a hacked firmware will void your warranty
***Incorrectly flashing a drive could render it useless.

[-jsl-]

Unless IO Magic has changed manufacturer recently the 16x writer should be a BenQ. Also an excellent drive capable of burning a full DVD in <6 min at 16x speed.

Since you have problems with both writers something must be wrong with your system. Usually it's DMA that is disabled but you obviously already have checked that (and it's really in Ultra DMA mode and not Multi-word DMA or similar?). Maybe problems with motherboard chipset drivers (like Nforce) or if you're running the drive connected to a PCI IDE card try to connect the drive to an IDE port on the motherboard instead.

[Bob W]

Make sure your hard drive is in DMA mode and not PIO mode. Also use 80 pin IDE cables not the 40 pin type.

[SaSi]

For your speeds, I would suspect the media first. Get a brand-name DVD+R rated at 8X and 18X and try that out.

Also, for such high speeds as 8x and 16x, don't ignore the HD performance bottleneck that may become apparent.

I have a pretty fast system and lot's of pretty fast disks all connected by 80 wire cables and verified to give excellent speeds.

However, in real life, most of the drives are now heavily fragmented and some of them almost full.

While I am able to record at 4x while at the same time encoding, converting and capturing from USB, there is NO way I can burn at 8x doing all that. Also, if the source is at a heavily fragmented driver, there is no way I can burn at 16x without constant buffer draining.

So, short advise is:
check with a high quality branded disk (Verbatim, TDK, Phillips are just suggestions), make sure the source material is not on a fragmented drive and burn. Watch the buffer indicators on the recording program (if there are none, use one that has them, like Nero 6).

If the buffer indicators show that buffers are drained, you have an I/O problem either getting data from the HD or sending data to the DVDRW.
If the buffer indicators show to be 95%+ full, and you are still burning at 37 minutes, then you are faced with a media/burner combination problem.