"Safe" DVD Size

[mbaker_jr]

I have read on this site that when making a DVD-R it is wise not to make it the maximum possible size that the blank can hold. The reasoning is that the dye on the outside of the disc may be unreliable or not evenly distributed (or something along those lines).

My question is: What is a "safe"size for a disc? For example, if I am using DVD Shrink to Backup a disc, should I set the maximum size to 4400 if I want to be on the safe side?

Your comments are welcome.

[SLK001]

Well, if you buy quality media, you can burn to the limits. I routinely create DVDs that are 4,707,000,000 bytes long - and, I don't have playback issues at the ends.

[BJ_M]

there is also an issue with min. sizes .. normally 1gig is considered safe , but recently i saw a project which required 2gigs on the dvd for compatability reasons.

[mbaker_jr]

I use Ritek G04 4X DVD-R media. Would you say that this is high quality enough to handle burning to the maximum possible size without potential problems?

[BJ_M]

I use Ritek G04 4X DVD-R media. Would you say that this is high quality enough to handle burning to the maximum possible size without potential problems?

yes

[SLK001]

If they are true Riteks, then you should be okay. I am also using Riteks and they burn well.

[indolikaa]

Rarely burn past 4.0 on my Taiyo Yudens. No problems burning right up to the limit, though.

[Capmaster]

I've gotten one bad burn that failed at the 98% point, but it was a 4.37Gb burn (4.689 billion bytes - an "RCH" shy of the edge). That was with Princo white-tops and only one bad one. Most of my burns max out at 4.2GB.

[fritzi93]

Perhaps any answer you get will be subjective. But taken together, the empirical experience of the members here is immense. It may be that Indolikaa has expressed something near to a consensus based on all that experience: Dodgy media will often fail if burned to the limit. But if it'll successfully burn at all, 4Gb or so is going low enough.

For example, I got a bunch of K-Hypermedia DVD-Rs real cheap, knowing the generally low opinion of them. Never burn over 4Gb, no coasters yet. Good policy if in doubt. On the other hand almost all my coasters were CMCs, burned to the limit. Those burned at 4Gb are okay. Not definitive proof, but there ya go. If you need to fill a disc with a long movie/least compression, use known good media.

[Kingnog]

Not to start a flame war, but....I have to voice the opinion of us Princo users

I've burned about 50 Princo's, all to the max...no playback problems yet. And please dont start with that stuff about the disks 'decaying'....I dont believe any of that, and theres no real proof

[Craig Tucker]

Ritec G04's are excellent discs you should not have any problems burning them to full capacity.

[sacajaweeda]

I never compromise quality by not using of all available space on a disc. If I get a bad disc then I re-burn it. If I get a bunch of bad burns on a spindle I toss it and buy more.

[SLK001]

Not to start a flame war, but....I have to voice the opinion of us Princo users

I've burned about 50 Princo's, all to the max...no playback problems yet. And please dont start with that stuff about the disks 'decaying'....I dont believe any of that, and theres no real proof

To paraphrase a famous quote, "Those who do not heed the lessons of mistakes made by others are doomed to repeat them."

[Kingnog]

To paraphrase a famous quote, "Those who do not heed the lessons of mistakes made by others are doomed to repeat them."

What mistake? Are you saying that using Princo's are mistakes? You're just asking for trouble...I have the white-top "starlogic" princos, 1x (burns at 2x fine), burnt about 50 ... like i said, no problems, they date back to a year ago...

Old cd's same thing...no problems (from 3-4 years ago), and those were all cheap, 'free with mail in rebate' disks. So...shush.

[SLK001]

Hey, if they work well for you, then stick with them. I never had any luck with my Princo DVD-Rs, but that was over 2 years ago. My Princo DVD-RWs are still running well (go figure).

So, I guess that I will "shush up".

[Perro Grande]

Honestly, with the exception of some KHypermedia pieces of crap that I bought shortly after getting my first DVD-R recorder, I have not had any significant coaster problems with any of the various types that I use.

Either way, I usually shoot for around 4GB when making video DVD's -- this allows me some "wiggle room" if the audio is larger than expected, and for menu overhead, etc. Perhaps I'm sacrificing a little bit in terms of bitrate by doing this, but it sure beats finding out after a lengthy transcode that the results are 15K too big...

For data DVD's, I routinely push them right to the limit that Nero allows without issue.

[WuphonsReach]

I shoot for 4.00 to 4.10 Gb and then fill the rest of the disc with PAR2s created by QuickPar. Lets me check the disc later and possibly recover a disc that is going bad or that has been damaged. Just push the PAR2 files to the outside of the disc.

(I put my PAR2 files in the VIDEO_TS folder with no ill effect, but YMMV. Also suggest that you use a block size of 4Mb or 8Mb to make calculation quicker.)