Nero burning under 4x

[MasterThomasMI]

Greetings Folks

I've found an option in Nero that tells what the actual burn speed is while burning.

I was surprised to see that with 16x media Nero is burning at under 4x.

Is this possible ?

How can I calculate the estimated burn time for 4.7Gb on a 16x media ?

Smoker

[redwudz]

I found a chart at Cnet that show burning speed for different media. Scroll down the page a little: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-7613_7-5135505-2.html

I wouldn't expect a 16X to burn at 4X unless Nero set that speed. I use that same Nero mod and the speed while burning varies, depending on what part of the disc is being burned, but it doesn't go that low if set at 16X or 12X.

[MasterThomasMI]

I have found that the burner was in PIO mode so I've changed that to Ultra33 (Highest that this BenQ supports apparently).

I've gotten the burn to about 7.5x. I wonder (besides the idea of the drive being bad) what other settings I might be missing to set correctly.

BTW Thanks for your post redwudz

Smoker

[redwudz]

Sorry, I should have mentioned DMA/PIO mode problems.

Windows will change from DMA to PIO on a drive when it has six consecutive retries at reading. Unfortunately, it won't inform you of this change. The first thing you want to do if your drive has suddenly slowed down is to check to see if it's changed to PIO mode. Windows does this automatically to make a last try at reading the disc. But the problem is that it won't change back automatically. Email MS about this screwup and if enough of us do it, they may correct it. Here's what I usually post for DVD burner/reader slowdown problems:

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.

From there, if no luck, get back to us.

My Benq shows as DMA 2, though I think it should be DMA 4. That's after an uninstall of the channel. With most burners, you also want to use a 80 conductor ATA cable. If the individual wires look similar in size to a floppy cable, it's likely not a 80 conductor cable. The cable ends are the same on both cables.

[MasterThomasMI]

I am sure about the cable and now of the DMA

I reinstalled Nero and things are looking up.

As you can see the time for a ~4.7 Gb dvd took 6:26 minutes.
Not under the 6 Minutes that your referenced link earlier suggested though.
It turns out that the lead-in takes 17 seconds and the lead-out 31 seconds.
Thats obviously 48 seconds of time.

Smoker

[redwudz]

~six minutes sounds about right. I don't think that's a exact number from that chart. There's not a lot of speed difference between 16X and 12X. I've tended to reduce from 16X to 12X lately, even though I've had no problems with 16X with TY media.

If you are using that Nero mod that shows the speed variations during burning, it moves around quite a bit. I've never seen it stay anywhere near 16X, usually 9X or thereabouts, depending on what part of the DVD it is burning on. As long as it's not stuck on 4X, I would say it's good.

In case others aren't aware of the Nero mod to show actual burning speed, this from Capmaster: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1618084#1618084

[MasterThomasMI]

I do see towards the end of the burn it approaching 16x but thats ok, burning around 6 minutes is alot better than the 23-25 minutes I was getting.

I would like to find out if the lead-in and lead-out time could be cut down some but not something I am going to try and figure out right now. Just happy with this being fixed

Smoker