DVD Recording speed

[jcsmith]

What is a reasonable DVD burning speed?

I am trying to use my DVD recorder to burn 4.5 GB capacity DVDs (both DVD+r and -R) for backups. The typical burning speed is always about 0.55X. Is this reasonable?

I have a TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652L Cd/DVD recorder supplied by HP in my HP 1210 (with an Athlon 3500+ CPU) computer. I am using Windows XP-Media Center; 512 MB of memory and have tried both the SONIC burning program supplied by HP and Nero 6 burning programs. Tried both TAO and DAO protocols. I have a 200 GB Sata hardrive and a 300 GB ATI slave harddrive. I have tried using both as the source files for burning.

In other words I have tried all variations of software and hardware except for the burner itself. No change in burning times.

Is 1 1/2 hours of burning time for a 4400 MB DVD burn reasonable?


Thanks in advance,
jc

[guns1inger]

Completely unreasonable and shows you have a problem. The most likely cause is that your burner has dropped back to PIO mode. There are dozens of posts with details on how to fix this. The short version is to check your IDE channels through device manager, remove any that show devices running in PIO mode, then restart windows. These devices will be reinstalled automagically, and should rectify themselves. If the devices continually fall back to PIO mode then you should start looking at other causes, including ripping very scratched discs, damages or badly seated cables, or failing HDDs on the same channel.

[blinky88]

I buy Verbatim +R 16x and burn at 6x = <10m, a coaster is extremely rare.

[FulciLives]

I agree with what guns1inger says ... you have a problem if you can only burn at 1x speed.

Once you get that fixed then do as blinky88 says ... burn no faster than 6x speed ... that is a good burning speed for single layer DVD discs. Gets done in about 10 minutes or so.

Why 6x speed? That is the fastest speed you can burn and still get a constant burn rate from start to finish. Once you go to 8x or faster then you get what is called "ramping" where the speed goes up then down then up then down then up as it goes faster and faster. I don't "trust" ramping LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[didikai]

I buy Verbatim +R 16x and burn at 6x = <10m, a coaster is extremely rare.

Just as an addition.
I bought a 100 spindle of TDK printable blank DVDs at Cosco
I filled them with DivX files. Every one played on my standalone DVD player fine.
But when I tried to copy files from the discs I got loads and loads of CRC errors and couldn't copy about 60% of the files.
I backed up what I could onto Verbatim (now on special at Future Shop for $29 for a hundred)
I can still play the corrupt DivX files, so all is not lost.

[samijubal]

Why 6x speed? That is the fastest speed you can burn and still get a constant burn rate from start to finish. Once you go to 8x or faster then you get what is called "ramping" where the speed goes up then down then up then down then up as it goes faster and faster. I don't "trust" ramping LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

True of old drives. The Pioneer 115 burns straight from start to finish without ever "ramping", no matter what the burn speed is. I suspect there are other new burners that do the same.
I burn at 12x without any problems. I've tried 20x burns and they play flawlessly. I figure 12x gives me a good safe speed.

[FulciLives]

Why 6x speed? That is the fastest speed you can burn and still get a constant burn rate from start to finish. Once you go to 8x or faster then you get what is called "ramping" where the speed goes up then down then up then down then up as it goes faster and faster. I don't "trust" ramping LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

True of old drives. The Pioneer 115 burns straight from start to finish without ever "ramping", no matter what the burn speed is. I suspect there are other new burners that do the same.
I burn at 12x without any problems. I've tried 20x burns and they play flawlessly. I figure 12x gives me a good safe speed.

Well shiver me timbers ... I did not know that and of course I have a Pioneer 115 but I haven't had it all that long and from past experience I never went past 6x when burning a DVD disc.

Interesting to know that "ramping" is now (or becoming) a thing of the past.

Having said that I probably will still stick with 6x speed

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jcsmith]

Thanks for the quick reply. gunslinger.


Checked the entries in Device Manager for the CD-DVD drive. No mention of PIO. Then checked the BIOS entry. It showed the "Transfer mode" was UDMA 2 for the DVD drive.

Notice I have 512 MB of memory (less about 64 MBfor Video controller). I know most newer systems have Gigabytes of memory, but am I really short of memory--as a possible cause?

Thanks, JC

[FulciLives]

Thanks for the quick reply. gunslinger.


Checked the entries in Device Manager for the CD-DVD drive. No mention of PIO. Then checked the BIOS entry. It showed the "Transfer mode" was UDMA 2 for the DVD drive.

Notice I have 512 MB of memory (less about 64 MBfor Video controller). I know most newer systems have Gigabytes of memory, but am I really short of memory--as a possible cause?

Thanks, JC

It is not a "lack of memory" issue. I used to run WinXP Pro on a Pentium 3 650Mhz CPU with 256MB RAM memory and I could burn at 4x speed (the DVD burner I had way back when only did 4x speed).

So something else is going on ... what though I'm not sure *sorry*

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[budz]

Thanks for the quick reply. gunslinger.


Checked the entries in Device Manager for the CD-DVD drive. No mention of PIO. Then checked the BIOS entry. It showed the "Transfer mode" was UDMA 2 for the DVD drive.

Notice I have 512 MB of memory (less about 64 MBfor Video controller). I know most newer systems have Gigabytes of memory, but am I really short of memory--as a possible cause?

Thanks, JC

Buy a new 80 wire ide cable for your TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652L Cd/DVD drive. If that fails as well then time to buy a new dvd burner. If you have daemon tools installed it could cause problems so uninstall it. Burn dvd discs with IMGBURN which is freeware. Nero is buggy as hell. Just my 2 cents!

[blinky88]

If you do not have 80 conductor IDE cables installed, budz has possibly solved your problem, with the 80 IDE cable I think you will find the DMA go to 4. I am still using DVD Decriptor (FREE) for all my burning and never have a problem.

Note: Memory is not your problem, that said, with the price of memory these days it would give you a big boost to performance if you were to add another gig.

[RabidDog]

That would be an ADDitional Gig of memory. "another gig" implies OP already has a GiG when they do not. If they first added "another 0.5gb" then the addition of another gig would be correct.

Create an iso image as the output (of your backup program?) and see how long that takes. Has your drive ever worked at full speed?

Do you have the Dvd drive on the same ide cable as anything else? If not, is the drive using the last ide connector (rather than the middle).

1.5hrs for a SL burn is bad (Unless your on overtime? then its GOOD)