Reliable 4x media for Sony DRU500AX

[NIIDeep]

Hi All,

I'm hoping people can help me out. I have a Sony DRU500AX with firmware 2.0f. I did some reasearch here in the DVD Media area looking for good 4x media. I settled on Ritek G04s. Bought 50 from supermediastore.com and they..... only burn at 2x with DVD Decrypter 3.1.6.0, Nero 5.5.10.42, and Roxio EZ CD 6. So what gives?

I've researched older threads and I've seen people who've experienced the same issue and some people who've been able to burn at 4x with the same H/W, firmware, and media. But I haven't found any solutions or "fixes" for my issue.

Can anyone help me out? Also can people with the same driver let me know what would be good recommendations for reliable 4x that will actually burn at 4x?

I plan on trying some TDKs this week.

Thanks in advance.

[jamesbond1960]

I have the same model but external and I'm using the same firmware version. All I can tell you is that I have yet to burn a dvd in 4X it just doesn't work. I only use LG 2X media right now I tried many others and I tried LG 1-4x and they too failed even at 2X The only ones that I have never had a problem with have been LG 1-2X and max burn speed 2X
I will try Sony's really expensive DVDr rated 1-4x and if they fail at 4X I'll send them back to sony with a nasty note......What more can we do.....

Archie

[Popee]

I plan on trying some TDKs this week.

Good idea.

I too have a DRU500AX, firmware 2.0f. I burn at 4x consistently with TDK +R media. Haven't tried 4x -R yet though.

[jester1x]

You may want to try some Apple 4x discs. I have a Sony DRU500AX (firmware 2.0c) and have successfully burned discs at 4x. (I have no plans to upgrade the firmware that came installed with the drive.) Anyways...I bought the Apple 4x discs (five pack @ $19.99) at the Fry's here in Vegas.

Yes, the cost is higher, but the discs do burn reliably at 4x.

[Jester700]

I did a trial on several discs and posted it. The ONLY -R discs that worked at 4x were Samsung (BeAll) and Optowrite Gold. Note that - GOLD. If you buy Opto, get the GOLD. (got it? ) But I didn't try the "big brands" - TDK, Imation, etc. - just the cheapos.

I've only tried a few 4x +R discs, but they've all worked - Memorex, Verbatim, and TDK. I suspect most +Rs will. But maybe that's just because there are few cheapo 4x -R discs in the market yet.

[RoopeT]

I have had success with Verbatim 4x MetalAzo DVD-R and Traxdata 4x DVD-R. I also tried ~0 other brands, that only burned 2x

[Metaluna]

I agree that the DVD+R 4X's seem to be the most consistent on the Sony drive, but that might just be because almost all of the commonly available ones (TDK, Memorex, Fuji, etc.) seem to all be the same Ricoh media, which is about the best +R manufacturer right now.

I actually have a 100-pack of Ritek G04's that stopped burning at 4X halfway through the spindle and now burn at 2x on the exact same drive, same firmware (2.0f). The only thing I can think of is that my drive maybe picked up a little dust or is getting old, and the algorithms that test the disc and determine the burn speed saw something they didn't like and decided to kick the speed down to 2X. Either that or something about the media changed halfway through the spindle. Anyway, I found a hack that allowed me to flash the drive with Liteon LDW-400D firmware (same hardware). Now the Riteks burn at 4X again.

I also have had good luck with the Fujifilm/Taiyo Yuden 4X DVD-R's, though I've only tried a few of them.

[handyguy]

Try meritline.com they have info on what media does what speed with what writer on what firmware

[psx_pirate]

i have not been able to burn riteks at 4x, i bought some the o1ne disks made by the same company that make sony's disks and they wouldnt burn at 4x either. I have however had no problems burning mirror media platinum 4x disk with both an30 and an31 media codes at 4x (avoid the mirror 2x disks with a maxell code coz the sony cant seem to finalise them if the data is over 4gb)

[vtecwil]

Use any of the RICOHJPNR01 discs sold by TDK , Verbatim , and Memorex . They will burn at 4X for you . These discs are +R , so if you need -R I cant help you there .

[NIIDeep]

Thanks for all the great responses. I'll look into everyone's suggestions for media.

[pompoi]

Have had good results with TDK -R @ 4x disks are Taiyo Yuden TYG01
using firmware 10f. Burnt about 50 so far all @4x (15min. ) no coasters & good standalone compatability

[NIIDeep]

Just to clear up some confusion..

Are there two types of BeAll media out there? One from Samsung and one from someone else?

I just bought 4x BeAll media from Meritline.com and it doesn't clearly state that it's made by Samsung. I hope I didn't waste money buying crap media.

I haven't received them yet but will let everyone know what's up.

[dallastx]

I bought a 10 pk of fugi's dvd-r from frys last night for 19.95 Box says 1x-4x. All 10 burnt at 4x and on 3 of them burnt to 4.3 gigs No problems. Unlike memorex 4x dvd-r which was a 25 pk and every disk had a error in it. SONY 500A 2.0F

[Faustus]

Just to clear up some confusion..

Are there two types of BeAll media out there? One from Samsung and one from someone else?

I just bought 4x BeAll media from Meritline.com and it doesn't clearly state that it's made by Samsung. I hope I didn't waste money buying crap media.

I haven't received them yet but will let everyone know what's up.

To my understanding BeAll is made by Samsung but was not ment for sale in the US, companies (Meritline among others) were importing them and selling them as Samsung BeAll and Samsung has no problem with this. However when Samsung launched their own DVD media for the use called DigitAll (or whatever its called) they asked that they no longer refer to the BeAll media as Samsung for fear it would create confusion.

[NIIDeep]

ahhh... success... as I'm writing this I'm burning at 4x with TDK 4x DVD+R media with my Sony DRU500AX firmware 2.0F. Will try Fuji 4x DVD-R and BeAll DVD-R later.

[NIIDeep]

Well I got my BeAlls today and I've burned one disk at 4x and it worked! However, they "feel" alot cheaper than the Riteks. They seem to be thinner and the purple dye seems to be very light. Much lighter than the Riteks or any of the other media I have.

It almost seemed like 4x burning is a sure thing so I tried burning a Ritek G04 again. And all of a sudden DVD Decrypter is burning at 4x with no problems.. I'm not sure what's going on but the only thing I did was install the ASPI 4.6 driver. However, I'm not using it in DVD Decrypter. Still using the standard SPTI driver. Maybe my first three Riteks were bad??

In any case, I'm successfully burning at 4x with a Sony DRU500AX firmware 2.0f. No hacked firmware or anything. And maybe ASPI 4.6 installed has something to do with it. Media I tried that burn successfully at 4x are TDK DVD+R, BeAll DVD-R, and Ritek G04 DVD-R.

Go figure.

[fslove]

I have the Sony w/2.0f and I have used Memorex 4x DVD-R's and so far have burned 20 of them ( from a 50 pack spindle) with all of them burning at 4X and burning perfectly! I know people like to rag on CRC manufacturered DVD's but I have not seen many complaints about the Memorex 4X DVD-R's.

[Mark_Venture]

I've burned over 30 DVDs in my Sony DRU500a (2.0e firmware)... mostly data but a few movies (to play in DVD player) too.

Verbatim DVD +R 1-4x with Reorder# 94589 on the side of the spindle. No problems at 4x.

BTW, on a side note... My mother board is an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe... I was running with version 5.00.1002 of Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility. I just read about an upgraded version (5.02.1003) and tried it. I had to back it off because of data errors on the RW discs I was burning. Always failed during data verify step. Backing down to 5.00.1002 fixed that and all works normal again.

[bacardi/avt]

I have a SONY DRU500AX with firmware 2.0c (never flashed) and I have been burning Ritek G04 at 4x, about 50 of them and then I have burned a disc labeld Sky dvd-r at 4x (about 25 of these) and I have only had two discs that became coasters (but they still burned at 4x until they gave up at the end)...

The problems people are having seams to relate to newer firmware, Could it be that SONY has implemented some sort of media check similar to the one in the early Pioneer drives?

By the way I have also burned about 200 Verbatim DVD-R 2x and some DVD+R and about 50 rewrites on different DVD+RW.

[super-al]

i have a sony dru500 and i had same problem so i tried a test pack the fujifilm 4x and the optodisc gold and silver burned at 4x none others did out of 10 differnt kinds