Do you multi-task when burning?

[Pontiac]

Whilst you guys are authoring DVDs, do you run tasks in the background? I ask because I leave stuff like Norton running and I have several P2P downloads going when I burn and it eats a lot of primarily memory but some CPU power. This doesn't seem to affect my DVDs, there are no error messages when I burn and most of them play fine, but can it contribute to errors like freezing and or skipping discs?

[PaulDiston]

I don't like to multi-task while burning. I did try and open windows media player 7 while burning and I produced a coaster. It is probably bst not to multi-task as you will get better results if you don't.

[Gazorgan]

I burn and encode at the same time. That's an W2K/XP only function, don't try it on 9x. I have also done the usual surfing or gaming while encoding.

As to P2P running. It depends. Most Bittorrents you can't do this. Most clients have memory leaks. My current bandwidth throttled version will use 100+ MB per download(CD size downloads). Of course I have a dedicated machine for P2P/Email/Etc. Kazaa isn't too bad, especially the new lite client, but it can quickly suck up a few 100's MB of RAM. Definately 384-512 MB is needed to really multitask. P4/Athlon also to keep from having bad burns (or burn slower).

[Pontiac]

Gazorgan, I'm lucky enough to have 1GB RAM, so when I'm burning I still have like 200 megs free even though I'm downloading like 5 DVDs from Bit Torrent

[Gees]

I shut down virtually everything while burning - unplug broadband, stop firewall, antivirus, even screensaver.

No one ever said I had to. Just overly cautious maybe. I figure for the hours and hours I've taken to get to that point (with self-authored stuff), the last thing I want is even the remote possibilty of a bad burn.

[i_am_dave]

I always burn a +RW copy first at 2.4X to stick in my DVD player so that I can verify menu's and navigation one last time. I will multi-task at this point.
When I get ready to burn the final copy on +R, I drop back to 1X I do not multitask, however, I leave Norton running.

No coasters yet!

I am running the bundled RecordNow that came with my drive.

[mats.hogberg]

I never do anything file I/O intensive while burning (at the most read my mail). Encoding, authoring... for anything else in the process, I use my computer as much as the process going on allows me to. Encoding takes so much of my resources that it's not practical to do much else on my 1700...

/Mats

[andkiich]

No, I don't want to take the chance of making a coaster.

[Gazorgan]

Mentioning you are d/l 5 DVD's on Bittorrent implies things your oft not mention.

I d/l to a SCSI RAID tower so I have no I/O issues. And I burn 24x CDR's on a PII 333 at the same time with no issues (underrun protection is a wonderful thing, and it only goes off every 5th disk or so). I've never had an issue on my Athlon burning at any speed CDR/DVDR.