Getting nothing but coasters

[glennster]

Hello, I bought two spindles of That's Write DVD-R 4x for burning educational movies, from a supplier in Norway. The movies are all usually 4.7 gb in size, sometimes smaller. But the first five burn sessions only made coasters, with the following error message at the end of the burn:

Invalid block adress
No seek complete
Could not perform end of Disc-at-once

The burn session seems to go fine up until 100% but when Nero was finishing
off, it failed to burn successfully and gave the above error message. I
thought I might have gotten a bad batch of blanks so I tried another brand,
Memorex 4x. But the same result. When trying to play these movies in my
standalone player, the movies can either not be accessed, or the video plays
back jerky or freezes, or I can not access special features or menus.

However, I have a Traxdata +RW that I can burn to without problems, and it
plays back fine. So I thought, since both That's Write and Memorex were
both -R blanks, maybe the burner didnt like them. But checking my archive, a
batch of movies from last month on Princo -R discs had no such problems.
They burned and played fine.

Then I thought maybe Nero 5.5 had developed a problem, so I upgraded to 6.0
but the same error happens.

I then simulated a few burns to see if that gave any info, but the same
error would happen, plus that the discs got data written on them, rendering
them unusable. Should data be written to blanks during Nero simulation?

What also comes to find is that the RW disc can burn at 2.4 speed and the
Princo's burned at 1x but both That's Write and Memorex are supposed to be
able to burn at 4x speed (and they do) - but they give errors. Also at lower
speeds the same error happens.

I have now burned around 10 blanks and they all end up as coasters and I
fear that That's Write are incompatible with my system, which is XP Home and
Nero 6.0 with a Sony DW-U10A dvd-rw unit (which is supposed to be the same
hardware as the DRU-500A which is listed in your compability list).

Please advice.

[gmatov]

Are they really 4.7 gigabytes in size or are they 4.7 billion bytes in size which is 4.37 gig, which a DVD will hold.

Are you, do you have to, ripping, decrypting, shrinking these movies?

They may simply be too big, but I would have thought Nero would tell you that, not try to burn then fail

Good luck,

George

[glennster]

[quote="gmatov"]Are they really 4.7 gigabytes in size or are they 4.7 billion bytes in size which is 4.37 gig, which a DVD will hold.]

The discs say 4.7 gb and nero detects their size fine.

[wulf109]

4.7GB DVD's are actually 4.37GB. Nero detects in MB's,the maximum size allowed is 4482MB's. Nero will not start the burn if the files are too large for the DVD blank,the problem is elsewhere.

[handyguy]

could be your media.

Get some Sony media & use that to test. I know it costs more but youll find out if its a media thing that way.

[Phil Thomas]

Yep I would try different media .... Riteks are a good "all rounder", at a decent price.

[glennster]

4.7GB DVD's are actually 4.37GB. Nero detects in MB's,the maximum size allowed is 4482MB's. Nero will not start the burn if the files are too large for the DVD blank,the problem is elsewhere.

I dont think it is the size of the blanks, have used same size blanks many times before.

[glennster]

could be your media.

Get some Sony media & use that to test. I know it costs more but youll find out if its a media thing that way.

Hmm, look at the manufacturer's website (Thatswrite.com) and they say some burners need to upgrade the firmware to burn their 4x media, although my burner is not listed among those who need to upgrade. Can it be dangerous to do that?

[zworg2]

Just to confuse you, have you thought that maybe your standalone does not like that particular type of media....

I know that wont solve the problem but it may help...

Zworg2

[glennster]

Just to confuse you, have you thought that maybe your standalone does not like that particular type of media....

The problem lies in the burning. Nero doesnt finish burning successfully, it reports errors. My standalone actually attempts to play and does so to a certain degree, so it is compatible with the media.

[zworg2]

If the player doesnt always recognise the disc it may be the media.

Have you tried a alternative software....DVD Decrypter is easy to use...to create a disc and see if that plays.

This forum in general does not like Nero (although i cant fault it, yet!!)

Zworg2

[sitlet]

its the media. check the dvd media section to the left and you will find that most all of the thats write media got bad reviews. try some good quality media like ritek

[glennster]

its the media. check the dvd media section to the left and you will find that most all of the thats write media got bad reviews. try some good quality media like ritek

Thanks, that doesnt look so good. I dont think my supplier in Norway carries Ritek though, and too expensive to import them

[VicodiN]

Im sure Norway has some sort of well known name brand there...
TDK, Memorex, Sony, Verbatim, etc? It amazes me just how much of a difference there is between the name brands and generics..

[gmatov]

Instead of scrapping 2 spindles of maybe bad media, why don't you try DVDShrink-ing one of them down to say 4 gigs?

Your media may indeed be crapping out at the last 100 meg or more. So don't use that space. If you get a good burn, you can say it was the media, but if another coaster maybe your technique.

Hell, shrink it to 3.5 gigs to test.

Other threads this site have warned of disks that won't burn at the limit, and advice has been to reduce to 4 - 4.1 gig.

Hope this is your prob. At least the disks would be useable for a smaller file.

Cheers,

George

[bdf24]

I've even got riteks from newegg and I don't get a 100% perfect burns unless I burn them at 2x vs 4x which are what there rated speed is. Some movies will stutter at certain points burned at 4x (only a few movies here and there). So I don't really think riteks are that great. Better then the no names I'm sure but still leaves room for error. So I've started burning all my movies at 2x now with these disks just to insure I get a good backup. Oh well what's an extra 10 minutes.

[sitlet]

bdf24,
your problem is not the ritek media. its because your computer/burner/hard drive isnt fast enough to keep up with a 4x burn.

on that same note, i always burn at 2x anyway, so i can avoid any of these errors.

[gmatov]

Sitlet,

Not to put you down, but how the hell can you say that?

He has a 1400 AMD, a 60 gig IBM drive, a 4X burner, all of which can sure as hell transfer data faster than a burner needs at 4X.

Try cutting the burn size down to 4 gig and burn.

At least use the media you have, till you import some of the "good" Japanese stuff that seems to be becoming non-existent.

Read elsewhere to see what I mean.

Cheers,

George

Jeez, why so many parrots, "It's got to be the media."? And someone has a prob with "RicohJPN04", buy a new computer, can't be the media.

edit2: Well, why in the hell do you buy the 4X Ritek and burn at 2X to cut down on the errors? Save a buck and buy RITEK 2X, and burn at 2X..

[bdf24]

Actualy I did find out as well that some of the movies that stutter in my DVD player don't in other peoples. So it's a matter of my DVD player being a bit picky with the riteks I bought. I do need to experiment with different media.

[gmatov]

bdf,

Maybe you have to go left to the DVD Player section and see if there is a firmware upgrade for your player, or look elsewhere for one, maybe even at the mfg's homepage.

Could do wonders. Can't hurt to check it out. Not that it is gospel, just reporters results.

Cheers,

George

[Phil Thomas]

@ gmatov

"Jeez, why so many parrots, "It's got to be the media."? And someone has a prob with "RicohJPN04", buy a new computer, can't be the media"

At the risk of being called another parrot ...... I think from the information above, the advice to change media, was sound.
Agreed he could burn to 4gb or 3.5gb, but that is just trying to salvage the bad media and make the best of a bad job.

IMO 95% of playback problems, involving stuttering & freezing are down to bad/incompatible media and this is the easist thing to eliminate from the equation.

Couldn't see any reference to RicohJPN04's, other than yours .... or did I miss something ?

[lordsmurf]

PECAW! PECAW!
MMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAA
SQUACK!!!!

Call me "parrot" all you want, but that's likely the issue.

[gmatov]

Smurf,

You do that pretty good.

OK, it's the media, maybe, but my point, other than parrots, is, he has 2 stacks of blanks. He doesn't think he can quickly get Ritek or whatever. He has these things to burn, how soon he needs them, I don't recall if he said.

And, you guys have told umpteen people, umpteen times, "That brand has problems when you get to the very outer edge. Cut the size of the burn down to maybe 4-4.1 gig."

IF he is trying to get 4.3 on these disks and getting failure at 100 % area, what can it hurt to see if the disk and Nero will complete successfully at smaller size? If it does, media. If it doesn't, not media. That simple.

I buy disks by price, not always garbage, but decent brands on sale. Hell, I bought a 25 pack of the dreaded Khypermedia yesterday. +R, CMC, burnt a movie last night, DVDInfo Pro'd it, and not even 1 read error. I'll date the disk and check it in a year, let you know if it is garbage then, or still good.

Did I mention I checked about 40 boxes and stacks od blanks, all makers, yesterday and Fuji -R were the ONLY ones marked made in Japan? So where in the hell are you supposed to get Japanese product, less you special order from a reputable on line store, and you guys have even said you don't always get what you were looking for there.

Tough game, this, 97 things can go wrong, and if you don't have 12 brands of disks on hand, and do have a couple hundred "bad" ones, don't you think it would be wise to see if it actually could be something else?

BTW, I realize you do this stuff for a living, so for you to insist on the best you can get is only sensible. Your delivered product can make or break your livelihood. The hobbyists here, like me, can afford a less than perfect output.

Cheers,

George

BTW2, passed a Foto Hut yesterday, big sign, VHS to DVD, 19.95. Ouch, that could hurt the entrepeneur.