Need to understand something about 16x DVD

[rsgars]

I tried a search but didn't find the answer, so excuse me if this has been covered before. Tonight I was shopping for DVD's and found hardly any 8x on the shelves, mostly 16x. Recently I bruned a project on 16x discs and they don't play an several set-top and portable players.

Can I burn 16x DVD's at 8x and they will work better or will we all have to buy newer set-top and portable players?

Thanks for your guidance.

[bbanderic]

Check for a firmware update on your burner, maybe the 16X or brand of disc aren't supported with the current FW. Try burning at 8X and see what happens.

[rsgars]

Actually, they burn fine and they will play on my computer they just won't play on the set-top or portable players. I have heard that set-tops have more issues with 16x discs, that's why I wonder if that is only if the disc is burned at 16x. As soon as I burned the same project onto an 8x disc it worked perfectly.

[Gen-An]

There is nothing inherently wrong with 16x media in terms of compatibility with set-top devices. Apparently the quality of the media or the burner you used (or both) is the issue. I've been able to play back DVD movies burned on 16x media at full 16x speed with no problems.

[fanofdvd]

This is a common problem that I've had. The dvd burns fine at 8x or 16x but won't play correctly when played afterwards. So the safest bet is to burn all dvds at 4x. Never have had a problem after that. Just select the lower speed before burning.

[slimpickins]

hmm, if ur dvd-rs just dont play on ur dvd player then its ur dvd player but if they only play on ur dvd player when burned at 4x then we can only help u if u tell us

1. the disks
2 the burner
3 the player
4. the source


even my 15 pound p[layer plays dvd's burned at 16x but hten again i use verbatim and an nec 3520

[rsgars]

Just to give a final word on this. I ran the following test: using 16x discs I burned the same project at 4x, 8x and 16x. None of these worked in my set-top player or my portable player. All worked fine on my computer. Burned the same project on an 8x disc and it played on all players.

In all cases I admit the disc quality is questionable. All were purchased by my church for a project without my advice and they just bought what was quickly available, but considering there were three different brands involved here, and the 8x discs were also of questionable quality, I would say it indicates potential wide-spread comptability problems with 16x discs on stand-alone players.

At the same time, is it my imagination or are 8x discs becoming scarce?

[SLK001]

...even my 15 pound player plays dvd's burned at 16x but hten again i use verbatim and an nec 3520

What does the weight of your player got to do with playability?

[slimpickins]

not at all 8x disks are just as available as 16x, tell us the brands u are using, if u carnt get the players to play verbatim or ty disks at 16x id say its ur player or burner, what oftware ar eu using

[drjtech]

...even my 15 pound player plays dvd's burned at 16x but hten again i use verbatim and an nec 3520

What does the weight of your player got to do with playability?

In Americanese that's like saying "...even my 30 dollar player..."

-drj

[mikel]

Is it possible that as burning speed of the disks increases...the dye formulation changes?
Could it be a reflectivity issue?

[oldandinthe way]

Without knowing the brands involved people can only guess.

If the players are older SONYs there is little reason to expect anything to work that hasn't already.

The shelves are filling with 16x media in part because many 8x media SUCK and 16x doesn't cost any more to make.

[rsgars]

not at all 8x disks are just as available as 16x, tell us the brands u are using, if u carnt get the players to play verbatim or ty disks at 16x id say its ur player or burner, what oftware ar eu using

The 8x discs are Imation (manufactured by CMC).

The 16x discs are from two different Sony spindles and one unknown white printable that a friend handed to me saying his burner would only burn them at 2.4 and he wanted to to see what I could do with it. I don't remember the manufacturers on these, but I can say for sure none of them are T-Y.

I would like to try some T-Y 16x discs but not sure I want to invest if there is a real compaibility issue. I have convinced my church to let me buy a supply of 8x T-Y to have on hand for future projects. While the Imation discs are of questionable quality I have not heard of one set that hasn't worked, while I've already had two of the 16x set returned to me.

I know 8x discs are widely available online but last week when I went to Staples and Best Buy there were very few. The vast majority of the stock was 16x.

[RLT69]

In all cases I admit the disc quality is questionable. All were purchased by my church for a project without my advice and they just bought what was quickly available, but considering there were three different brands involved here, and the 8x discs were also of questionable quality, I would say it indicates potential wide-spread comptability problems with 16x discs on stand-alone players.

O.K. first off you need to know the media code and the burn speed of the blank DVDs you are using. Grab DVD Indentifier - it's free, no adware or you can grab DVD Info:

DVD Identifier
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=DVD_Identifier

DVD Info
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=DVDInfoPro

Either program will tell you what the media code and the burn speed of your blank DVDs are.
The resulting info will tell you whether or not your 16x DVDs are truly 16x DVDs.

Then go to DVD MEDIA GUIDES to find out whether or not you are using crap media:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

The brand name of the blank DVDs are irrelevant. Chances are you got ahold of some bad 16x media. Which means burning at ANY speed will result in a coaster.

Yes burning at speeds not supported by the media can cause problems. That's why it's important to find out what the actual supported speeds of your blank media are.

DO NOT TRUST THE LABEL!

Often times labels contain false information. Use the utilties above to properly identify your blank media.

Even 16x rated media can have problems burning at 16x. That is not unusual. Depending on the quality control of the manufacturer, a bad batch can get out.

I have used 8x media for sometime and have had no problems burning at 8x. Again, the blank media is of good quality and rated at 8x.

Other issues to contend with are:

1. your burner.
2. your player.

1. Always check for firmware upgrades for your burner. There may have been bugs which an upgrade fixed.

2. This one is harder. Players are finicky period. You can have an el cheapo player play everything under the sun and an expensive unit choke on every other disc.

One thing to be careful of is the media format: +R or -R. Make sure your player supports that format you are using. Some units will not play +R media. -R is pretty much supported on all machines. Check the specs to make sure.

cheers


[/b]

[rsgars]

Oh, a couple of other aspects of this project:

The source material is recording of a live teaching done directly to a consumer-level dvd recorder. I was not happy about this purchase. Someone went out without my guidance and bought it with the church's money, "just to make it happen." While I was investigating the purchase of a professional-level digital recorder.

This is simply a copying job. I am using Nero to copy the dvd's.

[rsgars]

RLT69, thanks for all of your guidance. I did run all of these discs through DVD Identifier, all said they were burnable on my burner at 16x. I want to say it reported the manufacturer on all of the discs as CMC but my memory of that is not perfect so I didn't want to post that. I know there was not a T-Y in the bunch.

Second, I have never had a problem with my set-top or my portable playing any disc until I tried these 16x discs. Also, as I have said before, they will play on my computer but not on the stand-alone players.

There was actually one project that I caputered from original digital tape, authored, encoded and burned using Encore DVD with the same result. 16x would not play, but when I re-burned using an 8x disc it played on my stand-alones.

[OneSickPup]

Just to give a final word on this. I ran the following test: using 16x discs I burned the same project at 4x, 8x and 16x. None of these worked in my set-top player or my portable player. All worked fine on my computer. Burned the same project on an 8x disc and it played on all players.

In all cases I admit the disc quality is questionable. All were purchased by my church for a project without my advice and they just bought what was quickly available, but considering there were three different brands involved here, and the 8x discs were also of questionable quality, I would say it indicates potential wide-spread comptability problems with 16x discs on stand-alone players.

At the same time, is it my imagination or are 8x discs becoming scarce?

My wife is a High School teacher and has two classes of Video Production. I have helped her submit literally hundreds of contest entries on dvd media over the last year for her students. We were very concerned going into this that media/player compatibility would be a significant problem. So far we have had zero returns due to media (except one disc crushed in shipment and one lost entry packet). Here are the media related decisions we made (right, wrong or indifferent) to attempt to limit our problems:

1. DVD-R has a very slight edge in player compatibility over DVD+R - if possible use DVD-R.

2. If forced to use DVD+R - bitset to DVD-Rom.

3. Use the highest quality media you can afford, even though we deviated from that twice (CMC MAG AE1 and FujiFilm03) without suffering ill effects. If using 16x media here in the US, Verbatim is your safest choice as both MCC 03RG20 and MCC..004 do well on most burners.

4. We limited all burns to one burner so we could monitor the situation (they have a menagerie of gear with different Burner/firmware combos). All entries were burned on a Pioneer 108 with 1.20 fw.

This worked for us but your mileage may vary. What burner and firmware are you using for this project?

Edit: The bitset DVD+R's we used (Yuden...T02 media) were not burned on the Pioneer since it does not support bitsetting. We used an LG GSA 4167B.

[RLT69]

Second, I have never had a problem with my set-top or my portable playing any disc until I tried these 16x discs. Also, as I have said before, they will play on my computer but not on the stand-alone players.

Playable on your computer is not a good indicator of it playing your stand-alone player. That just means you did not burn a coaster. Stand-alone players are very different than optical drives in computers.

I want to say it reported the manufacturer on all of the discs as CMC but my memory of that is not perfect so I didn't want to post that. I know there was not a T-Y in the bunch.

I would double check the media you are using but if you are correct that you are using CMC, then you are using "crap" media. This would account for the problem you are having. Specifically, it sounds like the CMC 16x rated media is not truly 16x - rating info aside - and that it is 8x rated media. if that media works in your stand-alone player burned at 8x, then burn it at 8x.

I'm curious to know what the manufacturer of the SONY 16x media is?

I have SONY 16x media and the manufacturer is Sony - Sony is the Brand name and Sony is the manufacturer. I'm wondering if SONY is using CMC for some of it's 16x media. That would not be a good thing.

[slimpickins]

way to many long posts on this, all i know is if ur using a good 16x brand that is compatible with ur good burner then 16x is just as reliable as 8x, i guess in 6months we will see a 24x and a 32x, and in 4 years if dvd-r's are still about we will have 82x as long as their osa demand for it

[oldandinthe way]

It appears from the DVD media reports that Sony 16 x media have a media code which shows Sony as the manufacturer.

Reports on DVD+R Sony media seem to indicate compatibility problems.

In my experience, there are many media which, work with some folks equipment and not for other folks. Hence the "mixed" reports on many types of media.

Optical disks have a long history of uneven behavior. You will need to invest in enough media types to find what works for you and then stay with those brands while they continue to be available.

CMC made media are among the disks that show "mixed" results. I have good results with them on the equipment I use but others have nothing but trouble.

Over the past 20 years, optical disks have gotten larger and faster, but have retained their idiosyncratic nature.

On the consumer grade video recorder issue, many of the lowest priced consumer grade video recorders are similar in drives and other components to what you are using on your PC. Sometimes identical. Unless there are features lacking, it is not clear that "professional-grade" buys you anything/