Slower Burning Speed Is Not Always Better

[moviebuff2]

Hi everyone

I just want to share with you my recent experience with burning DVD.

I have 2 different brands of blank DVD. One is Fujifilm (up to 8X write speed), the other is a cheap GQ (also up to 8X write speed). The GQ discs are so cheap that the manufacturer did not bother to put the name on the discs themselves.

Using Nero and my Emprex DVD burner, I burnt my project - first with the GQ, then with the Fujifilm.

Since both brands claim "up to 8X write speed", I let Nero choose 8X.

My GQ burning crashed mid-way! So I reset the write speed to 4X. Everything went well. The disc was played with my Philips DVP 642 without flaws.

When I burned my project on the Fujifilm disc, I set the write speed to 4X thinking "slower speed worked well for GQ, it should do the same for Fujifilm"

Well, when I played my Fujifilm disc (also with my Philips DVP 642), the audio was lost here and there throughout the entire disc!

I reset the write speed to 8X and the disc was perfectly burnt!

So, the lesson I learnt here is: "slower speed is not always better" 8)

[Rich86]

Yep. And Emprex is Fry's house brand name dvd burner made by whomever? And GQ is also Fry's house brand name for optical media made by whomever else? My guess is the Emprex burner is a BTC oem. The media could be most anything - from Taiwan, most likely. And maybe Fry's has ensured that the firmware in the Emprex will do a reasonable job of burning GQ media? Just a thought from a reader who sometimes gets cynical about these matters.

My opinion based on experience - any decent 8x rated media that has a proper 4x burn strategy encoded in the firmware of your burner should burn just fine at 4x.

[guns1inger]

If the media is good, the best results will come from burning at the recommended speed or the max speed of the burner - which ever is lower.

Crap media - you pays your money and you takes your chances. Sometimes it doesn't matter what speed you burn at.

[moviebuff2]

<If the media is good, the best results will come from burning at the recommended speed or the max speed of the burner - which ever is lower.>

LOL!

Fujifilm disc which is much more reputable than GQ does not even offer any recommended speed and it burnt better at the highest speed (up to 8X). Burning at slower speed resulted in lost audio parts throughout the disc.

I know Emprex is not a "Sony" or something similar. But my point is using the same burner and the same software, the more reputable brand resulted in bad recording at slower speed which is supposed to work fine.

I cannot wait to try these 2 brands with my brother's brand name DVD burner, something he paid +$500 for a couple of years ago.

Cheers!


added note:

I would also like to share this experience of mine regarding DVD burning/reading.

I used HP DVD burner to make a DVD on Fujifilm disc. When I played it on my Philips DVP 642, the picky machine must have disliked a part of my disc since it showed a broken image. But when I played the same disc with a cheap player, this player simply played flawlessly the part that Philips could not.

And...the cheap player has the name of...Terapin!


I think everyone would agree with me that Philips is more reputable than Terapin (which is now defunct).

So, I think another lesson is: "more reputable brand does not ensure smoother playback".

[guns1inger]

The speed on the pack - the highest rated speed, is the recommended speed for a disk. If these are 8x discs, and you have a burner capable of 8x or better, that is what you should burn at.

However what you have realised, evenatually, is that there is no perfect results for burning discs. Too many combinations of media quality, player quality, software quality etc to say that there is a 'rule'.

The closest things to a rule that I have found is Find what works for you, and use it until is doesn't work anymore

In my experience, Philips isn't a brand to be proud of either.

[whitejremiah]

heh.......you should be glad that your dvd player isnt sony (im bout to go on an anti sony rampage again, and for those who have seen me do this already, i apologise) i wouldn't be surprised if you had a sony dvd burner if it was dead right out of the box.....they make lousy parts, lousy music cd's with lousy DRM on them, and all in all, are just a lousy compnay........as far as a dvd burner though, i'd personally stick to lite on......as for the burning problem, i've never seen this happen with any other burner, i'd have to imagine that your burner isn't completely compatable with the media....i have had reasons in the past to burn slower than the rated speeds (end players sometimes dont much care for discs if they are burned at too high of a speed) so i burn at 4x on EVERY dvdr (unless i stumble upon a 2x rated media in which case, obviously i go 2x) and on cdr, it's generally 24x....if/when you decide that it's up for a replacement drive to that one, though, i'd recommend checking out a few reputable online dealers.....newegg, tigerdirect (i know some have issues with them, but they have always done alright with me) or anything like that...these days you can pick up a solid lite on, nec, or benq dvd burner on any of those websites for somewhere in the area of around 40 dollars or so...as for the phillips dvd player, i've had some issues before....unfortunately it's not a flawless dvd player, but it is pretty good for what you pay for it.....one of the few easily available dvd players that plays divx and that type of thing...i've noticed that it's particularly picky with scratches...there's a few discs that have scratches on them that the phillips player stumbles on and a few of my other dvd players play just fine......

[moviebuff2]

whitejremiah = anti-Sony

But my brother would agree with you. The poor guy bought an external double-layer DVD burner made by Sony. He put in a brand-name blank double-layer DVD (a Maxell, I think). RRRRRRRRR the POS Sony died after a few minutes of burning.

[oldfart13]

Fuji 8X +R when put in DVD Decrytptor says max speed 4X! Sony 8X +R says max speed 12X! First disc is Ritek. Second disc is Taiyo Yuden. Which one do you think burns better with no errors at 8X? If you say Ritek, you'd be wrong. On my LG 4163B, I never burn the Riteks faster than 4X and never try to fill the discs and don't have any that skip or freeze. Burning at 8X and filling the discs causes nothing but problems. I got a spool of 100 from a friend who said they wouldn't work and that was why...max speed and filling them to the end. The TYs though I have run right up to the max amount of space and burn at 8X without any problems whatsoever...

[INFRATOM]

In essence it is not the brand it is where it is made. Anything marked made in Japan is high quality Sony or TY or whatever I've seen .. bottom of spectrum is made in China specially when it looks flimsy look at the quality of packaging and all. Its just economics. businesses always make more money on the low end. !!!
Old English Proverb: We are not rich enough to buy cheap things.

[guns1inger]

oldfart13 : What DVD decrypter will be telling you is what your firmware stragteies say it can do. After-market firmware often has tweaked startegies that may allow for brands you didn't previously recognise, or faster speeds for known brands. This may push the speed outside the tolerence of your burner however, and create bad burns.

[moviebuff2]

Hi

I think guns1inger said it all: "Find what works for you, and use it until is doesn't work anymore."

Unfortunately, if one uses different brands (from the most expensive to "el cheapos" ), one will just have to find out what works for each case.

For example, for blank discs, I use both Fujifilm (or Maxell) and GQ. Why? Fujifilm and Maxell are for my backup discs - something I burn then store away. GQ discs are for daily usage - something I will have to discard after certain number of plays.

So, burning at a slower speed works for GQ but not for Fujifilm ( I have not tried Maxell DVD yet. Should I? ). And burning at the highest possible speed does not work for GQ but it does for Fujifilm.

Keep in mind that I keep other things - like burning software, burner, PC, etc. - the same. Imagine using different softwares (Nero, Roxio, Cheetah, etc.) and different burners, different PCs!!! What a nightmare that would be.

Cheers

[oldfart13]

Suit yourself. The Riteks I use for throw aways and give aways. The TYs are for my archival stuff. People are reporting problems playing back the Riteks after only a year or two of storage. It's all up to you in the end...

[moviebuff2]

Hi

I just found this thread in our Forum.

UC, GQ is not a bad product as somebody implied.


https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?selectmedia=3006#comments

[oldfart13]

Then you should try these:

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?selectmedia=2430#comments