New Sony 16x Disks only burn at 4x!!

[TheRybot]

I am having some trouble with a spindle of Sony 16x disks that I just recently purchased. I typically burn at 16x with my burner, however on a recent spindle of Sony disks I just bought Nero will only allow me to burn at 4x stating "can only write at 5540 KB/S instead of 22160 KB/S to current disk." This has NEVER happened to me before, and I use all different kinds of brands all the time, including Sony on many occasions. I am using a Pioneer DVR-111D drive, and Nero 7.0. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should do to burn to these disks at 16x? Thank you very much in advance.

[gll99]

If you have another type of 16x put it in the drive and see what option it offers you. If it's 16x then it's not the drive. With one of those blanks in the drive, try DVDinfo and check the media code, reported write speed and write strategies.

Are they the same type you used before e.g +R vs -R?

btw) If you have more than one dvd burner make sure it's pointing to the right one and not a dvd/rw disc in the second drive. Don't laugh it happened to me.

[guns1inger]

This is usually a sign that your DVD burner does not recognise the discs and does not have a suitable write strategy for burning them at 16x, so it has fallen back to a default strategy at a safer speed - in this case, 4x.

A firmware upgrade might allow your burner to burn at full speed for these discs.

[budz]

This is usually a sign that your DVD burner does not recognise the discs and does not have a suitable write strategy for burning them at 16x, so it has fallen back to a default strategy at a safer speed - in this case, 4x.

A firmware upgrade might allow your burner to burn at full speed for these discs.

I have had the same problem as the OP and have come to the conclusion that the SONY DVD-R/+ MEDIA of lately is a bad batch. I'd say 3/4 of a 100 pack spindle of SONY 16x DVD-R I had could only be burned at 4x speed. It didn't matter which of my dvd burners I used, they would only be recognized as 4x speed discs. I do have a flavor of dvd burners which include, BENQ 1620, 1640, 1650, 1655, PIONEER 111L & 112L, SAMSUNG SATA 183L, LG H10N & LITEON 181AP. I highly doubt any of my dvd burners need a firmware upgrade. I use a mixture of original manufacturers firmwares as well as hacked firmwares to enable bitsetting to dvdrom for single layer dvd+r media.

IMHO there does seem to be a bad batch of SONY DVD+/- media going around. I've also had SONY 16x DVD+R media recognized as at 4x speed as well. So I don't think it's a firmware upgrade, just bad media from SONY.

[TheRybot]

Thanks everyone for your help! I actually used another disk from a different spindle to check (also sony) and it worked fine at 16x. I guess I'm just stuck using these 4x disks at some point down the line... will the fact that the media is "bad" cause any playback problems, or just problems burning?

[oldandinthe way]

Suggest you follow the suggestion to determine the mediaID by running DVDInfo on these disks and compare to the other spindle.

I have seen SONY 16x media which use an alternative method of specifying the mediaID. It is possible that your version of Nero does not support this method.

I do not understand the potential choices in the standard or why two methods exist but I have seen some of these disks. Perhaps a media guru like Lordsmurf can shed some light on this.