Will Burning a 8X at 6X give a better burn than 8X At 8X ?

[hitechluddite]

I know that 8X or 12X is the recommended speed for 16X media but what about 8X is there anything to be gained Quality wise dropping it to say 6X or is the speed limitations more in the device's ability rather than the media?

[redwudz]

Probably not. If your burner won't make a proper burn at 8X, you may have other problems. But others may have different opinions.

Even though I usually burn 16X media at 12X, I have always burned 8X media at 8X. No coasters with either, even using several brands of media and several different burners.

You can run a program like Nero DiscSpeed and test your media burned at both speeds to see if there is a difference.

[guns1inger]

It depends on the media and the burner (model, age). Some burners will burn 16x brilliantly, others not so well. I burn 16X media at 12X because that gives me almost constant acceleration over the length of the burn. Burning at 16 X produces a definite 'hump' as it lifts from 12x to 16x. But that is my burner.

[jman98]

Quality wise, there is probably little to gain by burning slower. However, I had to make several copies of a DVD for friends and family (DVD was not a copy of a commercial disc) and as an experiment I burned each copy at a different speed and used Nero's DiscSpeed utility to examine each disc. The lower the burn speed, the fewer errors Nero reported in the burn. This was using high quality Verbatim media. Watching the discs on my TV, I couldn't tell any difference so take that for whatever it is worth.

[RLT69]

The lower the burn speed, the fewer errors Nero reported in the burn. This was using high quality Verbatim media. Watching the discs on my TV, I couldn't tell any difference so take that for whatever it is worth.

That's kind of the point of the slower burn speed. Slower speeds results in less errors and a longer longevity of the disc, which means it will be more playable in the future. You won't notice a viewing difference but that's not the problem. The errors or lack there of contribute to the ability of playing the disc. Less errors means it is more likely you will be able to play the disc, more errors means you will be less likely. It also means that your disc will more likely play in other players if it has less errors.

So the key is playability. This has always been true with burning. Slower speeds have always been recommended.

[tomlee59]

It's a function of several factors. The drive can be the limiter, or the media can be. If you burn near the maximum of either, you probably are going to have a somewhat degraded result. The worse the media, the greater the likelihood of significant degradation.

If you burn good-quality 8x media in a good 16x drive at 8x, you are probably fine, but you'll also have fewer raw errors at 6x. These may not be apparent on viewing the movie, because discs have error correction (lots of error correction, except for VCDs). But if you believe that a higher raw bit-error rate is suggestive of degraded reliability, then burning at a slightly lower speed is not a bad idea.

Think of it this way: The manufacturer wants to advertise the highest possible speed rating for their drive or media. So, if they could get it to work ok at higher speeds, they would. So what you get is something that is on the edge of failure. How close to that edge? It depends on the integrity of the manufacturer; some are more conservative than others. Going slower moves you farther away from that edge (wherever that may be), and so reliability will typically improve. And you may only notice a difference in the future, as more of the error-correction budget gets eaten up.

[MysticE]

The lower the burn speed, the fewer errors Nero reported in the burn. This was using high quality Verbatim media. Watching the discs on my TV, I couldn't tell any difference so take that for whatever it is worth.

That's kind of the point of the slower burn speed. Slower speeds results in less errors and a longer longevity of the disc, which means it will be more playable in the future. You won't notice a viewing difference but that's not the problem. The errors or lack there of contribute to the ability of playing the disc. Less errors means it is more likely you will be able to play the disc, more errors means you will be less likely. It also means that your disc will more likely play in other players if it has less errors.

So the key is playability. This has always been true with burning. Slower speeds have always been recommended.

Unfortunately these sort of generalizations (myths?) can often result in inferior burns with modern burners and media. Many times I see posts where folks say "I burn at 4X for quality purposes", or 'the rule of thumb is to burn at half speed'.

Here's an example of a well reviewed LG burner “LG GH22LP20 is a solid performer and an excellent choice for reliable CD and DVD burning at record speeds. It effortlessly produces quality burns faster than most other drives to date. We highly recommend it.” paired with Taiyo Yuden discs.

SONY DVD-R 16X ( TYG03 )
Batch #GH000073 - 0909
LG GH22NP20 1.00 ...Nero CD/DVD Speed 4.7.7.15
Burn Speed 4X

Note the quality score of this 4X burn.



Let's move up a few notches.

SONY DVD-R 16X ( TYG03 )
Batch #GH000073 - 0909
LG GH22NP20 1.00 ...Nero CD/DVD Speed 4.7.7.15
Burn Speed 12X

Now note the quality score whan burned at 12X.



The thing is it's easy to find the right combination of burner/media/speed. The insane folks at CDFreaks are allways testing and posting Quality scans. You don't have to do any testing youself, just peruse their forums.

When considering a new burner check out CDFreak's reviews. They always test various media and post the results for each burner. Making it simple to get a nice burner media match.

I like TYG02 (8X -R) discs. They are priced right and tend to work well in most burners and players, new and old. The reviews showed that the Pioneer 115D did well with these.

Here's 2 of my Pioneer burned scans (I use my BenQ for scanning).

These discs were both burned at 12X... over the rated speed of 8X.





Needless to say I'm pleased. Usually when folks have to slow down the burn it denotes a less than ideal media/burner match.

[hitechluddite]

Thanks for the good info everybody! I'll bookmark CDFreaks and check it out. I'm in the process of sorting through a couple hundred recorded recorded DVD's that I made over the past 4 years. I'm Backing up the ones that will read onto HDD and $hitcanning the others. I found out that the older my discs the more failures I have. I've got 100 TYG02 discs on order and I'm ebaying a Epson R280 now and ditching my labels. Live and learn.......

P.S. I have NERO 7.5 Ultra and I'm trying to run the Drive fidc quality test on my pre recorded discs but the start is greyed out. Do I have to burn them in NERO before this test will work?

TIA

[hech54]

I've never selected 6x in my life for my 8x discs.....4x or 8x for me.....depends on my mood.