Will buffer drops during a burn affect final disc quality

[djjangelo]

My PC can't keep up with my new Pioneer DVR-108...
When burning with Nero I watch the buffer run to 0, and the burn pause, about every thirty seconds when I attempt to burn at speeds over 4X.

The disc seems to be OK in the end but I was wondering if all that pausing during the burn introduced a series of small errors on the disc.

Has anybody used Kprobe to check discs that have been burned with all the pausing associated with buffer underrun protection?

I'd like to continue to burn at the higher speeds because even with all the pausing the overall time is still less then if I started it at 4X... but I'm concerned about my end disc quality.

[Capmaster]

Have you verified that you have DMA enabled in device manager under the IDE controller? It should be able to keep up if your settings are correct.

On your question, I don't believe there would be any ill effects from the underrun pausing kicking in repeatedly. I believe it just picks up where it left off. But perhaps someone has actually done a scan and can post the results

[Bodyslide]

Can you also give more details on your PC setup? You can add that information in your profile. Thanks

[djjangelo]

I've already been through some PC troubleshooting...

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=239155&highlight=

... and I think my main problem lies with motherboard drivers and old hard drives.

I'll probably just upgrade the whole system pretty soon, but in the meantime I was hoping to continue burning at "high" speeds and be confident that my buffer underrun protection wasn't contributing to poor quality burns.

[RottenFoxBreath]

the buffer in my friends nero6 drops a few times from 4-6-8 and above.
but on other software like copytodvd,and dvd decrypter,its fine.
might just be the software.

[Gurm]

Hey, here's a thought...

Don't burn over 4x!

LOL.

No seriously though it COULD just be the speed shifts, but it could be that your machine can't burn above 4x. It's only 5 minutes, just cope.

[RottenFoxBreath]

older slower hard drives,cables,and other programmes running,as well as the space on a hard drive,or it needing defragged all pose problems.
i do know someone whos 108 just cant burn over 4 speed,because his pc is sub par,quite old,still running an athlon1500XP,and a couple of slow hard drives.

[lordsmurf]

One of my duplication drives does this. It gives a slightly higher coaster rate, but not by much. This is disc-to-disc however.

From HDD to disc, you may have another problem. PIO, DMA.

[jimmalenko]

With the glorious burn-proof technology we all enjoy today, it makes my 4X SCSI Matsushita CD Burner of 6 years ago look really lame ....

I think you can trust today's burn-proof technology. As you've self-advised though (and a couple of others too), DMA mode is important, as is hard drive speed. 5400RPM drives should still be able to cut it, but it might be worth your while doing a defrag and then trying again.

[djjangelo]

Good feedback guys, thanks... but I still have my original question:

Does making heavy use of my buffer underrun feature affect overall disc quality?

(If so, I'll just stick with 4X untill I upgrade/troubleshoot my machine)

[Gurm]

It "shouldn't", but of course it CAN, depending on the price of tea in China and other factors.

I'd have to KProbe your disc to be certain, but ... try one and if it plays, you're good.

[djjangelo]

Yeah, I know what you mean by it "shouldn't"

I wish I had a Lite-On DVD-ROM Drive so I could KProbe a couple of test
discs....

Well, I've tried discs burned at 12X with lots of buffer underrun usage on my standalone player and it seems to work fine - for now... but my DVD player is pretty good and sort of notorious for playing discs of questionable burn quality.

Can anyone out there run a Kprobe test for me? I think that will be only way to really bury this issue in my mind.

[plimper]

Hello dear friends!!!
Don't worry my friend!!!
Keep on burning with no problems.
I am using P42.4/800fsb/hyperthreading,Msi neo2 motherboard,160gb,120gbx2serial ata,kingstone 1gram,Nec3500ag and when i used the v6.6 nero version i am having the same issues.
I have played back all the dvd's that i have burned with no problems at all.Plus the ide both are ultra dma enabled.
I will try to see what it causes this to happen and i will post again mates.
Finally my advice is to keep burning x4 and leave it do his thing.
Friendly Plimper.