Panasonic LF-D311, Media and Burning

[gbq57]

Please help I’m going around in circles.

My Father bought a Panasonic DVD ram burner just over a year ago – but is only now getting around to burning DVD-R’s. I am 99% sure the burner is a Panasonic LF-D311 (but it is reported by Windows ME as being a LF-D310 – which is normal for this drive).

DVD-RAM appears to operate without issues but DVD-R production is very patchy – Panasonic brand DVD-R’s have about a 50% success rate, Verbatim x2 all fail.

In an attempt to make some logical decisions on media I have tried to determine the media code on the disks however DVDINFO and DVD-IDENTIFIER both state that the Drive does not support the reading of media codes.

I have found at least one user in this forum that could get media codes from this drive and so I upgraded the firmware from A126 to A127 and updated ASPI to version 4.71a2.

The Firmware upgrade did not help with media identification and DVDINFO wanted ASPI version 4.60 and so was no help.

I need to determine where the problem is – media, burner or software…

I need more disks for testing – at less than £1 each – what media type would have the best chance on this old 1x Panasonic drive? And where in the UK can disks be ordered where the supplier gives detailed information on the disks being bought.

My father has used Pinnacle 8 (patched less than 2 weeks ago) to create a DVD image ready for burning. Pinnacle has been used to burn one successful DVD (Panasonic Brand) – so we know the image is OK – Can changing the burning software make a difference on the reliability of DVD burning?

Is there any reasonable chance that the firmware upgrade has made DVD production more reliable?

Is there any other area I should look at?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards, Paul.

[acanthis]

I have one of these drives under the LaCie label in a Firewire enclosure. It is a very old DVD burner now, although some time back I did have some success burning Verbatim DVD-Rs. Trouble is, I've found that a lot of Verbatim media is of questionable quality these days, so it's very hard to distinguish between a problem with the burner and a problem with the media.

I think you'll find it's also only a 1X speed burner and does not have the ability to burn multi-session DVD-Rs (not a problem for video but caught me out when I inadvertently created an open session data DVD-R that I couldn't close!)

Want my advice? Just use it for DVD-RAM - it's excellent for backups - and go out and buy a new multi-format burner. The price of these is under £100 in the UK right now. In the US I imagine they're being given away with a gallon of petrol

[gbq57]

It does not matter that the drive is slow - and it does not matter that it wastes a few DVD-R's - I just need it to work most of the time with cheepish disks.

Regards, Paul

[Will Hay]

I too have this drive and have used it successfully for 14 months now.
I've had most success with a Ritek brand, coded as DV371 at www.121cdr.co.uk
I tend to only burn at around 4gb rather than full capacity though, I've noticed stuttering on some other brands of media and have never been able to pinpoint the reason.
I don't remeber the last time I had a coaster that wasn't my fault.
Will