Is faster better?

[kbrooks]

Is faster better?

It seems to me that disks that can record at higher speeds are like film that is faster ie 800speed film is more sensitive to light therfore less light to make a picture, and faster shutter speed.

Would this make disks writeable at higherspeeds more suseptable to light damage or possibly even damage during reading in a player?

If so is it better anyways to use low speed disks?

[ZippyP.]

High speed film is also grainier and has poorer resolution, I'm not sure your comparison stands up to scrutiny.

[tonyp12]

Mitsubishi Electric has announced a new laser diode which should allow to write DVDs at 8x speed. Samples should be out by December and mass production should start in June 2003. For those not familiar with DVD recording speeds 8x allows you to write a full DVD-R in about 7 minutes.

Unlike film, Faster burning speeds has to do more with a powerful laser.

So they keep the medias light sensitivity the same but double the lasers power output instead.

But at these high speed turning the laser on and off fast enough
is more of a problem, that could lead to the pits having a "slope".

[Vejita-sama]

I had a lite-on 24x CDRW, I burnt everything (mostly xSVCD) at 24x no problems. The only problems I ever had were backing up PSX games. If I didn't burn at 1x or 2x I got audio skips.

I now have a 4x Pioneer DVR-A05 and but princo 4x DVD-R discs at 4x with DVD Decrypter (which actually reports getting up to 4.2x) and have had zero problems.

I think a lot of these 'you must burn at 1x~4x' treads are the result of when CDRs first came out the media made a huge difference. I had one fo the first 2x CDR drives on the market (Phillips) and you HAD to buy 2x certified media to burn at 2x. The same help true for 4x and 8x drives. But right around the time 8x drives started to become popular all the media was rated for 16x+. Since then I don't think it really matters what media you but or how fast your burn.

DVD is going through the same transition currently. But for the most part I feel that being able to burn at 4x saves a lot of time compared to 2x or 1x, and the quaility is EXACTLY the same, at least in my hands YMMV...

[solarfox]

Unlike film, Faster burning speeds has to do more with a powerful laser.
So they keep the medias light sensitivity the same but double the lasers power output instead.

Actually... no.

They do engineer the dye to react faster in high-speed media (or, for rewritables, use alloys which phase-change more rapidly) -- so it could be said to be more "light-sensitive" in a sense, but it still requires a pretty high amount of power at the appropriate frequency to effect the change. Media speed is determined by how rapidly the dye or phase-change alloy reacts to a laser pulse (or, to look at it another way, how long a particular pulse has to hit a given spot to effect the change).

The optimum laser power is calculated by the drive when it goes to write to a disc, by running a series of test burns in an area called the PCA -- or Power Calibration Area (logically enough). The optimum power can be anywhere from 3.6 and 8.8 milliwatts, depending on a variety of factors -- including batch variations in the dye, ambient temperature and humidity, and the age of the disc -- of which the media's rated write speed is only a part.

The drive's maximum speed is determined primarily by how quickly, and cleanly, the laser can be pulsed on and off during writing. This is usually limited by the speed of the electronics driving the laser, and the laser diode itself -- so it can still be true that deliberately burning at a lower speed than your drive & media's rated maximum may improve the chances of your burned disc being read in other units, especially older PC's or audio equipment, depending on how close to their rated maximums the components in the laser-writing circuitry are being driven.

[tonyp12]

Quote:
Unlike film, Faster burning speeds has to do more with a powerful laser.
So they keep the medias light sensitivity the same but double the lasers power output instead.


Actually... no.

I did say it has more to do with the laser,
yes the media responce time is also improved to be
slighlty faster on highspeed media.