Burning problem!

[mandrake]

Some dvds that I made stop playing somewhere closer the end - the image becomes corruped, sound drops out, then eventually all stops (both on standalone player and on computer).

I used Toast 5.2.1 at 2x speed, the media was Verbatim DVD-R 2x (twice), TDK, Memorex. I have built-in superdrive (Pioneer 104) in my G4, MacOS X 10.2.6. The dvd folders played ok from my hard drive (with Apple DVD player).

Toast reported no errors, the burning went as usual, but due to lack of time I skipped the verify step.

These dvds when mounted show the size 4Gb+, but looking at the recorded side, they don't seem fully recorded - there's obviously an empty space at the outer edge of the disc. Seems just like Toast doesn't burn them to the end.

Maybe it's the media problem? (but I used different brands...) Or should I better not use 2x speed at all?

[galactica]

whats the settop player brand? could be the player having problems since these media's you use are good brands (and this usually happens with bad medias)

[mandrake]

whats the settop player brand? could be the player having problems since these media's you use are good brands (and this usually happens with bad medias)
_________________
/Galactica

The player is Pioneer DV-530, but I tried to play them on computer, result the same. May it be a recorder problem? It's not old (less than a year) but still... anyone knows, how often superdrives go out of order?

[terryj]

The player is Pioneer DV-530, but I tried to play them on computer, result the same. May it be a recorder problem? It's not old (less than a year) but still... anyone knows, how often superdrives go out of order?

My current record is 3 superdrives at work, 2 gone out of order, out of that two, one due to a laser becoming uncalibrated DVR-104), the other due to a bad firmware patch (DVR-103).

So that makes 2 out of 3? all were OEM barebones drives, that didn't come pre-installed.

Seeing as how if the laser on the Superdrive was to "go out"
you would immediately get errors in Toast like "SENSE ERROR: Hardware" or "SENSE ERROR: Illegal Request", and you didn't mention that, the problem points to something else.

Somethings to consider: since the files are on your Desktop properly backed up, have you played what would be at the end of the burn
( last chapters/credits) to make sure they were correctly backed up?

In your Toast settings, are you using Disc at Once, or Track At Once?
not that it makes a difference on DVDs, but just asking....
Also, have you tried burning any of this media at 1x speed to see
what happens? Have you had any firmware patches to this drive?
Do you have an Apple Branded DVD you could try in 2x mode?

please post back.

[mandrake]

I wanted to check whether this media will burn ok at 1x, but couldn't find precisely the same. I bought Verbatim 4x instead, burned it at 1x, and it works fine. I used Disc at Once and no firmware patches. I think generally I should be more cautious with the burn speed anyway - like using 1x mode at 2x-certified media and maybe 2x at 4x media.

A little off topic, but I recall my first CD-recorder, it was a 2x-speed device, but CDs burned at 2x sounded with awful clicks, and at 1x it was ok...

[patlabombe]

Does it really make a difference between Disc at Once, or Track At Once? I tought this option was only for audio cd.