Samsung DVD to NEC 2500 DVD-R

[jags]

Hi there, i'm having a few problems backing up DVD's and wondered if any of you guys might have an idea what's happening.

I recently installed an NEC 2500 DVD-R and have that on the secondary master channel, with my 348B on the primary master channel. There are no slaves on either cables.

I was trying to do a DVD copy direct from one drive to the other (a backup of a previously burned 4.7Gb DVD) using Nero 6.0.0.0 but found that the Samsung would spin up and deliver the data very fast for the first few minutes but would then slow down is if it realised that it didn't need to be going so fast. The problem is that it never speeded up again and the read bufer would eventually empty.

In order to try and solve this I upgraded Nero to the latest version 6.3.0.3 and flashed various other firmware versions to the samsung drive. Since doing this the drive never spins really fast like it used too for reading DVD's and seems to only read them at a slow rate (not fast enough to do a direct copy).

I tried reflashing the samsung back to X506 which it had before and after doing that it still doesn't spin up and deliver data like it did originally.

Both drives are running in UDMA 2

I'm presuming the samsung combo should be able to read a single sided DVD fast enough to provide a 4x burner with enough data - maybe I'm wrong?

Any help much appreciated.

thanks

Paul

[Jayhawk]

I don't know if I can help or not. Can you answer a couple questions.

If the drives are both Masters on different channels, where are the hard drives ?. Are they slaves, SCSI, a controller card ?.

The spec sheet on the NEC 2500 indicates it operates in PIO Mode 4 which is strange. Almost all burners use UDMA. Could be a mistake. Are you sure both drives are UDMA 2 capable.

The NEC has a 2meg buffer which is common but a little on the light side for a 4X - 8X burner. Not usually a problem because the real buffering usually occurs on the hard drive UNLESS you are doing a direct copy from drive to drive (sounds like you may be doing that).

Have you given Nero disk buffer space to use. Is it possible Nero is buffering the transfer and using the hard drive on the channel with the burner. That might cause problems. Are you getting any messages in the Nero log that you could share. Are the jumper settings on all drives on all channels correct (master or slave).

On my setup, my Pioneer 106S reader is UDMA-4 and my Sony burner is at UDMA-2. Both use 80 conductor cables (NOT 40 conductor).

[jags]

I don't know if I can help or not. Can you answer a couple questions.

If the drives are both Masters on different channels, where are the hard drives ?. Are they slaves, SCSI, a controller card ?.

The spec sheet on the NEC 2500 indicates it operates in PIO Mode 4 which is strange. Almost all burners use UDMA. Could be a mistake. Are you sure both drives are UDMA 2 capable.

The NEC has a 2meg buffer which is common but a little on the light side for a 4X - 8X burner. Not usually a problem because the real buffering usually occurs on the hard drive UNLESS you are doing a direct copy from drive to drive (sounds like you may be doing that).

Have you given Nero disk buffer space to use. Is it possible Nero is buffering the transfer and using the hard drive on the channel with the burner. That might cause problems. Are you getting any messages in the Nero log that you could share. Are the jumper settings on all drives on all channels correct (master or slave).

On my setup, my Pioneer 106S reader is UDMA-4 and my Sony burner is at UDMA-2. Both use 80 conductor cables (NOT 40 conductor).

Hi there, thanks for the responce.

I have two HD's running as raid 1 (mirrored) on a SATA controller which leaves both IDE channels for my opt drives.

Both my BIOS and windows device manager report that the IDE controllers (and drives on them) are running in UDMA 2. I'm Using 40 wire (rounded) connectors but I did try them with an 80 wire ribbon and it made no difference.

I can rip and backup using the HD without problems, I was really just curious as my braincell assumes that a 16x DVD reader should be able to supply enough data to supply a 4x writer. One thing I noticed last night was that the NEC will rip almost twice as fast as the samsung, which is a little odd given that the samsung is in theory a 16x drive.

Some tests using Nero CD/DVD speed showed that the both drives seem to have similar read performace (4 - 8 - 4) using dual layered disks.

I ripped my Lord of the rings DVD in 20 mins using the NEC, but the Samsung took around an hour. I'm starting to wonder if the samsung is the cause of the problem.

paul.

[Jayhawk]

Well jags, we may be making some assumptions that don't hold up to real world technical data. I just used Nero Speed Tool on my four drives (2 machines) and the results are interesting. These are all READ speeds from a backup DVD (encryption removed).

Pioneer 106s DVD-ROM (12X I think)
Start Read = 2.49
Fastest Read = 5.86
Average = 4.40

Liteon 16X (fairly new)
Start Read = 3.69
Fastest Read = 8.88
Average = 6.64

Plextor 708a Burner (2 meg buffer)
Start Read = 3.36
Fastest Read = 8.11
Average = 6.07

Sony AX500 Burner (8 meg bufffer)
Start Read = 3.94
Fastest Read = 4.01
Average = 4.00

Based on this (and of course REAL WRITE SPEED), you may not be able to feed the NEC with the Samsung. You would think buffer management would take care of the speed differences. Maybe not.

[jags]

Thanks for that jayhawk, yes I think you hit the nail on the head. Obviously recorded disks will not read as fast as pressed disks which probably explains the difference from the manufacturers specs, but also if it isn't a constant 4x (even from the start) then i guess it's not going to feed the data fast enough.

I wanted to try a speed test with a single layer pressed DVD but they are hard find. I did find some of my sons cartoon DVD's are single layer but there encryption seems to cause an error with nero drivespeed.

It still seems odd to me though that a 4x writer can write data faster than a 16x reader can read it though

victims of marketing guys I think!

thanks for all your help

jags

[Jayhawk]

You did raise my curiosity so I ran a drivespeed test with How The Grinch Stole Christmas (encrypted but pressed single layer). It started at 4.96, hit a max of 9.42, and averaged 7.41. This was all on the Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM that only averaged 4.4 with a low of 2.49 on the previous test.

It's only a 2.4gig movie but it does support you assertion that pressed discs read faster than backed up discs. At least that's true on my 2-3 year old Pioneer 106s. Newer drives might do a better job. Still never got anywhere near 16X.

Looks like ripping to the hard drive first is that answer.