Burn Speed - does it matter?

[EricB]

I recently graduated from a 2x burner to an 8x (I know, no big deal).

Is there any agreement on whether burn speed effects the playability of the VCD / SVCD?

[Sefy]

I Don't know if there is an agreement, but I got a 16x Burner and i'm burning my VCD's at 16x speed and i've not yet encountered a problem playing them back on either a PC or a Standalone DVD Player.

[vitualis]

If your DVD player is designed to play CD-R/W media, the answer is NO, it will not affect playback. Burn at the highest speed possible!

If you DVD player is not designed to play CD-R/W media, then the answer is that the burn speed can affect playback. Usually, people have mentioned that lower burn speed helps. But there was recently a post from a guy how mentioned how 4x mostly worked, but 1x and 2x lead to the disc being unreadable in the DVD player. That is, you'll have to experiment with the settings.

Regards.

[JJamez]

I've definitely noticed differences - whether or not they are due to the recording speed is questionable.

If you've got a decent CD-RW drive, I tend to think any problems encountered would be with cheap media. I have occasionally noticed skipping and some weird artifacts and other garbage when burning at the max rating of the media. I know for a fact it can effect the integrity of other types of data I've burned - like PC programs, Playstation backups - so I would imagine it would have some effect here.

Since blank media has become so inexpensive though, and I've stopped using cheapie brands, I haven't noticed much of a problem - although I still usually burn one 'notch' down from the media's rating.

[stanwebber]

i burn all mode 2/xa discs at 4x; mode 1 discs up to the limit of the media

[archieellis]

I recently upgraded from a 4x Sony to a 24x Liteon. I tried burning at 24x and noticed a lot of artifacts and other garbage. As I slowed down, the garbage reduced, but I was still seeing it at 12x. So, I've decided to stick to 4x, as I never had any problems with the Sony at that speed.

BTW, I'm using TDK Data CD-R's, which are supposedly rated at 16x, and a Panasonic DVD-L50 standalone player.

[Sefy]

I'm not a big fan of TDK media, certified or not certified, I always considered them junk (and yes, i'm sure alot of you will disagree, but we are all entitled to our opinions) unfortunatly I doubt the media brand i'll give you will tell you anything since it's propably just local to Israel, but I use:
Platinum 80min - 16x certified
SilverLine 80min - 16x certified
GPT 80min/90min - 16x certfied

i'm also recorded on some Kodak 80min Silver+Gold media, but it was for friends, either way, all those were recorded without a single glitch.

[pinoy2201]

nope it doesnt matter..pepele told me when i was a newbie(still am learning new things everyday) that you should burn your video at 4x or lower becuase the stanalone player cant read it that bull my Apex and Pioneer player read my disc when i burned it at 16x and every thing was great

[JJamez]

I thought I was the only one who dislikes TDK media...

I constantly read how its one of the best, yet I've had nothing but problems with any I've used. Go figure.

And it's not as simple as 'Nope, it doesn't matter' - obviously some people have problems burning at higher speeds, so obviously there ARE issues. As I said before, I'm 99% sure they are media quality related (even if media is rated for 12x,16x, or whatever), and not directly due to burn speed - regardless of the cause, there can be problems.

JJ

[Sefy]

I believe it's not the writing speed, but more the media quality that gives the problem, if you buy crap media, then no matter what speed, it would most propably cause problems, if not after the burn, then some time after it would go bad.

[d4n13l]

People say burn speed doesnt matter... people say it does.
I say it does: I believe that it is more of a problem with older generation CDRW drives. The process of burning a CDR is non-linear and of consequence, there is an optimum burnspeed for every drive (as there is a best media brand to use for each drive). However, with the vast majority of drives, the difference will be negligable and for all new generation CDRW drives, the optimum burn speed is one of the highest speed settings. If your drive can burn at 8x, then burn at 8x. Whether burn speed will affect the quality of an SVCD is extremly unlikely, as the difference in error rates between the optimum and least optimum burn speed settings is negligable.
It is far more important to use quality media.

BTW, I cannot produce a playable PS game unless I burn at 1x, regrdless of media. I have a very old CDRW drive and an old PS, which is very picky about media.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: d4n13l on 2001-11-25 16:02:05 ]</font>

[Lamont Cranston]

I have a Plextor 16/10/40A which has a neat feature called PoweRec:

At the beginning of every recording, in addition to the use of running OPC, the PlexWriter 16/10/40A automatically determines the media manufacturer, its part number and disc characteristics and then sets the appropriate laser power and write speed for any given disc. This process guarantees that the written disc has the highest quality playback.

I just set the write speed to the max and the Plextor does the rest. I have never had a CDR or CDR/W fail to read and I have used 4X, 8X, and 16X CDRs mostly Verbatim together with some Sony, Memorex, Prime Perpherials, and some house brands. All total several hundred with no problems. Maybe I am just lucky.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lamont Cranston on 2001-11-25 18:08:37 ]</font>

[kinneera]

Seems like this debate comes up about once a month. The bottom line really seems to be this: for any drive designed to read CD-R/RWs, it doesn't matter AT ALL. For drives designed to read CDs, but not necessarily recordable formats, it is rarely an issue (since the laser wavelength is at least the same). For DVD drives, it all depends on the unit. Since higher speed burning results in less precise burning of the dye layer (theoretically, anyway), using discs burned that way in a DVD unit that is designed for a different media and with a low tolerance can cause problems. Bad media will cause problems with any readback device. Really the best thing you can do in the way of DVD players is to find one that has twin-laser pickup (ie. one laser at the DVD wavelength and one at the CD wavelength) - then you'll never have problems no matter what.

[jwhitlow]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
For drives designed to read CDs, but not necessarily recordable formats, it is rarely an issue (since the laser wavelength is at least the same).
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
All true, but not complete. Most drives designed to read CD can read CDRs, but not all. They wavelength of the laser is the same, but if the laser strength is barely strong enough to read a CD, it will not read a CDR since the reflectivity is lower:

http://www.octave.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.cgi/id/216.239.46.148-1004930163/choice/html_nl2001july#prez
(See the section titled, "MEDIA:"

Also see:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/Origami/cd.html#ip

[waldok]

My revelation of the year

Give Black CD-Rs a try. I always used to have random wrong decoded blocks with any CD-R brand on my standalone player, whatever the speed (I'm burning SVCDs). I decided to give those black CD-Rs a try and Halleluyah ! Not one single playback problem ever since, no matter what the burning speed is (up to 16x).

As far as I am concerned, these are the best ones (I even bought a huge amount of them in advance, in case...)

Brands I use :

Memorex Black CD-R 80 min
PNY Black Diamond 80min

Waldok