DVD Burning Speed Decrease??

[Evhmoon]

I just got a new burner earlier this year.... about 3 months ago. It seems that the burning speed for both DVD+R's and DVD-R's have decreased.

My speed for burning on DVD+R's with most brands was 16X
Now its down to 12x as the maximum. No clue why all of the sudden it stopped. I tried a few diff brands to see if it made a difference, and its all the same

What I have is Pioneer Internal DVD/CD Writer.. Model DVR-A08XL

Anyone have any suggestions why its doing this or what i could do to get its speed back without doing any harm to my writer?

Thanks in advance!!

[thevoelk]

Try a firmware upgrade from
http://rpc1.org if you want to use a hacked one or Pioneer's site for the official. They usually include write strategy improvements. Some people say it decreases performance on other media though. There's also the risk of something going on and you damaging your burner. I think Pioneer has some sort of safe-mode built into their drives, but I'm not sure since I can't remember where I heard or read that.

[Evhmoon]

so i should try the official pioneer firmwire upgrade?

i have read about the hack versions out there.. some good reviews and some bad. I just cant afford to jack up this burner. I would take the slow 12x burning over not being able to burn anything at all incase something were to ruin it..


I guess i will burn what i need to burn first before trying a anything anyhow. That would be the smart way i think..LOL

thanks for the quick response.. any other peeps wanna give their 2 cents?

[Evhmoon]

another peeps wanna share any other ideas?

[Baldrick]

tried different burning toools?

[winifreid]

There are safe hacked firmwares. Look over at cdfreaks for other opinions. Just because the media brand is the same, doesn't mean the media is the same. Use dvd identifier to be sure and do a quality scan with dvd speed. Finally, you are not going to see more than minute difference between 12x and 16.

[ebenton]

If the same brand of disks went down from 16X to 12X, make sure that the disks are still being manufactured by the same company. Check the Manufacturer ID on one of the ones you burned at 16X against one of the 12X disks. Unless they're both from the same stack or package. Then nevermind.
In any case, look at them all in DVDInfo and see what the maximum speed is. If the disks that burned at 16X still say the max speed is 16X, then the media is probably your problem.
If the old 16X disks now read 12X as the max, it's probably your burner.
Actually, I'm not sure if a disk burned at 16X in the past will still display 16X max in DVDinfo if your drive is no longer capable of detecting that speed. I suspect it won't, but this would be an interesting test, anyway.

[Evhmoon]

yeah its not the disks.. its wierd... it was fine for the few 5 months or so...worked solid.. i notice a huge time diff between 12x and 16x.... thats for DVD+R.. if i use DVD-R.. it burns at 8x... i am gonna get the burning i need done soon this weekend and try updating the firmare and see what happens