Problem with Nero that never had before

[scoooter1]

I use DVD shrink fro quite some time and I have NEC 3520A burner
recently I have had a problem where the burned DVD doesn't play in standalone player and when I look at the media side of the DVD there is a ring a few mm from the center where it looks like it wasn't burned. Yet all of the data is on the dvd to play the movie. If I use Nero by itself and go to the directory on the hard drive and burn it again the DVD looks fine, burned from the center out with now ring.
So I configured DVD shrink to not use Nero and just create the DVD VIdeo directory. Then used Nero to burn it manually but it too also had the ring then I burned it again and this one didn't have the ring. So, it would seem that the first DVD I burn always as the ring but the second copy does not.
This all started after I bought some new Memorex DVD-R 16x media
and before I could burn to them I had to flash a firmware upgrade to my
NEC DVD burner.
Anyone have any clues how to fix this problem? I have found that some players will play these anyway because the just keep scanning ti it finds good data but others complain if they don't find data close to the center and seem to think it is a blank disk or bad disk.

[ROF]

I have found this problem in an older NEC3500a using updated firmware to use newer media. It seems that burning at the maximum speed of your burner (8x) on 16x media caused reliable read problems. I was able to solve this by burning at 4x on 16x media. All other media could be burnt at it's rated speed (8x @ 8x, 4x @ 4x, etc). You may want to try a 4x burn and see if you get better reliability.

My best guess was it has something to do with the write strategy of the drive versus the rated speed of the media. Whatever it was burning 16x discs at 4x returned better results in the 3500. Your 3520 might be the same.

[jman98]

PLEASE do yourself a favor and stop buying junk media like Memorex. Unfortunately, once before I knew better I bought some. They are crap. You can find out about good media at:
http://www.nomorecoasters.com
You get what you pay for in media and there IS a reason why Memorex is cheap. If you think that it might be fun to have a bunch of DVDs that may not play at all in a few years, continue to buy and use Memorex.

[scoooter1]

Thanks for the Tip will try 8x speed to see if any better results. Don't think the media is bad because the second one I burn is always good jus the first one, and even that one will always play if I can get the head to the part of theDVD wher the movie starts. Some times I can get it to work by marking out the part from the center to where the ring I mentioned starts with a sharpie. Really kind of strange behavior. Will try Rof's suggestion with the slower speed burn

[scoooter1]

Just thought I would update this thread for anyone else interested. Since I followd the advice given here, changing burn speed to 8x, I have successfully burned 3 DVD's first pass, with no problems.

[wayne421]

Scooter1,

I don't think he's saying that your specific discs are bad, but Memorex in general is known to have media of questionable quality. I had bad CDs and DVDs from them over the years before I finally washed my hands of them altogether.

I personally use Taiyo Yuden these days and have had very good luck with them. Others in the forum can vouch for TY also. You can get good bulk pricing at places like supermediastore.com.

Good luck and happy burning!

W