possible to tweak laser for better burns?

[spiritgumm]

Have a brand new NEC 3550, and fairly new Philips8701. I'm starting to get bad burns 1 out of 5 dvd-rs. Have used 8x Imation(Fujifilm), Taiyo Yuden(valueline), Sony. Had terrible problems with Fuji16x(Optodisc) so I returned those. The drives have current firmware. Burn mainly with Dvddecryptor, tho have used Nero. Sometimes they verify but disc is still bad - NeroInfoscan shows a few red dots ("bad").
Someone told me his Plextor software can tweak the laser angle or something. Is there any way I can tweak my burners?

[CBC]

Plextor software is for Plex drives only. You might check out some "alternative" firmwares available for your NEC drive

[jameshgross]

Ah, this is how bricks are made.

You more then likely have media problems.

[CBC]

If he is having problems with 4 different brand media, then it ain't the discs...

[spiritgumm]

So it's not typical that one has control over one's dvd burner laser? Dang.
Could be a "perfect" storm of bad media.

[redwudz]

Before your drive starts to burn a DVD, it burns a test area near the center of the disc that calibrates the laser power. Sometimes when you get a 'Power Calibration error', that is because of a failure of that burn. In that case the most common cause is the media, followed by dirt on the laser lens and finally a failing burner or laser. But it could also happen with a media brand that is incompatible with the burner. Then a firmware upgrade may help.

Basically, it's 'Tweaking' itself every time it burns.

[spiritgumm]

Just got another "Bad" dvdr. I thought it might be after I burnt several in a row, but this was the first burn today. No dust on the dvdr. How tolerable is a one "Bad" or "Damage" spot on Nero scan? That is, does one square/pixel/whatever on the scan mean it's essentially a coaster?

Should I somehow clean the lasers?

[CrayonEater]

If your ND-3550a is brand new, can't you just return it? I have that drive and it's terrific, so far, though it definitely does not like Ritek G05. Maybe you got a lemon. Return it while you still can ... if you can.

[spiritgumm]

My old NEC 2500(8x) had problems with a certain line of Ritek dvds, too. Wasn't the best reader, but generally worked well. It wouldn't work with Fuji 16x dvd, so I figured I should get the higher speed drive 3550.
I could ship the NEC back to shop4tech, but the problem seems to be with both drives. As I posted originally, I was hoping there was a way to improve burns. I'm burning at max speed, so I went down to 6x, still got a bad pixel in Neroscan. The Philips drive had been working consistently fine previously. Might be I need to get the best media possible, tho this wouldn't explain the random problems.

[overloaded_ide]

Not sure exactly what all COULD be the problem but have you checked other areas of you system?
You have 2 drives both not burning the same media correctly and thats several brands of media also?
Most often with other things I would say it's a problem somewhere else maybe.

When you say "BAD" what do you really mean, are you getting non working coasters? Just a spot in Nero? Does the disk not burn at all? Does the disk play back ok?

Sometimes they verify but disc is still bad - NeroInfoscan shows a few red dots ("bad").

Is that all your going by? Nero?
I never check my disks and I never make coasters. If the disk burns I play it, the only ones going bad have scratches that are probably the problem and they were crap disks from years ago also when I first started with a 2X burner.

If I check my disks I bet alot of them might have Red Spots, but they are not BAD, been working fine in several players for years except the ones that are physically damaged, or I made user errors, or are fairly new burns and work fine just not old yet

[spiritgumm]

Decryptor indicated the TaiyoYuden8x dvd-r, which I was having the most problems with (had more problems with FUji16x dvds but I've already returned them Bestbuy) could be burned at 16x. I changed the write speed from "Max" to "8x" to slow it down, and have alternated drives (rather than burning several in the same drive); seems to have helped with that brand dvdr.
Neroscan really does work. Green is for good, yellow means damaged, red means bad. When I play a disc with red-bad spots, the picture will pixelate or stall in that part. It also won't copy to the computer. I'm not sure how problematic the yellow areas are. Chances are your dvd-burns are all green, so you've never needed to check them.

[overloaded_ide]

I don't have Neroscan or I would check some disks just to see what they look like.

Is that part of a new Nero package or would I get that with a new burner and OEM Nero disk?
Been awhile since I bought a burner, thinking of buying a new one and giving the kid mine.

[spiritgumm]

The program is I think Nero's only freeware. It's listed under Videohelp's TOOLS section (just search for Nero) or you can get it from this site:
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Nero_CD-DVD_Speed/nerocdspeed.html
I noticed that when I scanned a dvdr in my Philips/BenQ drive it found a bad spot, but scanning the same dvd in my NEC didn't find a bad spot. I'm wondering if the NEC is less sensitive by design, or I got a lemon. In it's defense, it seems to burn Imation dvds better than the Philips; the reverse was true for Ridata dvdrs.
Also my Philips just self-destructed (after 7 months).

[KTH]

Problem could also be caused by a software conflict between packet writing software. I recently did a clean install on my system and after the re-install I was burning coaster after coaster, but I couldn't figure it out. The disc's that did burn OK had really bad Nero CD/DVD Speed scans. All my burners couldn't have gone bad at the same time. Then I ran into something I printed from the Uleads Forum a while back. It was about someone who had a similar problem and found it was caused by a conflict between Roxio's Drag to Disc & the packet writing software that was installed with Uleads DVD Movie Factory 4 Disc Creator. I happened to have both these pieces of software on my system, so I uninstalled the Ulead packet writing software and this solved the problem. Also when I had this problem disc's burned using ImgBurn would have to keep trying multiple times to burn a disc (This was shown on ImgBurns progress display). I can't say for sure this is whats causing your problems without knowing whats on your computer, but this is another possibility.