Writer forces speed up to 8x

[gmacman]

I'm upgrading to a new DVD drive (Sony DRU-835A) and have historically burned all DVDs at 1X to insure compatibility with regular DVD players. However this this new drive (using it as an external btw) even when I set the software (Toast 8) to burn at 1X the burning automatically jumps up to 8x.

Timing wise this is wonderful, but I'm concerned with compatibility. I'm currently watching the first DVD I did to check to see if the burn is okay, but it seems odd that the speed won't stay at 1X even though I've set it for that speed and just starts burning at 8X.

Is this normal? If this matters the media I'm using is rated up to 16X but maybe new drives won't let you burn at really low speeds. But this seems really odd to me. I'd hate to base my decision on keeping this drive based on just viewing this one DVD I burned (assuming it plays fine). But perhaps this is normal for the newer drives. Any thoughts?

[Krispy Kritter]

Burning at 1x doesn't ensure compatibility. If you have 16x rated discs (for example), you can burn them at 16x (assuming your hardware is up to the task). The fact that your new drive won't let select a slow speed isn't uncommon. New firmware will sometimes yield better media support and options. You also may need to "rescan" for burners within your app to get proper support (or uninstall/reinstall).

The bottom line is to get error free discs. Use an app such as Nero CD Speed or dvdinfopro to test your discs after burning. This will verify your discs are error free.

[hech54]

I don't know of any newer media that can be burned at 1x.

[Jim44]

I don't think there are any burners or media that support 1x burning anymore. I think DL media can go as slow as 2.4X, and I have some -RW media that only burn at 4X. It seems that 8X (maybe 6X) is the lowest for +/-R media.

Doing reading here and at the ImgBurn forums, 8X and maybe 4X tend to be the "fall-back" speeds when folks have trouble burning at the higher speeds (getting good quality media also helps). There's a whole "quality/media" section over at the IB forums that can give you an idea of how those speeds are performing - I know you're not using IB, but it's a good reference nonetheless.

My 2 cents,
Jim