Does ProShow Gold hate -R blanks ?

[Seeker47]

I don't use this program myself, but am inquiring on behalf of someone else. Her burning of DVDs is pretty much limited to this program. I have given her a supply of TYGO2s, Fujis & Maxells (from when the last two were briefly MIJs) -- all 8x -Rs. She tells me these all fail, in one of a couple possible ways. Either the blank is unrecognized right off the bat -- can't quote you the exact error message, but it claims the disk is either not blank or not there at all. OR, the disk burns part of the way or all of the way, but turns out to be a coaster, usually with some other error message, but sometimes no error message at all. But if she uses most any 8x or 16x +R blanks (like TDK), there is never a problem. I think she has also used some crappy Office Depot brand -R blanks a couple times, also with no problem.

The first thing I thought of was the burner, which is an 8x speed Lite-On in an external USB housing. Supposedly, the Lite-Ons favor +R blanks quite a bit over the -Rs. So I swapped it out for a Pioneer 109, in an identical housing. Hardly any change in results, although I think she succeeded in burning one Maxell MIJ -R. But otherwise, the same kind of failures. So I think we can probably rule out the burner. And I've never heard of a program that only likes crappy media. But is it possible that a program only likes +R blanks ? My leading suspicion is some sort of user error, but then I can't explain why such user error does not seem to occur with the lousy +R blanks.

I'm hoping there are other ProShow users here who might be able to shed some light on this.

[MysticE]

So I swapped it out for a Pioneer 109, in an identical housing. Hardly any change in results,

Well put ImgBurn on her rig and do a few test burns or the demo of Ulead's DVD Picture Show. That should tell you if it's a software problem.

[Seeker47]

So I swapped it out for a Pioneer 109, in an identical housing. Hardly any change in results,

Well put ImgBurn on her rig and do a few test burns or the demo of Ulead's DVD Picture Show. That should tell you if it's a software problem.

Thanks for the reply. We may try that. The Lite On burner seems to have a pronounced tilt in favor of +R blanks, which should be alleviated by switching over to the Pioneer. In my experience, the Pioneer burners have very few complaints about different types of media, provided it is decent quality media.

But I'm thinking that a likely culprit has been identified: any timed event -- like a weekly update of the Norton security suite -- that occurs while ProShow is processing the slideshow project or burning it seems to produce this failure, and leave a coaster in its wake. It may be so with many or most applications of this type, that work to build a compliant dvd as the end product. (?) We can lessen the risk of this happening by just pulling the ethernet cable, while the job is in progress, but that only takes away the interference from outside. An internal timed event that interrupts -- such as a weekly virus scan -- can also be fatal.

[MysticE]

The Lite On burner seems to have a pronounced tilt in favor of +R blanks, which should be alleviated by switching over to the Pioneer.

Maybe some of the ancient ones, but a quick look at CDFreaks shows that Lite-ons burns -R quite well even at higher than rated speeds. Even the lowly CMCs burn OK.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Lite-On-LH-20A1H-DVD-Burner-Review/DVD-R_RW-Writing-Performance.html

like a weekly update of the Norton security suite -- that occurs while ProShow is processing the slideshow project or burning it seems to produce this failure, and leave a coaster in its wake. It may be so with many or most applications of this type, that work to build a compliant dvd as the end product. (?)

I guess that could be it. I never disable anything while converting (HCenc encodes take many hours) or burning. My encodes/burns have survived AV updates, mail notifications, background downloads and surfing. But your mileage may vary. That's on an AMD 2600+ with 1GB of RAM. Not exactly state of the art.

[budz]

I've used a older version of Proshow Gold with no problems in burning with MADE IN JAPAN MAXELL 4x & 8x speed discs. The problem could be related to the usb external case that you're using. Not all external cases will work with dvd burners. Some have different chipsets like PROLIFIC, ALI & CYPRESS. You could upgrade the firmware of the external case to see if that would help. As suggested turn off any programs when burning dvd media. You can disable the internet by going thru network properties to disable it.