Newbie burning issues....

[simonkarios]

Hi all and hoping you may be able to help me out here.....
Been burning for many years and have never had this current issue. I am currently having to use 3 discs for one successful burn!!
I use convertxtodvd4 for all my encoding and burning and always have done.
I have tried various cures, including reducing burn speed etc and still having same issues. I use Verbatim DVD_R discs.
I have attached my last failures log file and hope it may shed some light on a most annoying issue.
Cheers in anticipation...

Simon

[hech54]

Well for starters you are downloading copyrighted material from the internet(Downloads\Against.the.Wall.S01E02.Raindro ps.Keep.Fallin.on.My.Head.HDTV.XviD-FQM), and for some reason your burning program is writing this illegal material as SAO instead of DAO.

[jman98]

I have a couple of guesses.

1) Maybe your burner simply needs to be replaced.
2) Are you burning discs from Verbatim's Life series? Not DataLifePlus but just Life? Those discs are lower quality that Verbatim's other discs. I've seen low quality discs require firmware upgrades for the burners before they would burn correctly.

You might try burning with ImgBurn too. It's free and it can often intelligently burn low quality discs that other burning programs fail on.

[simonkarios]

Thanks for your suggestions....i sort of got confused with imgburn as wasnt sure which part of it i was supposed to be using ie write files or....?

[jman98]

I don't know what kind of output ConvertXtoDVD produces. I'm making a guess that this guide applies
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/burn_dvd_folder_imgburn.cfm

[jman98]

Burn at 4x or 2x as with your problem burns when not using ImgBurn we want to be sure that speed is not a factor. Burning lower quality media at high speeds often results in bad burns.

By any chance did you buy these Verbatim discs fairly recently (sometime this year) at Best Buy? The reason I am asking is that Best Buy has started carrying Verbatim's Life series this year (I think it was this year and not last) and I don't think you can find the better discs there anymore that they used to carry.

[simonkarios]

Yep did by v recently but from Sainsburys i think. There is no indication on the disc itself tosay which variation it is(i threw the label)...

[jman98]

Put one of the Verbatim blanks in ImgBurn and go to the Device tab. You don't have to actually write anything to it. Just load a blank disc in the burner and start ImgBurn. You can get some manufacturer code information in the Device tab. It would be meaningful to some of us. I don't know what Verbatim sells in the UK (Sainsburys is a UK store, right?) but in the US the market here has forced them to sell cheap, crap discs because the American marketplace demands low price above all other considerations, so Verbatim now offers a cheaper, lower quality line of discs they call the Life series here.

[simonkarios]

Hi jman, yep a UK store; details requested copied below......

TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633C AC01 (SATA)
Current Profile: DVD-R

Disc Information:
Status: Empty
State of Last Session: Empty
Erasable: No
Free Sectors: 2,297,888
Free Space: 4,706,074,624 bytes
Free Time: 510:40:38 (MM:SS:FF)
Next Writable Address: 0
Supported Write Speeds: 3x, 4x, 6x, 8x

Pre-recorded Information:
Manufacturer ID: MCC 03RG20

Physical Format Information (Last Recorded):
Disc ID: 0@P-!-00
Book Type: DVD-R
Part Version: 5
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1
Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP)
Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 0
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0

Performance (Write Speed):
Descriptor 1...
-> B0: 0x00, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 2297887 (0x0023101F)
-> RS: 11,080 KB/s (8x) - WS: 4,155 KB/s (3x)
Descriptor 2...
-> B0: 0x08, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 2297887 (0x0023101F)
-> RS: 11,080 KB/s (8x) - WS: 5,540 KB/s (4x)
Descriptor 3...
-> B0: 0x08, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 2297887 (0x0023101F)
-> RS: 11,080 KB/s (8x) - WS: 8,310 KB/s (6x)
Descriptor 4...
-> B0: 0x08, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 2297887 (0x0023101F)
-> RS: 11,080 KB/s (8x) - WS: 11,080 KB/s (8x)