Optical Disc Formatting Woes

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1568191,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

"Recently, we received an airlift's worth of 8x-recordable DVD drives. Now, it's certainly true that dual-layer drives are just around the corner, but single-layer drives will likely be the price/performance leaders for some time to come. After all, dual-layer recordable media is tricky to manufacture and may be high cost for some time.

As we tested some of these recordable drives, we discovered that some 8x media only works at 4x speeds in some drives. More interestingly, some 8x media will run at 8x speeds in some drives, while only writing at 4x in others. In some cases, generic media will only write a 2x speeds, and often generate errors. When we talked to different manufacturers, various finger-pointing abounded. "It's Taiwanese media," one company spokesperson declared..."

I have to admit that I haven't been bitten by this all that often - only a few bad DVD-Rs and CD-Rs here and there, but with some brands it can be a real problem. What's your experience with this?

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1568191,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

"Recently, we received an airlift's worth of 8x-recordable DVD drives. Now, it's certainly true that dual-layer drives are just around the corner, but single-layer drives will likely be the price/performance leaders for some time to come. After all, dual-layer recordable media is tricky to manufacture and may be high cost for some time.

As we tested some of these recordable drives, we discovered that some 8x media only works at 4x speeds in some drives. More interestingly, some 8x media will run at 8x speeds in some drives, while only writing at 4x in others. In some cases, generic media will only write a 2x speeds, and often generate errors. When we talked to different manufacturers, various finger-pointing abounded. "It's Taiwanese media," one company spokesperson declared..."

I have to admit that I haven't been bitten by this all that often - only a few bad DVD-Rs and CD-Rs here and there, but with some brands it can be a real problem. What's your experience with this?

[The Yaz]

I have an iomega cd-rw drive 12/10/48. I discovered early on that for whatever reason, I would have 1 to 2 bad copies for 10 or 20 packs of cdr's. The problem went away once I stepped the recording speed down to 8x. Since then, I have not had a lost copy. I've also stayed away from the real cheap noname brands as well.

I still think the problem wasn't just the drive or the media, but also the capabilities of my desktop. It is a PIII 750 with 128mb of ram and a 20gb hard drive. So maybe its just the culmination of factors that causes the irregularities between the products.

Steve 8)

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by The Yaz

I still think the problem wasn't just the drive or the media, but also the capabilities of my desktop. It is a PIII 750 with 128mb of ram and a 20gb hard drive. So maybe its just the culmination of factors that causes the irregularities between the products.

Yeah, many early CD-Rs didn't have big enough buffers, so the slightest burp in the system would cause a bad burn. Modern burners have huge buffers and sophisticated software that allows you to burn a CD while doing ten other things. Very fun. 8)