DVD-R Speed question

colliecrew

Hi there,
I recently bought a pack of Datawrite Red 8X 4.7gb Mach4 discs.
I can't get these DVD-R's to burn at any higher than 4x speed.
Anyone else had this problem???
I'd appreciate any advice!!!!

Bossyboots

I know this might be obvious but does your DVD writer actually have 8x capability?

My writer does have the capability but I had to do a firmware upgrade to get it to write to the 8x discs and also change it over to be the master drive rather than the slave.

wonderfullife_2

Hi
They are 8x compatible, which make/model is your dvd burner, does it write at this speed.

Hope this helps

arealhighlander

It may also be that your Burner is an 8X one, but it does not recognise the disks as being 8x. Check you have the latest update of firmware in your Burner.

colliecrew

Thanks for the replies.
My DVD rewriter is a 16x Pioneer DVR-110D, I've never had this problem before and I have just updated my firmware.
Any other suggestions?????

wolfman

Hmmm, was gonna say update the firmware.

That kind of problem used to exist with earlier burners. It can also be the disc. Just burn them at 4x, then when you've run out try a different brand. I've always found Verbatim DVD -'s to be the best (I burn them at 12x and 16x without a single fail). Once you've found a brand that works, just stick to it.

You can find the media code for the discs you have, it may be a known problem with that drive, or they may just be a bad batch (although that's quite rare these days, especially with a brand like DataWrite).

Actually, also what are you burning? Is it one huge file? I used to find with my earlier burners that files over 2 or 3gb were best to burn at a slower speed.

Oh, and if using Nero, always verify everything you burn. There's a tick box once it starts burning to verify. It may take twice as long but it'll check the burn make sure it's an exact copy (ie no error sneaked in).

sco0ter

What burning software are you using... I have the same drive and nero always reports it burns at 4X but alcohol 120 says 8X. Both take the same time

Bossyboots

colliecrew wrote:

Thanks for the replies.
My DVD rewriter is a 16x Pioneer DVR-110D, I've never had this problem before and I have just updated my firmware.
Any other suggestions?????

Mine is a Pioneer 109 and the only way I could get it to burn 8x after updating the firmware was to switch my two drives over.

This is the response from Pioneer to my e-mail about the problem

"For your DVD-RW to operate at its optimum we strongly recommend the installation of the drive as the secondary master.

To install your drive as the secondary drive you must ensure that the jumper on the back of the drive is in the master location and the drive is attached to the end of the IDE cable. If another DVD-ROM, CD-ROM or CDRW drive is on the same IDE cable it must be installed as the slave, IE, connected to the middle connector of the IDE cable with the jumper on the back of the drive in the slave location.

You should also ensure that you use an Ultra66 IDE cable and not the older Ultra33 cables. Ultra66 IDE cables can be identified by the fact that they have 80 fine bumps across the width of the cable and not 40 bumps of the older cable.

You should lastly ensure that the data transfer mode for the drive is set to DMA and not PIO."

I actually had the problem that until I switched them over, my 109 would only run at 2x, never mind 4x and I had had no difficulties before.

Since I followed their advice, everything is fine.