understanding Blank DVD's

sallysaver

Hi,
I am about to try and make a DVD from my video camera and whilst I have established I need DVD+R discs can anyone tell me what 8x,16x etc means before I spend my money on possibly the wrong ones. Believe me when I say I'm not a techie, so plain english would be appreciated please. Thanks. Regards - sally.

superscaper

Just means the speed at which the discs can be written to. If your writer supports up to those speeds then you can write at those speeds if not then it's the maximum speed of the writer that takes precedence.

bat999

Hi
Just to add to what superscaper has said.
Can you tell us some information about your DVD writer. What is the manufacturer and model number.
Then we will be able to find out which disc speeds it supports.

sallysaver

Hi,
Thanks for the very quick replies. Its pretty amazing the help you get from MSE site. I think the receipt says Pioneer DVDRW 112-D, then the serial number. Nothing else, so I hope you have enough info to go on. Thanks again - sally

bat999

Well, the Pioneer website says that the DVDRW 112-D will burn DVD+R discs at up to 18X speed.
So you can buy any up to 18X.
But I've never seen any for sale higher than 16X.
So look at prices for 8X and 16X types.
When you burn your DVD, in theory, the faster you set the burn speed, the less time it takes to do the job.
When you are doing the burn there will be a tab in the burning software to set the burn speed.
Don't set it any higher than the burn speed of the disc you're using.
If it has an 'auto' setting it's probably best to use that and let it work it out for itself.
:cool:

sallysaver

Hi,
Thank you so much (I've pressed the thanks button as well). I had a little go with a free sample DVD I received some time ago and it took ages to do (like I left it running through the night) I had lots of data to transfer (almost the 4.7gb limit) but I didn't think it would take as long as it did. As I said before, this is like a new language to me, but hopefully I'll get there eventually. Thanks again. - sally

johngc

If you are burning DVD's to play on standalone DVD players (ie you want to take the DVD to a friends house and play it on their tv etc) then it is a good idea to firstly use good quality media (DVD's from a reputable manufacturer) and secondly burn at a slower speed. Although your DVD drive can burn up to 18x you are more likely to get errors at higher speeds.

I would suggest setting a mid range speed, and use good media then burn without doing anything else on the computer at the same time.

On a side note, I find it a bit strange that it is taking several hours to burn a disk... Is it encoding the video as well?

sallysaver

Hi,
Thanks. As I said, I am really new to this kind of thing but also really keen to get things up and running. I have recently bought a Sony Hard drive video recorder, mainly for taking video of holidays/family events etc., I have only made 1 DVD and even though it took a long time, I was thrilled with the results. I had a friend help me out who is more computer literate by far than me. I seem to remember that it burned to the DVD at 1x so perhaps there is an instruction that I need to do to increase the speed, so I'll look further into it. It was my intention to buy decent DVD's hoping that the end result shows you 'get what you pay for'! With the help of the other posters, I have established I need DVD+R and other posters have suggested infiniti, verbatim, traxdata or sony so I'm sure I'll manage to get something out of the suggested names. Thanks again - sally

Donnie

That seems a bit slow.
Do you mean a Sony HD Camcorder?
Are you connecting the camcorder to your computer via the Handycam® Station or USB 2.0?
Are you first transferring the material to your computer hard drive and from there converting to DVD or directly from the camera to DVD?

The speed of the material coming from the source is related to the speed of the disc burn.

sallysaver

Hi,
Yes I mean a Sony DVD-DVD72E hard drive video camera. The cable goes into the handycam station and the other end goes into the USB. The data is then transferred to the computer in order for the editing to take place. Once this is done, it can then be burned onto the blank DVD and this is the part which took a long time. The free sample disc I had said 8x. As I said, although it took ages, the results are really amazing, much better than I thought they would be. I just need to get the data onto the DVD quicker. Thanks - sally