[Alec]

I have tried burning my video on DVD's with speeds 4x, 8x, and 16x. The 4x and 8x DVD's can be played on our Phillips DVD player. But I can't watch the video when I try the copy on the 16x DVD. Where do you think the problem lies, is it on the DVD or on my player?

[discjet]

Burn quality depends on both the drive used for burning and the media itself. Some combinations work better than others. Same is true for reading. Either write quality or read compatibility or both together could be the reason why your 16x burned disc does not work with the standalone player. Settle with slower speed or try another media.

There are burn quality testing applications like K-probe (for liteon drives only) and Nero CD-DVD Speed, but there too the result depends also on the drive used for the read testing. Those tests may provide some useful info though.

In my experience there is no single "best" burning speed and slower writing speed is not always better. The drives I've had did not make their best quality burns at their max writing speed, so i used mostly 4x writing speed with 8x drive, and 8x writing speed with 16x drive (assuming those speeds were supported by media too). Most of the time using half the max supported speed has worked good for me.

[Flashmatic]

I've had a heck of a time with CD burning using Nero on my old system. Some CDs burn fine and others don't, and I really don't understand why. They are the same brand, just purchased in some different packaging. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[Alec]

Thanks discjet for the explanation. Do you have any idea why using the max speed of the DVD will likely to fail? I did try to use only half of the 16x DVD and it works in the stand alone player. Does this mean that the player can read in lower speed rate?

Flashmatic, what kind of speed are you using? The same brands can have different quality depending of the speed you are using.

[discjet]

I would not go as far as to say discs burned with max speed are "likely" to fail, just that they have not worked as good for me as the ones burned with slower speed. Notches in read speed graph if i read the burned disc through, spikes in quality test graph, or simply "not as good" looking quality test result.

I tend to think it is simply because the maximum speed means the drive and media are being used closer to their manufacturing tolerances so they can more easily "slip over the edge" at times.

For CDs and DVDs, same "brand" does not equal "same discs". Only with a handful of quality brands you can expect to get same media repeatedly. With many cheaper brands one batch comes from here, next from there. They get their discs from several manufacturers. The discs have ID codes for manufacturer/media type, readable with some applications, although some crappy discs are probably pretending to be better ones. Even when the discs come from same manufacturer, the quality can still be crappy and it may vary so much that some seem to perform perfect when others are unusable up to the point of not even getting recognized by the dvdrw drive.

With old drives, sticking with lower speed media may also help in getting a media type that is properly supported by the drive firmware, which is essential for getting good burn quality.

I've had my share of cd and dvd burning issues so nowadays i read test and quality scan every disc i burn for archival. There is a reason why cheap discs are cheap and with about a dozen brands i'm sure i will not touch their products again. For the long term archive i still trust high quality dvdrs more than hard drives. Too bad the capacity of them is next to useless nowadays and even price is not competitive.

[Atamido]

Flashmatic, on 15 March 2010 - 06:51 PM, said:

I've had a heck of a time with CD burning using Nero on my old system. Some CDs burn fine and others don't, and I really don't understand why. They are the same brand, just purchased in some different packaging. It doesn't make any sense to me.

There are only a few media manufacturers, each with several production plants. Media produced by the same company but at different plants can have wildly varying quality. When you go to the store and buy a Sony or Memorex bundle of CDs, they may have been made by the same company, but certainly not by Sony or Memorex themselves. And even if you grab two Memorex packages, they may have been produced at different production plants, or even companies.

Blank media will have production codes on it that some software can use to tell you who manufactured it. Although, some manufacturers will lie and put someone elses code on their media to make it look higher grade.