Burning a DVD at 1x or 2x makes a better copy than at higher speeds?

[MTDEW]

For every guy that says to "burn your DVds at 1x or 2x to ensure the best quality burn",
it seems theres another guy that says, "thats not true, you should burn at the DVD's rated speed".

Anyone done tests or have any links to where comparisons have been done to prove one way or the other?

Now i know i'm gonna get some who says "its the QUALITY of the media you use that matters!"

We all know that by now.
But if you burn 2 dvds with the same quality media , both at different speeds,
does one way or the other reduce the risk of read errors?

 

[Anonemous]

i dunno, it shouldn't matter unless you have a very old dvd player. Then I guess it could be more compatible to use -r dvd's and slower burning speeds.

 

[Markfw]

Well, from personal experience, I have found that burning CD's or DVD's at a slower speed allways ensure a better burn. So I am in your first group.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm. That's a good question. My understanding is that the dye layer in most optical media, is almost like film in a camera. It reacts both in terms of exposure time, and intensity.
I don't have experience with a large number of DVD drives or media yet, but I do with CDRs. However, there is a slight additional complexity with DVDs, because some drives are more oriented towards -R or +R family media.

At least with CDRs, Better media will work at a wider range of speeds, and work more reliably besides. Better burners, will work with a wider range of media types, speeds, quality levels, etc.

I do think that burning is still slightly a bit of an art, in terms of matching up media that works with a drive that works. There's a third element too, whatever playback device you intend. So that's already a system of three variables, and given the QC tolerances of most of today's cheaper media mfgs, one of those variables may change widely between batches of media.

So stick with quality drives/media to have the best chance at getting a good burn, test the results both in the burner and in as many players as you can, and remember to test media with your own setup before burning huge numbers of discs with it.

Ok, I know, I didn't answer the question directly. I don't have an answer. I guess it would be, "whatever works for you".

I've seen when I've gotten better results from burning slower, and on different media, actually worse results from burning slower. It also depends on the drive, some will use Z-CLV or P-CAV, depending on your selected burn speed. Some drives are simply not compatible with certain media, when that media works fine in most other drives. My Sony/Lite-On 52X refuses to burn Hitachi-Maxell cyanine media worth a darn, even at 8x. Yet same burns fine on my old Yamaha 6416S (that thing burned anything fine), and in a Benq 52X it also burns fine. Similarly, I have some 8x-rated Mitubishi Azo media, that is far and away the most reader-compatible CDR media that I've ever used, very high quality, but it really should not be burned any faster than 16X, because of the dye type. Other types of more modern media, rated for 52X speed, don't burn well at all under 16X ("overexposed", is the way that I see it), and seem to burn the same or better at 32X rather than 16X. Likewise my attempt to burn 1X-12X rated Princo media at 1X in my Yamaha - bad idea. Yet it burns fine at 6X, which for audio CDs, back in the day, was almost a heresy not to burn at 1X. Then again, my earliest stocks of media, really cruddy Ritek 4X-rated media, was basically unstable at 4X, and had to be burned at 1X. (Yamaha 6416S only supported 1X, 4X, 6X CD-R speeds, no 2X.)

 

[McCarthy]

I still don't burn CDs faster than 8X and would use 4X if Nero would let me. While they'll verify when burned at higher speeds (using cheap to average 40x media) they will "read hard" in other drives, cause dropouts when watching SVCDs. The same media that plays perfectly fine in a portable CD player burnt at 8x won't even be recognized if burned at 32x.

Just got a DVD burner a couple days ago, but see this to still be true. Using Ridata media, 4x rated. When I pop in a disc I burned at 4x it takes the drive awhile to read it, burn the 4x at 2.4x and it reads right away. So staying slow here.

 

[techwanabe]

It makes sense from my experience.

I've tried burning music CD with my 16X LiteON and when I tried burning at 16X, I got music CD's with missing sound or pops or other errors. In fact I've had to slow the burn speed down to 4X to get reliable "perfect" burns. I had a 24X max CDRW at work, and tried copying a few music CD's with it. Now the problem with the faster newer LiteON's is you can't go slower than 8X. Even at 8X, I got music CD's with music missing from the first 5-8 seconds of the songs. So it seems for music CD's, slowing it down makes all the difference. I'm keeping my 16X LiteON burner because I can burn at 2X and 4X to get good burns.

Edit: BTW, I'm using Nero. It isn't Nero that limits the slowest speed BTW, it is the burner.

 

[zephyrprime]

It's true. There are some programs that can measure the number of data errors on your burned discs. I've used them before. CD & DVDs have lots of data correction data on them which allows for them to tolerate all the errors on the disc that arise from burning or from scratches. Anyway, I've noticed that the number of errors on the disc are higher with higher burn speeds. They're also a lot higher when burning multilayer discs. Look at Anand's first article on a multilayer burner to see what I'm talking about.

 

[Sunner]

I always burn at the max speed, and I've never had a problem.
But then, I stay away from cheapo media, I always use Verbatim CD-R's, I've used a pretty cheap DVD media for a while, but since my fav store now has 50 packs of Verbatim 8x DVD+R's, I'll be shifting to Verbatim for my DVD's as well.

 

[Thermalrock]

lol burning at 2x. my nec does 16x dvd rs + and -. i could burn the dvd 7 times check for the first one to work and still save myself 5 mins.

 

[Gothgar]

I have always burned CDs at full speed with no problems, and DVDs I burn full speed as well, no problems with any of it...

If you have a crappy burner, or crappy media it would probably make a diff though..

 

[JackBurton]

Get a good burner and good media and you won't have problems burning at high speeds.

 

[dnoyeb]

Overall answer is yes, slower is safer. But as the last poster indicated, if you have good media and a good drive, it wont matter.
To put it another way, if you find that it does matter, you need to change either your media, or your drive, or both.

 

[Spikesoldier]

Originally posted by: Sunner
I always burn at the max speed, and I've never had a problem.
But then, I stay away from cheapo media, I always use Verbatim CD-R's, I've used a pretty cheap DVD media for a while, but since my fav store now has 50 packs of Verbatim 8x DVD+R's, I'll be shifting to Verbatim for my DVD's as well.

i used imation CD-R's, and use verbatim datalife DVD+R's. mine are 4x but they burn perfectly at 8x. i have burned probably 150 DVD's so far, maybe 10 coasters, but i attribute that to the rest of my system, (cheap dvd writer, had driver conflicts, and of course user error.) since i updated my IDE drivers, i have not burned a single coaster yet, and i dont have to watch my DVD's anymore after they burn to make sure they play correctly, i can trust my writer now and the media it writes to.

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

Originally posted by: dnoyeb
Overall answer is yes, slower is safer. But as the last poster indicated, if you have good media and a good drive, it wont matter.
To put it another way, if you find that it does matter, you need to change either your media, or your drive, or both.

exactly

 

[magomago]

back in the day hwne i had a 2x Acer, yeah i burned at 1x to ensure perfect burns But since i got my 48x liteon nearly 3 years ago i noticed...it doesn't matter anymore. i could burn at whtaever speed.

I say give DVD technology another year and it won't matter

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: McCarthy
I still don't burn CDs faster than 8X and would use 4X if Nero would let me. While they'll verify when burned at higher speeds (using cheap to average 40x media) they will "read hard" in other drives, cause dropouts when watching SVCDs. The same media that plays perfectly fine in a portable CD player burnt at 8x won't even be recognized if burned at 32x.

Just got a DVD burner a couple days ago, but see this to still be true. Using Ridata media, 4x rated. When I pop in a disc I burned at 4x it takes the drive awhile to read it, burn the 4x at 2.4x and it reads right away. So staying slow here.

I think that you just need to use better media. With some Maxell-branded 48x-rated Riteks, I can burn them at 32X, and they'll play even in a "finicky" console system. (They'll boot even when burned at 52X, but I had a few that glitched slightly during FMV scenes.) However, same console barely boots Memorex-branded 48x-rated ProDisc media. In either case scanning the discs for C1/C2 errors after burning shows a negligible amount, with the Ritek's having slightly lower numbers. (Lower than even Fuji 32x-rated T-Y media too, actually.)

OTOH, I have a stack of Memorex 52-rated CMC media, and, well, it doesn't play all that well no matter if I burn it at 16X, 32X, or 52X. Works OK for PC data, but consoles, no way.

 

[Tostada]

Burning 4X and higher DVD-Rs at 1X or 2X is a bad idea. High-speed media is physically different. Burning high-speed media at under 4X actually requires a modified sub-optimal write strategy. Notice that older drives will often not like higher speed media as well, and in the case of the Pioneer 104, it could physically damage the drive to attempt to burn 4X media at 2X until they updated the firmware.

If you go look around on cdrlabs.com and cdfreaks.com, you'll see that burning at 4X, 8X or 12X really doesn't make a difference one way or the other in 90% of the media. If it's good media, there is absolutely no reason not to burn it at the fastest speed your burner allows. Still, there are always a couple results you'll see where questionable media (even stuff you thought was good like Verbatim) will have a dramatic increase in errors once the speed gets up around 12X.

In general, there is no reason not to burn at the maximum speed, but you should know what media your drive may have problems with.

I think it was cdfreaks.com that actually compared the same media written at different speeds in one or two burners, but I can't find it now. The conclusion as I remember was the same; With some media, burning slower helps, but with most media it makes no difference if you just burn at the max speed.

 

[naruto1988]

i've never gotten an error burning at max w/ my NEC 2510A, CDs or DVDs. only error i got was a compusa 1x dvd i burned at 2x, but it was crappy quality and scratched.

 

[MTDEW]

Reading through the thread it seems the opinion on which way to burn is still split either way.
With excellent arguments for both sides as usual.

I personally felt that slower burning speeds produced better burns with less errors, until i purchased my DVD burners.

I dont have any trouble with DVDs i burn using cheap media (memorex) or quality media (ridata).

Both my xboxs, ps2 and home dvd player never complain no matter which media or which of the 3 dvd burners we have in our home i use. (NEC, LiteOn,Plextor)




The reason i asked the question is although i'd say 99% of the time DVDs i burn for friends work just fine, sometimes they get one that wont play.

Wierd part is, i burnt them on the EXACT same media on the EXACT same burner using the EXACT same software burning at the EXACT same speed as othe DVds ive burnt for them that played just fine.

It seems everytime i think ive got a "combo" of media/method/software that i can ensure will work when i hand friends copies, BOOM one wont work for them, yet it works fine for me.
( so that rules out a batch of bad media IMO)





What makes it even harder to figure out, i recently burnt a friend a dvd that his xbox wouldnt read.
His xbox and mine are about as close to identicle as you can get. (version, drive, mods, bios etc)
(i did the modding so i know both machines inside and out)

Yet 2 or 3 of the last 10 dvds i burnt him didnt work in his box but work perfectly fine in mine.
And the 50 or so b4 that all worked just fine also.
(and all were burnt same media,drive, speed , software)



Same thing happens with home dvd players also.



The more discs i burn, the more it seems like a crap shoot.

Although, 99% of them play fine.
Theres nothing worse than hearing "it wont read it" , makes me so darn mad sometimes. LOL





So i guess a better "rhetorical" question would be.

"how come it seems like every DVd ya burn for yourself works just fine for you, yet theres always a friend who has trouble with it? " LOL

Guess i need less friends, that'll cut down on unreadable discs.

Man, i'd LOVE to have a foolproof method of burning dvds that play all the time EVERY time.

I'm being as consistant as humanly possible with all the variables involved and it STILL happens sometimes! :|

 

[Tostada]

There's probably no good solution for you. Older DVD players (including XBOX / PS2) are just strange like that. Everything that's been made in the past couple years -- even the new slim PS2 -- is made to handle DVD-R, +R, RW, whatever, but older stuff is always going to get weird sometimes. My old PS2 hates expensive media, but does fine on crappy old Ritek G02 media that looks horrible (bubbles in the plastic, weird spots in the dye).

Something you'll see in the CDFreaks reviews which might be relevant:

Notice that there are other aspects such as disc reflectivity, jitter, tracking errors and so on that also will affect the readability of a DVD disc ? but for this we do not have measuring equipment available.

I'm sure there are factors which are much more important than PI errors when it comes to compatability with old players, but nobody's really found a good way to quantify them.

Personally, I'd just say use branded Taiyo Yuden 8X DVD-R media. If that's not compatible with your set-top DVD player, you can rest assured that you're using the best media you can get for movies and it's all the player's fault.

 

[Mem]

I use my Lite-On 1633 DVD drive for burning DVDs and always burn at the rated speed of the disc unless my burner can`t handle that speed(like my old CD-RW drive).

I do use quality media all the time.


Slower burning can be better/safer if your DVD/CD-RW drive is not too happy with the type of disc media used in question for burning, there are a few factors involved if you think about it, (drive,disc,firmware used and burning speed) which all can determine the final outcome.

I`ve never had a bad burn with my DVD-RW drive,however I did once with my CD-RW drive, happen to be a faulty Verbatim disc.

Anyway nowadays you can use software like KProbe to check the quality of the burned disc.

 

[Brutuscan]

I seem to be able to burn DVDs at 16x with my Pioneer 108 with very good quality results. I have burned at 12 x, due to the media, and I do not see any quality difference with the 16x burns.

 

[BFG10K]

Provided the drive & media supports the burn speed properly there shouldn't be any difference in burn speeds in terms of quality.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I've been asking myself this some years ago, and have discussed with people in the recording industry. They unanimously said - and this was supported by Stereophile and Film & Video magazine articles - that burning at the lowest possible speed will ensure a good burn - not pops, no dropouts.

I can never understand why people need to record stuff at 48x... do they burn so many discs that time makes a difference?

As for quality media - ALWAYS use quality media - no excuse for using crappy bulk stuff, or dubious brands like Dysan...

I assume that the same rules would apply for DVDs. You want to keep your archivals? Take your time to do things right, don't burn at high speeds.

 

[FishTankX]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
It makes sense from my experience.

I've tried burning music CD with my 16X LiteON and when I tried burning at 16X, I got music CD's with missing sound or pops or other errors. In fact I've had to slow the burn speed down to 4X to get reliable "perfect" burns. I had a 24X max CDRW at work, and tried copying a few music CD's with it. Now the problem with the faster newer LiteON's is you can't go slower than 8X. Even at 8X, I got music CD's with music missing from the first 5-8 seconds of the songs. So it seems for music CD's, slowing it down makes all the difference. I'm keeping my 16X LiteON burner because I can burn at 2X and 4X to get good burns.

Edit: BTW, I'm using Nero. It isn't Nero that limits the slowest speed BTW, it is the burner.

It's also to a large extent the media. Taiyo yuden media is by far the most compatible, from what i've heard.